Thomas R Powers

• Brown University

We carry out two-dimensional Brownian dynamics simulations of the behavior of rigid inclusion particles immersed in an active fluid bath. The active fluid is modeled as a collection of self-propelled circular disks interacting via a soft repulsive potential and a nematic alignment interaction. The fluid is characterized by its nematic order, polar...

Liquid shells, such as lipid vesicles and soap bubbles, are ubiquitous throughout biology, engineered matter, and everyday life. Their creation and disintegration are defined by a singularity that separates a topologically distinct extended liquid film from a boundary-free closed shell. Such topology-changing processes are essential for cellular tr...

Previous studies on peristalsis, the pumping of fluid along a channel by wave-like displacements of the channel walls, have shown that the elastic properties of the channel and the peristaltic wave shape can influence the flow rate. Motivated by the oscillatory flow of cerebrospinal fluid along compliant perivascular spaces, we consider a prescribe...

Bacteria thrive in anisotropic media such as biofilms, biopolymer solutions, and soil pores. In strongly mechanically anisotropic media, physical interactions force bacteria to swim along a preferred direction rather than to execute the three-dimensional random walk due to their run-and-tumble behavior. Despite their ubiquity in nature and importan...

Using a minimal hydrodynamic model, we theoretically and computationally study the Couette flow of active gels in straight and annular two-dimensional channels subject to an externally imposed shear. The gels...

We carry out Monte Carlo simulations on fluid membranes with orientational order and multiple edges in the presence and absence of external forces. The membrane resists bending and has an edge tension, the orientational order couples with the membrane surface normal through a cost for tilting, and there is a chiral liquid crystalline interaction. I...

We carry out Monte Carlo simulations on fluid membranes with orientational order and multiple edges in the presence and absence of external forces. The membrane resists bending and has an edge tension, the orientational order couples with the membrane surface normal through a cost for tilting, and there is a chiral liquid crystalline interaction. I...

Using a minimal hydrodynamic model, we theoretically and computationally study active gels in straight and annular two-dimensional channels subject to an externally imposed shear. The gels are isotropic in the absence of externally- or activity-driven shear, but have nematic order that increases with shear rate. Using the finite element method, we...

Changes in the geometry and topology of self-assembled membranes underlie diverse processes across cellular biology and engineering. Similar to lipid bilayers, monolayer colloidal membranes have in-plane fluid-like dynamics and out-of-plane bending elasticity. Their open edges and micrometer-length scale provide a tractable system to study the equi...

Changes in the geometry and topology of self-assembled membranes underlie diverse processes across cellular biology and engineering. Similar to lipid bilayers, monolayer colloidal membranes have in-plane fluid-like dynamics and out-of-plane bending elasticity. Their open edges and micron length scale provide a tractable system to study the equilibr...

Particles transported in fluid flows, such as cells, polymers, or nanorods, are rarely spherical. In this study, we numerically and theoretically investigate the dispersion of an initially localized patch of passive elongated Brownian particles in a two-dimensional Poiseuille flow, demonstrating that elongated particles exhibit an enhanced longitud...

We use theory and numerical computation to determine the shape of an axisymmetric fluid membrane with a resistance to bending and constant area. The membrane connects two rings in the classic geometry that produces a catenoidal shape in a soap film. In our problem, we find infinitely many branches of solutions for the shape and external force as fu...

Motivated by experiments on colloidal membranes composed of chiral rod-like viruses, we use Monte Carlo methods to simulate these systems and determine the phase diagram for the liquid crystalline order of the rods and the membrane shape. We generalize the Lebwohl-Lasher model for a nematic with a chiral coupling to a curved surface with edge tensi...

We use theory and numerical computation to determine the shape of an axisymmetric fluid membrane with a resistance to bending and constant area. The membrane connects two rings in the classic geometry that produces a catenoidal shape in a soap film. In our problem, we find infinitely many branches of solutions for the shape and external force as fu...

