Multimedia Gallery
Helical Bacteria Swim in Visco-elastic Fluid
A type of bacteria called helical bacteria swim in dense, sticky fluids like mucus (visco-elastic fluid).
To learn more about this National Science Foundation-supported research by engineers at Brown University, see the story "Force-free swimming of a model helical flagellum in viscoelastic fluids" in the online.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. [Research supported by NSF grants CBET 08-54108, "Collaborative Research: Fundamental Principles of Swimming in Viscoelastic Media," and CTS 08-28239, "Collaborative Research: Biologically Inspired Robotic Microswimmers."] (Date of Image: November 2011)
Credit: Bin Liu, Thomas Powers and Kenneth Breuer, Brown University
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