In a paper published in "Nature," researchers in Trustees Research Professor Oleg Lavrentovich’s materials science group at Â鶹ÊÓƵ describe how it moved a stabilized droplet of active bacteria along a pre-determined path by harnessing the broken symmetry of a liquid crystal. The researchers found that by aligning the crystal molecules they could force the droplet to move in a straight line, in contrast to its random motion in a Newtonian fluid. It is hoped that this system could be used to model microscopic organisms.
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