Motivated by experiments on colloidal membranes composed of chiral rod-like viruses, we use Monte Carlo methods to determine the phase diagram for the liquid crystalline order of the rods and the membrane shape. We generalize the Lebwohl-Lasher model for a nematic with a chiral coupling to a curved surface with edge tension and a resistance to bend...

Biological swimmers frequently navigate in geometrically restricted media. We study the prescribed-stroke problem of swimmers confined to a planar viscous membrane embedded in a bulk fluid of different viscosity. In their motion, microscopic swimmers disturb the fluid in both the membrane and the bulk. The flows that emerge have a combination of tw...

Particles transported in fluid flows, such as cells, polymers, or nanorods, are rarely spherical. In this study, we numerically and theoretically investigate the dispersion of an initially localized patch of passive elongated Brownian particles constrained to one degree of rotational freedom in a two-dimensional Poiseuille flow, demonstrating that...

We carry out Monte Carlo simulations of a colloidal fluid membrane with a free edge and composed of chiral rodlike viruses. The membrane is modeled by a triangular mesh of beads connected by bonds in which the bonds and beads are free to move at each Monte Carlo step. Since the constituent viruses are experimentally observed to twist only near the...

We demonstrate that an achiral stretching force transforms disk-shaped colloidal membranes composed of chiral rods into twisted ribbons with handedness opposite the preferred twist of the rods. Using an experimental technique that enforces torque-free boundary conditions we simultaneously measure the force-extension curve and the ribbon shape. An e...

Watching defects flow and grow Orientational topological defects in liquid crystals, known as disclinations, have been visualized in polymeric materials or through mesoscale simulations of the local orientation of the molecules. Duclos et al. report the experimental visualization of the structure and dynamics of disclination loops in active, three-...

Biological swimmers frequently navigate in geometrically restricted media. We study the prescribed-stroke problem of swimmers confined to a planar viscous membrane embedded in a bulk fluid of different viscosity. In their motion, microscopic swimmers disturb the fluid in both the membrane and the bulk. The flows that emerge have a combination of tw...

We carry out Monte Carlo simulations of a colloidal fluid membrane composed of chiral rod-like viruses. The membrane is modeled by a triangular mesh of beads connected by bonds in which the bonds and beads are free to move at each Monte Carlo step. Since the constituent viruses are experimentally observed to twist only near the membrane edge, we us...

Boundaries can have a significant impact on the physics of microorganism locomotion. Here we examine the effects of confinement by a rigid boundary or symmetric channel on undulatory locomotion in an anisotropic fluid, treated as a nematic liquid crystal. The competition between hydrodynamics, fluid elasticity, and anchoring conditions results in a...

Point-like motile topological defects control the universal dynamics of diverse two-dimensional active nematics ranging from shaken granular rods to cellular monolayers. A comparable understanding in higher dimensions has yet to emerge. We report the creation of three-dimensional active nematics by dispersing extensile microtubule bundles in a pass...

We study the linear stability of an isotropic active fluid in three different geometries: a film of active fluid on a rigid substrate, a cylindrical thread of fluid, and a spherical fluid droplet. The active fluid is modeled by the hydrodynamic theory of an active nematic liquid crystal in the isotropic phase. In each geometry, we calculate the gro...

We study the emergence of helical structures subjected to a stretching force, demonstrating that the force transforms disk-shaped colloidal membranes into twisted chiral ribbons of predetermined handedness. Using an experimental technique that enforces torque-free boundary conditions we simultaneously measure the force-extension curve and quantify...

We study the linear stability of an isotropic active fluid in three different geometries: a film of active fluid on a rigid substrate, a cylindrical thread of fluid, and a spherical fluid droplet. The active fluid is modeled by the hydrodynamic theory of an active nematic liquid crystal in the isotropic phase. In each geometry, we calculate the gro...

