Plants are everywhere 🌳 but rarely thought of as computing. New review (preprint 🪩 lnkd.in/d5KwzzPN): plants sense, compute, and move without a brain - via growth, combining physical computation, embodied intelligence & functional noise. A physics view of decentralized behavior in living matter 🌱

Congratulations to Ivan Kulich from IPMB, Biology Centre CAS for his new paper in Science looking at calcium, ROS and root growth @MOLIPEC www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Our latest work on shape-programmable tissues is out in @science.org. By positioning topological defects in cellular nematics, we encode frustrated 2D force fields that relax into predictable 3D shapes. Collaboration with Marino Arroyo’s lab, led by @pauguillamat.bsky.social at @ibecbarcelona.eu.

Do you want to know how to build an organ from a single cell? Check out our paper about phyllid development in moss by Weney Lin @irbv.bsky.social Colaboration with Yoan Couder @ensdelyon.bsky.social and and Richard Smith @johninnescentre.bsky.social www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Happy to see this out! Big congratulations to @nicolatrozzi.bsky.social and all involved! doi.org/10.1038/s443...

Now #published @physreve.bsky.social: "Elasticity and plasticity of epithelial gap closure" doi.org/10.1103/qtcv-gk3y #PhD work of Maryam Setoudeh, a model of cell intercalations during epiboly as elastoplastic deformations of a surface. @mpipks.bsky.social @mpi-cbg.de @csbdresden.bsky.social

Preprint 🌱 Plants build nonlinear vectorial representations of light patterns! Surprising results: Opposing cues cancel, so plants grow towards a weaker tie-breaker light. Plants respond to sum of transduced signals, not physical sum of light: optical “illusions”! 🪩 tinyurl.com/44f83xh8

New preprint 🌱 Segment plants in time-series images using foundation model SAM2 - without training a model 🪩. Magician Alex Abbey! 💡SAP works across species, scales, and even z-stacks. From single cells to whole plants→ quantitative growth & dynamics . tinyurl.com/3raedtvm @biosofttau.bsky.social

🌱 “To twine or not to twine?” Preprint 🪩 Plants use inherent circular movements (circumnuations) for active sensing of support mechanical stability (eg whisking 🐭), twining occurs at a torque threshold. Heroic experiments by Amir Ohad, fancy simulations @amirporat.bsky.social: tinyurl.com/2syh4ny3

Viewing the vertex model through the lens of exterior calculus to investigate monolayer ablation doi.org/10.1007/s002...

Our first study on how the leaf succulent Kalanchoë laxiflora makes stomatal subsidiary cells is finally peer-reviewed & out - and it made the cover! 🌵 🧬 🔬 doi.org/10.1126/scia... Despite 150 years of evolution, grasses and Crassulacean succulents use the SAME gene to make subsidiary cells! 🤯

Our study on shape diversity in cnidarians is now published. The final version includes extensive new data that substantially extend the original bioRxiv preprint. Congrats to everyone who contributed to this work! www.cell.com/cell/fulltex... @embl.org

ERC-funded PhD position: auxin in plant morphogenesis! Come to our team to study molecular mechanisms downstream of auxin signaling that control morphogenesis in plants! ueb.cas.cz/en/news/?id=...

On ’pointless’ optima in Nature! Out now in @pnas.org From #DTU #DK Thanks @villumfonden.bsky.social 🧪 ⚛️

Register now for the second installment of the Plant Cell Atlas Imaging Workshop Series: Introduction to 2D and 3D Segmentation with MorphoGraphX. You can learn more and register here: plantcellatlas.org/events

It's officially out 🥳🥳🥳 doi.org/10.1016/j.cu... #MorphoGraphX #MorphoDynamX #Physcomitrella #Phyllotaxis @roederlab.bsky.social @richardsmithlab.bsky.social

📷⚙️ TECHNICAL INNOVATION ⚙️📷 Ohad & Meroz developed a modular camera-based system to measure weak forces generated by freely moving plant organs. It measures the force projected on two axes, is cost-effective, modular & accommodates a wide range of organism scales. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/jxb/...

What a treat to see the work from Camila Goldy @camilagoldy.bsky.social et al., @rdplab.bsky.social @ensdelyon.bsky.social now published 🫶 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Our work now on its final version. We mapped the mechanical properties of roots at tissue and single cell levels using Brillouin microscopy and molecular rotors. Additional mutants and stress measurements from what we previously showed in the preprint are included. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Registrations now open for #SLS26 Sainsbury Laboratory Symposium 2026 in Cambridge, UK — Shaping Life: Mechanisms of Morphogenesis! Join us explore how cellular, genetic & mechanical forces sculpt plant form 📅 22–24 Sept 2026 In-person + livestream Limited fee waivers www.slcu.cam.ac.uk/sls #plantsi

0️⃣1️⃣1️⃣2️⃣3️⃣5️⃣8️⃣🌺🥬🌱🌀 @alaingoriely.bsky.social on the Shape of Plants @greshamcollege.bsky.social (featuring our work with @christhorogood.bsky.social on Nepenthes at the end www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...) www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/sh...

🌱 Recruiting PhD students & postdocs (Fall 2026) at Université de Montréal (Canada)! Projects on plant morphogenesis & biomechanics 💰Possible Funding via Impact+ Canada: • PhD: $40k/yr × 3 • Postdoc: $70k/yr × 2 📩 Contact me before Jan 31 with CV + short note. #PhD #Postdoc #Biophysics

Job alert🚨I am advertising a 2-year postdoctoral position to work on the mathematics of plant morphogenesis @mpipz.bsky.social. Candidates with interests in mathematical modelling, mechanics, or biophysics are strongly encouraged to apply. 🌱Reposts are appreciated! jobs.mpipz.mpg.de/jobposting/4...

