Micro-organisms play a vital role in many biological, medical and engineering phenomena. Some recent research efforts have demonstrated the importance of biomechanics in understanding certain aspects of micro-organism behaviours such as locomotion and collective motions of cells. In particular, spatio-temporal coherent structures found in a bacterial suspension have been the focus of many resea...

This thesis covers a myriad of interconnected topics concerning biological micro-organisms and synthetic micro-robots. Via intricate propulsion strategies these micro-swimmers can move through strongly viscosity-dominated liquids to achieve their goals, be it to invade new territories or to deliver drugs to infected regions. Therefore, the understanding of bacterial motility immediately impacts...

The bacterioplanktonic abundance, biomass, and production within a tropical lagoon (Cabiúnas, Brazil) and two temperate lakes (Stechlin and Dagow, Germany) were compared. Bacterial abundance and production were significantly different among the three water bodies. The lowest bacterial production (0.8 microg C l(-1) d(-1)) was observed in the tropical Cabiúnas Lagoon despite its higher mean temp...

The microbiological and chemical quality of tank-stored rainwater is impacted directly by roof catchment and subsequent run-off contamination, via direct depositions by birds and small mammals, decay of accumulated organic debris, and atmospheric deposition of airborne micro-organisms and chemical pollutants. Previous literature reports on roof water quality have given little consideration to t...

Biomimetic micro-swimmers can be used for various medical applications, such as targeted drug delivery and micro-object (e.g. biological cells) manipulation, in lab-on-a-chip devices. Bacteria swim using a bundle of flagella (flexible hair-like structures) that form a rotating cork-screw of chiral shape. To mimic bacterial swimming, we employ a computational approach to design a bacterial (chir...

In this communication, we describe a novel methodology for single bacterial detection based on micro-channel gating and involving the use of microelectrodes in a micro-channel for detection of target cell capture. The sensors designed have been shown to be capable of electrical detection of the target cells at the single cell level.