Actively swimming gold nanoparticles: Chemotactic movement on the macroscale by a swarm of bacteria-mimicking nanoswimmers

Bacteria can actively move towards a nutrient source -- a phenomenon known as chemotaxis -- and they can move collectively in a process known as swarming. Scientists have redesigned collective chemotaxis by creating artificial model nanoswimmers from chemically and biochemically modified gold nanoparticles. The model could help understand the dynamics of chemotactic motility in a bacterial swarm.