It can be observed every time you take a shower: Small droplets of water join together to form larger and larger drops—until they are so heavy that they run down the wall. Scientists call this daily-life phenomenon coalescence—which surprisingly also provides the key to understanding how bacteria form colonies. Researchers at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), the Max-Planck-Zentrum für Physik und Medizin (MPZPM) in Erlangen and the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems in Dresden (MPI-PKS) have now succeeded in developing a statistical model to describe the formation, dynamics and mechanics of such cell assemblies. They have published their results in the prestigious journal Physical Review Letters.
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Source: Phys.org