We study a swimming undulating sheet in the isotropic phase of an active nematic liquid crystal. Activity changes the effective shear viscosity, reducing it to zero at a critical value of activity. Expanding in the sheet amplitude, we find that the correction to the swimming speed due to activity is inversely proportional to the effective shear vis...

We study a swimming undulating sheet in the isotropic phase of an active nematic liquid crystal. Activity changes the effective shear viscosity, reducing it to zero at a critical value of activity. Expanding in the sheet amplitude, we find that the correction to the swimming speed due to activity is inversely proportional to the effective shear vis...

Orientational order in a fluid affects the swimming behavior of flagellated microorganisms. For example, bacteria tend to swim along the director in lyotropic nematic liquid crystals. To better understand how anisotropy affects propulsion, we study the problem of a sheet supporting small-amplitude traveling waves, also known as the Taylor swimmer,...

Significance A number of essential processes in biology and materials science, such as vesicle fusion and fission as well as pore formation, change the membrane topology and require formation of saddle surfaces. The energetic cost associated with such deformations is described by the Gaussian curvature modulus. We show that flat 2D colloidal membra...

Thin fluid membranes embedded in a bulk fluid of different viscosity are of fundamental interest as experimental realizations of quasi-two-dimensional fluids and as models of biological membranes. We have probed the hydrodynamics of thin fluid membranes by active microrheology using small tracer particles to observe the highly anisotropic flow fiel...

We study edge fluctuations of a flat colloidal membrane comprised of a monolayer of aligned filamentous viruses. Experiments reveal that a peak in the spectrum of the in-plane edge fluctuations arises for sufficiently strong virus chirality. Accounting for internal liquid crystalline degrees of freedom by the length, curvature, and geodesic torsion...

We study edge fluctuations of a flat colloidal membrane comprised of a monolayer of aligned filamentous viruses. Experiments reveal that a peak in the spectrum of the in-plane edge fluctuations arises for sufficiently strong virus chirality. Accounting for internal liquid crystalline degrees of freedom by the length, curvature, and geodesic torsion...

Hydrodynamic interactions play an important role in biological processes in cellular membranes, a large separation of length scales often allowing such membranes to be treated as continuous, two-dimensional (2D) fluids. We study experimentally and theoretically the hydrodynamic interaction of pairs of inclusions in two-dimensional, fluid smectic li...

In the presence of a non-adsorbing polymer, monodisperse rod-like particles assemble into colloidal membranes, which are one rod-length thick liquid-like monolayers of aligned rods. Unlike 3D edgeless bilayer vesicles, colloidal monolayer membranes form open structures with an exposed edge, thus presenting an opportunity to study physics of thin el...

Wrinkles commonly develop in a thin film deposited on a soft elastomer substrate when the film is subject to compression. Motivated by recent experiments [Agrawal et al., Soft Matter 8, 7138 (2012)] that show how wrinkle morphology can be controlled by using a nematic elastomer substrate, we develop the theory of small-amplitude wrinkles of an isot...

Wrinkles commonly develop in a thin film deposited on a soft elastomer substrate when the film is subject to compression. Motivated by recent experiments [Agrawal et al., Soft Matter 8, 7138 (2012)] that show how wrinkle morphology can be controlled by using a nematic elastomer substrate, we develop the theory of small-amplitude wrinkles of an isot...

Microorganisms often encounter anisotropy, for example in mucus and biofilms. We study how anisotropy and elasticity of the ambient fluid affects the speed of a swimming microorganism with a prescribed stroke. Motivated by recent experiments on swimming bacteria in anisotropic environments, we extend a classical model for swimming microorganisms, t...

When a microorganism begins swimming from rest in a Newtonian fluid such as water, it rapidly attains its steady-state swimming speed since changes in the velocity field spread quickly when the Reynolds number is small. However, swimming microorganisms are commonly found or studied in complex fluids. Because these fluids have long relaxation times,...

When a microorganism begins swimming from rest in a Newtonian fluid such as water, it rapidly attains its steady-state swimming speed since changes in the velocity field spread quickly when the Reynolds number is small. However, swimming microorganisms are commonly found or studied in complex fluids. Because these fluids have long relaxation times,...

