Researchers explain emergence of bacterial vortex
Monday, June 23, 2014 - 14:00
in Biology & Nature
When a bunch of B. subtilis bacteria are confined within a droplet of water, a very strange thing happens. The chaotic motion of all those individual swimmers spontaneously organizes into a swirling vortex, with bacteria on the outer edge of the droplet moving in one direction while those on the inside move the opposite direction.