Enabled by the birefringence of liquid crystal, motion of 24nm thick bacteria flagella now is easily visible using a simple polarizing microscope.
(Photo Credit: S. Zhou, A. Sokolov, O. Lavrentovich and I. Aranson)
Even at low Reynolds number, active bacteria can create periodic patterns when swimming in the viscoelastic liquid crystal.
(Photo Credit: S. Zhou, A. Sokolov, O. Lavrentovich and I. Aranson)
Source: American Institute of Physics