Significance Using a digital tracking microscope that provides both cell position and orientation, we have correlated the detailed motion of the cell body of a fast-swimming bacterium, Caulobacter crescentus , with its swimming motility. Contrary to the prevailing view that the rotating flagellum is the only means to propel the cell, we show that w...

The swimming behavior of bacteria and other microorganisms is sensitive to the physical properties of the fluid in which they swim. Mucus, biofilms, and artificial liquid-crystalline solutions are all examples of fluids with some degree of anisotropy that are also commonly encountered by bacteria. In this article, we study how liquid-crystalline or...

We study experimentally and theoretically the hydrodynamic interaction of pairs of circular inclusions in two-dimensional, fluid smectic membranes suspended in air. By analyzing their Brownian motion, we find that the radial mutual mobilities of identical inclusions are independent of their size but that the angular coupling becomes strongly size-d...

Because arrays of motile cilia drive fluids for a range of processes, the versatile mechano-chemical mechanism coordinating them has been under scrutiny. The protist Paramecium presents opportunities to compare how groups of cilia perform two distinct functions, swimming propulsion and nutrient uptake. We present how the body cilia responsible for...

We study the microscale propulsion of a rotating helical filament confined by a cylindrical tube, using a boundary-element method for Stokes flow that accounts for helical symmetry. We determine the effect of confinement on swimming speed and power consumption. Except for a small range of tube radii at the tightest confinements, the swimming speed...

Microorganisms are rarely found in Nature swimming freely in an unbounded fluid. Instead, they typically encounter other organisms, hard walls, or deformable boundaries such as free interfaces or membranes. Hydrodynamic interactions between the swimmer and nearby objects lead to many interesting phenomena, such as changes in swimming speed, tendenc...

The motion of a rotating helical body in a viscoelastic fluid is considered. In the case of force-free swimming, the introduction of viscoelasticity can either enhance or retard the swimming speed and locomotive efficiency, depending on the body geometry, fluid properties, and the body rotation rate. Numerical solutions of the Oldroyd-B equations s...

We apply the boundary-element method to Stokes flows with helical symmetry, such as the flow driven by an immersed rotating helical flagellum. We show that the two-dimensional boundary integral method can be reduced to one dimension using the helical symmetry. The computational cost is thus much reduced while spatial resolution is maintained. We re...

The motion of a rotating helical body in a viscoelastic fluid is considered. In the case of force-free swimming, the introduction of viscoelasticity can either enhance or retard the swimming speed and locomotive efficiency, depending on the body geometry, fluid properties, and the body rotation rate. Numerical solutions of the Oldroyd-B equations s...

Microbes commonly swim in non-Newtonian fluids such as mucus, soil, and tissue. Some of these complex fluids are characterized by long-chain molecules which can align, leading to anisotropy. We study a simple model of swimming in an anisotropic fluid, that of an infinitely long two-dimensional sheet deforming via propagating waves and immersed in a...

It is a known fact that swimmers behave differently near deformable soft tissues than when near a rigid surface. Motivated by this class of problems, we investigate swimming microorganisms near flexible walls. We calculate the speed of a n infinitely long swimmer near an interface between two viscous fluids. Part of the calculation of the speed is...

We measure the swimming speed of a cylindrical version of Taylor's swimming sheet in viscoelastic fluids, and find that depending on the rheology, the speed can either increase or decrease relative to the speed in a Newtonian viscous fluid. The swimming stroke of the sheet is a prescribed propagating wave that travels along the sheet in the azimuth...

Many motile bacteria display wiggling trajectories, which correspond to helical swimming paths. Wiggling trajectories result from flagella pushing off-axis relative to the cell body and making the cell wobble. The spatial extent of wiggling trajectories is controlled by the swimming velocity and flagellar torque, which leads to rotation of the cell...

