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Updated: Apr 22, 2026

A Rapidly Incremented Tethered-Swimming Maximal Protocol for Cardiorespiratory Assessment of Swimmers
Published on: January 28, 2020
Tangling of tethered swimmers: interactions between two nematodes
Matilda Backholm1, Rafael D Schulman1, William S Ryu2
1Department of Physics & Astronomy and the Brockhouse Institute for Materials Research, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4M1, Canada.
Abstract:
The tangling of two tethered microswimming worms serving as the ends of "active strings" is investigated experimentally and modeled analytically. C. elegans nematodes of similar size are caught by their tails using micropipettes and left to swim and interact at different separations over long times. The worms are found to tangle in a reproducible and statistically predictable manner, which is modeled based on the relative motion of the worm heads. Our results provide insight into the intricate tangling interactions present in active biological systems.
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