6 search results for “active soft matter” in the Public website
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On shape and elasticity: bio-sheets, curved crystals, and odd droplets
Because thin systems can deform along the thickness with relative ease, the interplay between surface mechanics and geometry plays a fundamental role in sculpting their three-dimensional shape.
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Synthetic model microswimmers near walls
Synthetic microswimmers take an important place within the interdisciplinary field of active soft matter.
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Rubicon grant for Leiden physicist: why do leaves of a tree always grow in the same shape?
PhD candidate Ludwig Hoffmann will spend two years at Harvard University in the US thanks to a Rubicon grant he won on April 11. Using theoretical models he studies biological tissues, for example during morphogenesis. This is the process that causes tissue or organisms to develop their shape. ‘This…
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New professor Luca Giomi creates his own physics of living systems
Swarms of drones, pedestrians or the cells in your body. Those are all examples of active matter: materials whose building blocks can move autonomously. That’s what Luca Giomi studies. Giomi has been appointed Professor of theoretical physics in the area of soft matter and biological physics at the…
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How metastatic tumours manipulate their environment
Tumours act like mini-organs, manipulating their environment and using bodily processes to survive and metastasise. Through research by Erik Danen and his colleagues, we are learning more about the complex nature of tumour cells. In the Dutch newspaper NRC, the scientists discuss their findings.
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Why do birds flock? Shedding light on collective motions in heterogeneous populations
Leiden physicists Alexandre Morin and Samadarshi Maity study self-organisation and flocking phenomena. They shed light on flocking, which helps to understand how it is possible that birds in a flock don't collide. With plastic microbeads, they create an experimental setup and they developed a mathematical…