Ehi, they made one with root tips and even root caps!!!

New paper from our lab @jxbotany.bsky.social about auxin and cytokinin interactions during carpel initiation in Arabidopsis Led by @andreagomezfe.bsky.social in collaboration with @defolter-lab.bsky.social academic.oup.com/jxb/advance-...

🌱 2x David Sainsbury Career Development Fellowships at @slcuplants.bsky.social Launch your first independent research group in quantitative plant development, with generous support & world-class facilities. Deadline extended to 30 Jan 2026 www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/david-s... #plantscijobs 1/4🧵

Latest from our lab in 2025. A wonderful collaboration with Sabrina Sabatini's team at Sapienza University of Rome. How mechanical signals contribute to root growth and zonation @cbgpmadrid.bsky.social @upm.es doi.org/10.1126/scia...

Check out our latest preprint on the cellular mechanical basis of Voronoi tessellations in epithelia! This biophysics study is inspired by disordered tessellations observed in zebrafish hearts 🤓🐟💙 #SulaimaanLim #ChiuFanLeeLab arxiv.org/html/2512.13...

A left-handed banana! I've been looking for one for years.

🌱 2x David Sainsbury Career Development Fellowships at @slcuplants.bsky.social Unique opportunity for early-career researchers to launch their own independent research programme in quantitative plant development, with generous support & world-class facilities. www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/david-s...

Active matter physics studies living beings as open, out of equilibrium, and emergent systems. In this perspective on plant morphogenesis, we show how such features arise from the basic hydromechanics of plant tissue and how to capture them in models. 🌱💧 Preprint 👇 arxiv.org/abs/2512.05554

New preprint! Do you like ocean waves? We found similar waves on bacterial colonies! We found that this collective behavior, known as rippling, is nothing but surface waves on an active nematic. @princeton.edu @mpipks.bsky.social @ub.edu @icreacommunity.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

New preprint! SOSEKI polarity proteins are mechanoresponsive integrators linking growth and tissue mechanics during lateral root formation. Their polarity marks growth boundaries and reorganises in response to mechanical alterations —reshaping how we think about axis formation. tinyurl.com/28p7af2w

Thrilled to have contributed to this @nature.com study on ethylene and cell wall mechanics in root compaction responses!! — Featuring Jiao Zhang, Lucas Peralta Ogorek, @borgesaugust.bsky.social , Bipin Pandey, Staffan Persson, Wanqi Zhang, Malcolm Bennett & more!! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Beautiful!

How fast do plants actually grow? And which growth processes matter most for organ size? We dived into 176 papers, extracted and re-analyzed the data so you don’t have to! nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... @newphyt.bsky.social @virajalim.bsky.social @elvisbranchini.bsky.social

A multiscale growth atlas of Arabidopsis: linking cell dynamics to organ development Alimchandani et al. @virajalim.bsky.social @elvisbranchini.bsky.social nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

New paper!💡 Amir Ohad developed this nifty setup to measure weak forces generated by freely moving plants, based on the deflection of a pendulum (straw from the cafeteria 😎), which does not require any tethering of the plant: academic.oup.com/jxb/advance-... Plant-obstacle interactions here we come!

Boutillon, A., Banavar, S. P., & Campàs, O. (2024). Conserved physical mechanisms of cell and tissue elongation. Development (Cambridge, England), 151(10), dev202687. #EpithelialMechanicsReview https://doi.org/10.1242/dev.202687

Tissue-wide cues are sensed at the cellular level to coordinate microtubule orientations in plants https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.18.683221v1

Harmonic fields and the mechanical response of a cellular monolayer to ablation arxiv.org/abs/2510.05193

One day in the lab, we accidentally discovered that the spines of a cactus 🌵 straighten when exposed to fog. I was intrigued and so were my collaborators. How does this work and what can be gained from it? Here are some of the answers in our new preprint: doi.org/10.1101/2025...

🌿💻 Plant Models and Morphology 💻🌿 The 9th International Plant Computational Biology Workshop @slcuplants.bsky.social brought together mathematicians, computer scientists, physicists and biologists exploring plant development through models and simulations. Huge thanks to organisers and speakers!👏

The BM^2 Lab is hiring a Ph.D. student to work on a variety of problems connected to modeling of morphogenesis in plants (i.e. ovule curvature formation, fixed handedness establishment in certain plant organs and its link to cell wall mechanics). Please share!

The self-replicating cellular organization of shoot apical #meristems New #AJB research by Étienne Couturier, @paulallanos.bsky.social, Antoine Lizée, Sébastien Besson & Jacques Dumais bsapubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... #botany #plantscience #bryophytes #lycophytes #ferns

🔎 DARWIN REVIEW 🔎 Mody et al. review the study of the cellular basis of plant morphogenesis with 3D digital organs 🔬🌱 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/jxb/... #PlantScience 🧪 @kschneitz.bsky.social

New preprint! "Understanding Shape and Residual Stress Dynamics in Rod-Like Plant Organs" 🌱 with @merozlab.bsky.social and @routierlab.bsky.social 👉 doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Here it is! Epidermal cells in the root can figure out if they are covered by the root cap or not using mechanical signals! Thanks to @ckirchhelle.bsky.social, @moritznowack.bsky.social, @nathan-german.bsky.social Annamaria Kiss and all the others!