Saverio Spagnolie and Arthur Evans of UW–Madison, University of Michigan physicist Christopher Miles and mathematician Michael Shelley of the Flatiron Institute and New York University found that when the particles are confined to a thin sheet and allowed to expand into an empty fluid, the collective motion can be described by equations already used in entirely different classical problems in fluid mechanics. The group published its findings recently in the journal Physical Review Letters.
Link: https://news.wisc.edu/swimming-microbes-steer-themselves-into-mathematical-order/