The motility of organisms is often directed in response to environmental stimuli. Rheotaxis is the directed movement resulting from fluid velocity gradients, long studied in fish, aquatic invertebrates, and spermatozoa. Using carefully controlled microfluidic flows, we show that rheotaxis also occurs in bacteria. Excellent quantitative agreement be...

Paramecia swim through the coordinated beating of the 1000's of cilia covering their body. We have measured the swimming speed of populations of Paramecium Caudatam in solutions of different viscosity, η, to see how their propulsion changes with increased drag. We have found the average instantaneous speed, V to decrease monotonically with increasi...

We precisely measure the force-free swimming speed of a rotating helix in viscous and viscoelastic fluids. The fluids are highly viscous to replicate the low Reynolds number environment of microorganisms. The helix, a macroscopic scale model for the bacterial flagellar filament, is rigid and rotated at a constant rate while simultaneously translate...

We precisely measure the force-free swimming speed of a rotating helix in viscous and viscoelastic fluids. The fluids are highly viscous to replicate the low Reynolds number environment of microorganisms. The helix, a macroscopic scale model for the bacterial flagellar filament, is rigid and rotated at a constant rate while simultaneously translate...

We discuss a mechanical experimental model of a flexible sheet swimming with a prescribed wave pattern - a Taylor swimmer - through a fluid. Our study is motivated by a need for a fundamental understanding of microorganism locomotion through non-Newtonian fluids. In order to simplify the problem, we suspend a tall flexible cylindrical sheet concent...

Live bacteria often live in polymer suspensions, and are inevitably subjected to the effects of fluid viscoelasticity. To study the viscoelastic effect on bacterial motility, we have constructed a scaled-up model system and use particle image velocimetry (PIV) to measure the flow field generated by a rigid helical filament that rotates and translat...

Although peritrichous bacteria can form flagellar bundles at many attachment points and directions relative to the cell body, locomotion of these bacteria is often modeled as arising from a polar bundle oriented along the cell body axis. We discuss the consequences of non-axisymmetric flagellar configurations for bacterial locomotion and implicatio...

The dsRNA genome of mammalian reovirus (MRV), like the dsDNA genomes of herpesviruses and many bacteriophages, is packed inside its icosahedral capsid in liquid-crystalline form, with concentrations near or more than 400 mg/ml. Viscosity in such environments must be high, but the relevance of viscosity for the macromolecular processes occurring the...

Bacteria achieve motility by eluding the constraints of kinematic reversibility, for instance, by rotating a helical flagellum. We study experimentally the motility of the flagellum with a scaled-up model system, a motorized helical coil that rotates along its axial direction. The rotating helix is tethered on a linear stage that advances at a pred...

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/RevModPhys.82.1945

Many microorganisms swim through gels, materials with nonzero zero-frequency elastic shear modulus, such as mucus. Biological gels are typically heterogeneous, containing both a structural scaffold (network) and a fluid solvent. We analyze the swimming of an infinite sheet undergoing transverse traveling wave deformations in the "two-fluid" model o...

Many microorganisms swim through gels and non-Newtonian fluids in their natural environments. In this paper, we focus on microorganisms which use flagella for propulsion. We address how swimming velocities are affected in nonlinearly viscoelastic fluids by examining the problem of an infinitely long cylinder with arbitrary beating motion in the Old...

We show that plane parabolic flow in a microfluidic channel causes nonmotile helically-shaped bacteria to drift perpendicular to the shear plane. Net drift results from the preferential alignment of helices with streamlines, with a direction that depends on the chirality of the helix and the sign of the shear rate. The drift is in good agreement wi...

The synchronization of beating flagella or cilia is important for swimming microorganisms such as Chlamydomonas as well as transport processes such as the clearing of foreign bodies from the airway. Many of these situations involve Newtonian fluids, but some such as the airway involve viscoelastic fluids. A hypothesis currently under intense invest...

