It's letter of recommendation season, but ... my goodness, do notes like this make it worth it!

Here is a solid, thought-provoking post.

Lunchtime tart for the wife’s birthday! Quite pleased with how it came out.

Definitely wanted this to lead to some biophysical version of the Coriolis force.

I am honored and excited to present our recent work on mixed AND asymmetric membranes at @bppbseminar.bsky.social! 🧪 My online talk will be this Friday, 11/21/25, 11am US Eastern time. Many thanks to the organizers for putting this together! More details here: sites.google.com/view/bppb-se...

I love having students work in groups to write sample exam problems in class. This time, I told them to take some existing problems and make them harder. It’s so cool seeing them dive into things like “well, we could give less information … what could we leave out?” #ITeachPhysics

I know this is not the question. But do we know the mechanism yet?

It's angular momentum day in my #Physics class, so of course we start with fidget spinners on their desks and Emmy Noether on the screen as they walk into the room :)

Did you just give a #Physics exam where every problem had 67 either in the question, or as the answer? Because I just did.

Wait, wut?

why would you do this

I asked what turned out to be a really hard question in my intro class. Build this circuit on a breadboard (easy). Measure the equivalent resistance of the two parallel resistors (easy). Measure I1, the current through R1 (whoa!). #ITeachPhysics a lot, and I was surprised by just how tough this was.

I am super excited to announce that we have a tenure-track faculty position in biophysics open in the Department of Physics at Carnegie Mellon! 🧪 Interfolio link: apply.interfolio.com/174360 PLEASE, share widely across the blue skies! Let me briefly explain what we're looking for: 1/10

This may well be the most fascinating job post I've ever seen! A whole (short) thread worth reading, and getting excited about. Whether or not you're a relevant candidate.

Major cool membrane conference coming up next week! The Biomembrane Days 2025, organized by an amazing team from the MPI for Colloids and Interface Science @mpici.bsky.social: Rumy Dimova (@dimovalab.bsky.social), Helge Ewers, and Thomas Weikl. I'm so very much looking forward to attending! 🤩 🧪

Old notes

Yet again, someone’s off leash dog attacked mine on a walk. Of course it had to be something as muscular as a pitt bull. Everyone’s fine. But I’m getting too old to throw my boat in the middle of dog fights.

I love this question for intro physics

Slightly late to this, but I’m watching the Fast and Furious movies for the first time. I’m on #3. The series seems to think we’re watching for Paul Walker. Are they serious?!

Tour de force on the kinetics and mechansms of lipid transport in cells through exquisite use of bifunctional probes by @nadlerlab.bsky.social and colleagues. Such an exciting time for the field. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We are hiring into 3 (THREE!) tenure track lines this year at Wake Forest — if you’re looking please reach out, I love chatting about our department! We are a vibrant group that love & embrace the teacher-scholar model 👩‍🏫

...

Found an old box of tapes. Now listening to the Soup Dragons.

Can’t wait to introduce bird-based storage into my backup system

A friend has pointed out that “stare at it and be smart” is a very generally applicable method

Middle-aged folks: how did you learn to factor polynomials like ax^2 + bx + c? My kids have learned the diamond and box methods. I'm pretty sure I just learned "stare it and be smart."

Does protein dimerization always help targeting and dwell time on DNA? Not for a population! Dwell time is especially sensitive to spacing between DNA targets. Nonspecific binding and facilitated (1D) diffusion also play a key role. Super proud of Mankun Sang’s work! doi.org/10.1101/2025...

🖥️🧬I have a tool/lib that I want to make that I think will be useful. But, all of my students are busy with projects. While I have a plan & cycles to help, it will take way longer if I do it all myself. It needs to be written in Rust & be fast. If you’re interested in learning more, please ping me!

Amazing

The Banach-Barkski Pair-of-dogs

This is a very big scientific milestone: stem cells appear to have permanently cured most diabetics in this small but historic trial based on the work of Harvard researcher Doug Melton, who has 2 kids with diabetes. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/20/h...

Very smart, high ROI initiative from the Spencer Foundation. Providing bridge funding for canceled NSF grants: 1) directs funds to projects already screened by a top-noch review process. 2) avoids imposing proposal prep costs on researchers. 3) ameliorates the disruption from GOP sabotage.

Timeless. My Science and Pseudoscience 1st year seminar students loved it this past year!

I spent a year as a Corps member. Literally one of the best things I’ve ever done. ❤️❤️😅

Are you looking for a faculty job? We are hiring in my department at Roswell Park NOW. Contact me for details as I await the formal ad. (Please RT.)

This is well done

Can sensing of membrane receptors be switched on at tunable threshold densities, without active processing? Proud to share this preprint led by the awesome Dr Foley, please check it out!

I’m excited to finally share our new preprint! Membrane-associated assembly processes like CME function as precisely-tunable, spatially targetable, robust on/off switches that don’t require energy at decision-time. arxiv.org/abs/2505.17290 🧪

Please join me to comment at 2 US websites. Fast! Easy! Even if no short term change, it can change the future! Due May 23 (3 days) 1) OPM-2025-0004: BAD! NIH Directors political hacks instead of health professionals 2) FDA-2025-N-1146-0001: BAD! Covid vaccines only if 65+ yrs See info below in 🧵

NSF Physics was cut by 85%, basically wiping out most of its capacity for supporting research. NSF Astronomy was cut by 53% Undergrad education was cut by 71% and research on learning by 79% Graduate education was cut by 100% to ZERO. #GiftLink ⚛️🔭 www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Oh FFS! This government is self sabotaging the decades long edge America had in recruiting the most talented people from across the world.

Really really really bad

Given people I know, this is unsurprising.

Hadn’t heard the grouping one before

Done and done

Interesting stuff!

A thread about the value of the fine structure constant in Quantum Electrodynamics. (1/137)

Been thinking about biomembranes? Wondering what next decade of research will be? Wonder no more: there's an awesome conference coming up in Copenhagen in July!! From simulations to cells and everything in between. 5 days left to submit abstract - APPLY! www.biophysics.org/blog/beyond-...

In today’s asymmetry news…

Question for lipidtime chemsky and the palaeofolks What are the oldest lipid records we have? Off the top of the head I know the 2.7 billion year from Brooks 1999 (doi.org/10.1126/scie...) but is there anything else going back further?