In the headlines

When light is scattered, how accurately can a measurement result be derived from that light? An international research team has explored the limits of what is possible using artificial intelligence.

A scientific team from Grenoble, involving the Laboratoire interdisciplinaire de physique (LIPhy - CNRS/UGA) and the Centre Inria de l'UGA, has developed a groundbreaking computational model that reveals universal laws governing how creatures swim across vastly different sizes and environments — from microscopic bacteria to massive blue whales.

In a recent work, researchers show that particles entrained in a flow close to a deformable wall undergo a force that moves them slightly away from it, an important result for the general understanding of transport phenomena in biology.

The 2025 Academic Thesis Prize of Université Grenoble Alpes has been awarded to Laura Guislain for her thesis entitled “Characterisation of out-of-equilibrium phase transitions with the emergence of limit cycles”, carried out at LIPhy and supervised by Eric Bertin.

Using laser nucleation of microbubbles, physicists have shown that stomata, the miniature 'gates' that regulate light-dependent evaporation in vascular plants, remain inactive in non-vascular plants such as mosses.

Cyanobacteria have an internal biological clock that rhythms their activities on a 24-hour cycle. Thanks to this finely regulated mechanism, these micro-organisms are able to anticipate day/night cycles. A study recently published in Scientific Reports looked at how this clock reacts when the temperature drops below 25°C, an important threshold for their physiology.

Macrophages are immune system cells that ingest and degrade microorganisms and cellular debris in a process called phagocytosis. In a study published in iScience, scientists show that the mechanical properties of the tissues surrounding macrophages influence phagocytosis, which in turn affects the way macrophages interact with their environment.

To better understand the formation, composition and evolution of the atmospheres of terrestrial planets, scientists at LIPhy have developed spectrometers using optical cavity spectroscopy (CRDS). Their high sensitivity enables them to accurately record the absorption spectra of various molecules of atmospheric and planetary interest, such as dihydrogen, water or methane, mixed with carbon dioxide.

La Forge, LIPhy's shared assembly workshop, was inaugurated on January 31, 2025.

Bubbles are ubiquitous in many research applications, from ultrasound imaging to understanding volcanic eruptions. They are also excellent acoustic resonators, being very small in size compared to the wavelength of the sound they emit. These resonant sound waves contain information about the mechanical properties of materials in the immediate vicinity of the bubble. In a recent publication in Nature Communications, a collaboration between LIPhy's Optima and Move teams proposes to exploit this phenomenon to image a sample by moving a bubble in its vicinity.

By combining a numerical modeling approach with experiments in both structural and cellular biology, the APERTuRe project has led to a better understanding of the dynamics of a protein network in the cytoplasm of our cells. These results could prove useful in the development of new drugs.

A Franco-American collaboration has demonstrated that in the microcirculatory network, some red blood cells can take unexpected routes to get from one point to another. This experimental observation should lead to more precise modeling of the mechanisms of oxygenation and elimination of the residues of cellular activity within the blood network.

In an article published in Nature Microbiology, scientists have deciphered the rapid gliding strategy of the parasitic microbe Toxoplasma gondii within the host organism's tissues. They show how the parasite is able to hold on tightly enough without sticking to its substrate to glide efficiently. By explaining how a minimal adhesion system is able to generate rapid movement within complex microenvironments, they open up perspectives for other models of cellular interactions.

Through six talks by Laura Schaedel (Saarbrücken), Atef Asnacios, Marc Durand, Jonathan Fouchard (Paris), Angélique Stéphanou and Philippe Marmottant (Grenoble), we will consider the dynamics of living matter from the molecular scale of the cytoskeleton up to an entire organsim, in systems ranging from tumours to plants and with both experimental and numerical approaches.

While this dimer is one of the simplest molecular complexes, it is also one of the most fragile. Its detection at room temperature took the community by surprise.

In this month’s issue of Nature Physics, Dorian Bouchet proposes a popular science article about the Fisher information. This quantity, which is a cornerstone in statistical estimation theory, also emerges an an important quantity in different areas of physics.

Emmanuel Siéfert, who joined LIPhy this year as a CNRS research fellow, has just been awarded a “Starting” grant from the European Research Council (ERC), which provides substantial funding for projects by young researchers.

Scientists at LIPhy have demonstrated the existence of a behavioral transition when the environment of zebrafish becomes too crowded, showing the extent to which the collective school structure resists the structural complexity of the surrounding environment.

A new implantable pancreatic bioreactor device has been developed by the SyNaBi team in the TIMC laboratory (Translational Innovation in Medicine and Complexity), in collaboration with Grenoble Alpes University Hospital and the LIPhy (3D printing) and LBFA (Laboratory of Fundamental and Applied Bioenergetics) laboratories.

The "matostheque" is an online tool for reserving small items of materials. Materials owners add the characteristics and availability of their material to the database. Users can then make a loan request, specifying the dates.

The study and understanding of the collective movement of animals is a topic of interdisciplinary interest that has long attracted the attention of many scientists (in statistical physics, hydrodynamics, ethology, biology, sociology, and now even in the strongly emergent field of robotics).

The School "Kardar–Parisi–Zhang equation: new trends in theories and experiments" will be held in École de Physique des Houches, 14-26 April 2024.