Non-equilibrium active matter made up of self-driven particles with short-range repulsive interactions exhibits collective motion and nonequilibrium order-disorder transitions.
Microtubules and motor proteins can form new “bioactive” liquid-crystalline fluids that are intrinsically out of equilibrium and which display complex flows and defect dynamics.
Robert Blackwell's paper (with Tony Gao) "Multiscale polar theory of microtubule and motor-protein assemblies" was published in Physical Review Letters .