Wriggling worms help explain how certain polymers move and flow

Wriggling worms can serve as an experimental stand-in for the study of microscopic moving filaments known as active polymers. The research could open new ways of studying ‘active matter’ systems made largely from active polymers, which play many vital biological roles.

Active polymers are made up of individual filaments that can use their own energy or energy from the surrounding environment to change their shape, explains physicist Antoine Deblais at the University of Amsterdam. They are found in several important biological systems such as the filaments and microtubules in the cytoskeletons of living cells, and in the whip-like flagella of sperm, bacteria, algae and plankton.