Hydrodynamic synchronization is important in many biological systems such as beating cilia and cell motility. Here we study a model problem, in which flexible paddles rotate in a viscous liquid. We examine a three-paddle system and show that, depending on the arrangement, paddles can exhibit either a periodic phase difference variation or converge...

Many swimming microorganisms must move through viscoelastic fluids and gels. In this talk I focus on swimming through gels. First, unlike incompressible fluids, a gel can have compressional modes with relative motion between polymer and solvent fractions. In a continuum model for a gel, we show that compressibility can increase the swimming speed o...

Microogranisms such as sperm and E. coli swim in a low-Reynolds number environment. In the zero-Reynolds-number Stokes limit, their kinematics are completely controlled by viscous forces and inertia is unimportant. This swimming environment is quite different from our usual (high Reynolds number) intuition about swimming. For example, due to the ki...

Motivated by the motion of biopolymers and membranes in solution, this article presents a formulation of the equations of motion for curves and surfaces in a viscous fluid. We focus on geometrical aspects and simple variational methods for calculating internal stresses and forces, and we derive the full nonlinear equations of motion. In the case of...

Motivated by the observed coordination of nearby beating cilia, we use a scale model experiment to show that hydrodynamic interactions can cause synchronization between rotating paddles driven at constant torque in a very viscous fluid. Synchronization is only observed when the shafts supporting the paddles have some flexibility. The phase differen...

Many swimming microorganisms must move through viscoelastic fluids and gels. In this talk I focus on swimming through gels. First, unlike incompressible fluids, a gel can have compressional modes with relative motion between polymer and solvent fractions. In a continuum model for a gel, we show that compressibility can increase the swimming speed o...

We show that plane parabolic flow in a microfluidic channel causes nonmotile, helically shaped bacteria to drift perpendicular to the shear plane. Net drift results from the preferential alignment of helices with streamlines, with a direction that depends on the chirality of the helix and the sign of the shear rate. The drift is in good agreement w...

Many micro-organisms swim through gels and non-Newtonian fluids in their natural environments. In this paper, we focus on micro-organisms which use flagella for propulsion. We address how swimming velocities are affected in nonlinearly viscoelastic fluids by examining the problem of an infinitely long cylinder with arbitrary beating motion in the O...

Motivated by the desire to separate chiral molecules, we investigate the motion of helices in shear flow generated by a microfluidic channel. We present a model based on resistive force theory to show that hydrodynamic forces on a helix in shear flow produce a drift perperdicular to the shear plane. The drift depends on the sign of the shear rate a...

We use microfluidics to test the prediction that a helix in shear flow drifts across streamlines. We use the non-motile, helical-shaped bacterium Leptospira biflexa as our model chiral object. As the shear in the top and bottom halves of the microchannel has opposite sign, we predict and observe the bacteria in these two regions to drift in opposit...

In the technique of microrheology, macroscopic rheological parameters as well as information about local structure are deduced from the behavior of microscopic probe particles under thermal or active forcing. Microrheology requires knowledge of the relation between macroscopic parameters and the force felt by a particle in response to displacements...

Motivated by the observed coordination of nearby beating cilia and rotating bacterial flagella, we use a scaled model experiment to show that hydrodynamic interactions can cause synchronization between rotating paddles driven at constant torque in a very viscous fluid. Systems with two and three paddles are explored, and interactions between symmet...

Cell motility in viscous fluids is ubiquitous and affects many biological processes, including reproduction, infection, and the marine life ecosystem. Here we review the biophysical and mechanical principles of locomotion at the small scales relevant to cell swimming (tens of microns and below). The focus is on the fundamental flow physics phenomen...

Many swimming microorganisms, such as bacteria and sperm, use flexible flagella to move through viscoelastic media in their natural environments. In this paper we address the effects a viscoelastic fluid has on the motion and beating patterns of elastic filaments. We treat both a passive filament which is actuated at one end and an active filament...

