Active nematics is one of the most studied situations in active matter physics, both in theory and experiments.

Dense active suspensions, such as those formed by swarming bacteria, constitute a type of active matter that is particularly hard to model.

The dynamics of the sperm flagellum has been recently studied with particular attention to its fluctuations. It has been found that the precision of the flagellar beating is close to that of an individual dynein motor powering its motion, which in turn is close to the bound dictated by the thermodynamic uncertainty relation.

Typically, the complex environments in which living systems reside are viscoelastic fluids. For example, the extracellular matrix comprises cross-linked, semiflexible polymeric filaments that respond sensitively to even small stresses generated by cells.

While active matter theory has successfully advanced our understanding of the collective dynamics resulting from individual sources of activity, multiple active processes usually act in concert in real biological systems.

Collective cellular activity and self-organisation phenomena arising from non-equilibrium activity are ubiquitous in tissues and cellular aggregates. However, the relationship between individual properties and biological patterns remains unexplored.