Whirling and swerving, a bacterium is swimming in a test tube, foraging for food. On the surface of a vibrating bath, a droplet starts walking. A certain similarity, but mostly dissimilarity, between the physical memory that emerges in Couder’s droplet experiments and the biological memory of the bacterium is noted. It serves as a starting point for a short perspective and speculation on the multilevel, loopy memory of living matter.
Albert Libchaber 1; Tsvi Tlusty 2, 3
@article{CRMECA_2020__348_6-7_545_0, author = {Albert Libchaber and Tsvi Tlusty}, title = {Walking droplets, swimming microbes: on~memory in physics and life}, journal = {Comptes Rendus. M\'ecanique}, pages = {545--554}, publisher = {Acad\'emie des sciences, Paris}, volume = {348}, number = {6-7}, year = {2020}, doi = {10.5802/crmeca.25}, language = {en}, }
Albert Libchaber; Tsvi Tlusty. Walking droplets, swimming microbes: on memory in physics and life. Comptes Rendus. Mécanique, Tribute to an exemplary man: Yves Couder, Volume 348 (2020) no. 6-7, pp. 545-554. doi : 10.5802/crmeca.25. https://comptes-rendus.academie-sciences.fr/mecanique/articles/10.5802/crmeca.25/
[1] À la Recherche du Temps Perdu, Gaston Gallimard, Paris, 1923
[2] Wholeness and the Implicate Order, Routledge Classics, London, New York, 2002
[3] Multistable free states of an active particle from a coherent memory dynamics, Phys. Rev. Lett., Volume 122 (2019) (104303) | DOI
[4] Walking and orbiting droplets, Nature, Volume 437 (2005), p. 208-208 | DOI
[5] Memory formation in matter, Rev. Mod. Phys., Volume 91 (2019) (035002) | MR
[6] Chemotaxis in Escherichia coli analysed by three-dimensional tracking, Nature, Volume 239 (1972), pp. 500-504 | DOI
[7] Temporal comparisons in bacterial chemotaxis, Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA, Volume 83 (1986), p. 8987 | DOI
[8] Bacterial strategies for chemotaxis response, Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA, Volume 107 (2010), p. 1391 | DOI
[9] Turbulence: the Legacy of A.N. Kolmogorov, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, Eng., New York, 1995 | DOI
[10] Will biologists become computer scientists?, EMBO reports, Volume 19 (2018), e46628 | DOI
[11] Protein–DNA computation by stochastic assembly cascade, Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA, Volume 99 (2002), pp. 11589-11592 | DOI
[12] Allosteric proteins and cellular control systems, J. Mol. Biol., Volume 6 (1963), pp. 306-329 | DOI
[13] Experimental transmission of a Kuru-like syndrome to chimpanzees, Nature, Volume 209 (1966), pp. 794-796 | DOI
[14] The adaptive advantage of phenotypic memory in changing environments, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B, Volume 350 (1995), pp. 133-141
[15] Memory and fitness optimization of bacteria under fluctuating environments, PLoS Genet., Volume 10 (2014) no. 9 (e1004556) | DOI
[16] The growth of bacterial cultures, Annu. Rev. Microbiol., Volume 3 (1949), pp. 371-394 | DOI
[17] Transgenerational epigenetic inheritance: myths and mechanisms, Cell, Volume 157 (2014), pp. 95-109 | DOI
[18] Inherited epigenetic variation — revisiting soft inheritance, Nat. Rev. Genet., Volume 7 (2006), pp. 395-401 | DOI
[19] Memory in bacteria and phage, Bioessays, Volume 24 (2002), pp. 512-518 | DOI
[20] Molecular mechanisms underlying bacterial persisters, Cell, Volume 157 (2014), pp. 539-548 | DOI
[21] Treatment of staphylococcal infections with penicillin, Lancet, Volume 2 (1944), pp. 497-500 | DOI
[22] Bacterial persistence as a phenotypic switch, Science, Volume 305 (2004), pp. 1622-1625 | DOI
[23] The importance of being persistent: heterogeneity of bacterial populations under antibiotic stress, FEMS Microbiol. Rev., Volume 33 (2009), pp. 704-717 | DOI
[24] Regulation of phenotypic variability by a threshold-based mechanism underlies bacterial persistence, Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA, Volume 107 (2010), pp. 12541-12546 | DOI
[25] Intervening sequences of regularly spaced prokaryotic repeats derive from foreign genetic elements, J. Mol. Evol., Volume 60 (2005), pp. 174-182 | DOI
[26] Clustered regularly interspaced short palindrome repeats (CRISPRs) have spacers of extrachromosomal origin, Microbiology, Volume 151 (2005), pp. 2551-2561 | DOI
[27] CRISPR-Cas systems: prokaryotes upgrade to adaptive immunity, Mol. Cell, Volume 54 (2014), pp. 234-244 | DOI
[28] Sequence space and the ongoing expansion of the protein universe, Nature, Volume 465 (2010), pp. 922-926 | DOI
[29] Physical model of the genotype-to-phenotype map of proteins, Phys. Rev. X, Volume 7 (2017) (021037)
[30] Self-referring DNA and protein: a remark on physical and geometrical aspects, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A, Volume 374 (2016) (20150070) | DOI
[31] Green function of correlated genes in a minimal mechanical model of protein evolution, Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA, Volume 115 (2018), p. E4559-E4568 | DOI
[32] Untersuchungen nuch bacterium, Beiträge zur Biologie der Pflanzen, Volume 3 (1875), pp. 141-207
[33] Die Pflanze. Voträge aus dem Gebiete der Botanik, J. U. Kern (M. Müller), Breslau, 1896
[34] Isolation of a 250 million-year-old halotolerant bacterium from a primary salt crystal, Nature, Volume 407 (2000), pp. 897-900 | DOI
[35] Revival and identification of bacterial spores in 25- to 40-million-year-old Dominican amber, Science, Volume 268 (1995), pp. 1060-1064 | DOI
[36] Bet-hedging and epigenetic inheritance in bacterial cell development, Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA, Volume 105 (2008), pp. 4393-4398 | DOI
[37] The origin of the genetic code, J. Mol. Biol., Volume 38 (1968), pp. 367-379 | DOI
[38] A colorful origin for the genetic code: Information theory, statistical mechanics and the emergence of molecular codes, Phys. Life Rev., Volume 7 (2010), pp. 362-376 | DOI
[39] Recent evidence for evolution of the genetic code, Microbiol. Rev., Volume 56 (1992), pp. 229-264 | DOI
[40] A different genetic code in human mitochondria, Nature, Volume 282 (1979), pp. 189-194 | DOI
[41] Das Keimplasma: eine theorie der Vererbung, Fischer, 1892
[42] Zoological Philosophy: an Exposition with Regard to the Natural History of Animals, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1984
[43] On protein synthesis, Symp. Soc. Exp. Biol., Volume 1958, pp. 138-163
Cited by Sources:
Comments - Policy