We present a combined theoretical and experimental investigation of the fluid mechanics of a helix exposed to a shear flow. In addition to classic Jeffery orbits, Resistive Force Theory predicts a drift of the helix across streamlines, perpendicular to the shear plane. The direction of the drift is determined by the direction of the shear and the c...

Many flagella-propelled microorganisms swim through gels and non-Newtonian fluids. We address how swimming velocities are affected in nonlinearly viscoelastic fluids. Working to leading order in the deflection of the swimmer, we find that swimming velocities are diminished by nonlinear viscoelastic effects. The implications of our results for Purce...

Motivated by recent experiments that implicate the mechanical properties of membranes in lipid sorting, we examine the interplay of lipid composition and curvature in membrane tubules. We study how the coupling between membrane composition and membrane bending stiffness and tension affects tubule formation. Drawing a tubule from a vesicle leads to...

In the technique of microrheology, macroscopic rheological parameters as well as information about local structure are deduced from the behavior of microscopic probe particles under thermal or active forcing. Microrheology requires knowledge of the relation between macroscopic parameters and the force felt by a particle in response to displacements...

Many swimming microorganisms, such as bacteria and sperm, use flexible flagella to move through viscoelastic media in their natural environments. In this paper we address the effects a viscoelastic fluid has on the motion and beating patterns of elastic filaments. We treat both a passive filament which is actuated at one end, and an active filament...

The deformation of an elastic rod rotating in a viscous fluid is considered, with applications related to flagellar motility. The rod is tilted relative to the rotation axis, and experiments and theory are used to study the shape transition when driven either at constant torque or at constant speed. At low applied torque, the rod bends gently and g...

The deformation of an elastic filament in a viscous liquid is central to the mechanics of motility in cells ranging from E. coli to sperm. We use experiments and theory to study the shape transition of a flexible rod rotating in a viscous fluid and set at an angle to the axis of rotation. In the experiments, two modes of operation are studied: cons...

Cilia and flagella commonly beat in a coordinated manner. Examples include the flagella that Volvox colonies use to move, the cilia that sweep foreign particles up out of the human airway, and the nodal cilia that set up the flow that determines the left-right axis in developing vertebrate embryos. In this talk we present an experimental study of h...

Motivated by our desire to understand the biophysical mechanisms underlying the swimming of sperm in the non-Newtonian fluids of the female mammalian reproductive tract, we examine the swimming of filaments in the nonlinear viscoelastic upper convected Maxwell model. We obtain the swimming velocity and hydrodynamic force exerted on an infinitely lo...

The deformation of thin rods in a viscous liquid is central to the mechanics of motility in cells ranging from \textit{Escherichia coli} to sperm. Here we use experiments and theory to study the shape transition of a flexible rod rotating in a viscous fluid driven either by constant torque or at constant speed. The rod is tilted relative to the rot...

Can the presence of molecular-tilt order significantly affect the shapes of lipid bilayer membranes, particularly membrane shapes with narrow necks? Motivated by the propensity for tilt order and the common occurrence of narrow necks in the intermediate stages of biological processes such as endocytosis and vesicle trafficking, we examine how tilt...

Motivated by the swimming of sperm in the non-Newtonian fluids of the female mammalian reproductive tract, we examine the swimming of filaments in the nonlinear viscoelastic Upper Convected Maxwell model. We obtain the swimming velocity and hydrodynamic force exerted on an infinitely long cylinder with prescribed beating pattern. We use these resul...

Can the presence of molecular-tilt order significantly affect the shapes of lipid bilayer membranes, particularly membrane shapes with narrow necks? Motivated by the propensity for tilt order and the common occurrence of narrow necks in the intermediate stages of biological processes such as endocytosis and vesicle trafficking, we examine how tilt...

Many flagellated bacteria propel themselves by rotating several helical flagella. The motors that rotate these filaments operate in a constant torque mode, and can alternate between counter-clockwise and clockwise motion. Although they reverse direction independently and randomly, the filaments are observed to coordinate and form a bundle during th...