It is always great to run into former grad students in the wild. Here is hoping that there perminant positions for great people like this in the future!

Tonight from 6:45 - 8:30 pm we will have our annual DSOFT business meeting and celebration! Can't wait to catch up with y'all ✨

Come to SPLASHY industry panel to learn about industry careers in soft matter, biological and polymer physics!! Happening today 3 - 4 pm in Meeting Room 210/212

Starting soon, come find us in the Bellco Foyer!

What's a soft matter physicist to do at the APS Global Physics Summit?🤔 We've got some ideas, so we've put together a list of DSOFT activities, starting with Squishy Science Sunday today at Denver Museum of Nature and Science!

The Women+ in Physics Canada Conference Steering Committee is seeking proposals to host the 2027 conference. Aimed at physics graduate students and early career professionals, this conference provides an opportunity for participants to present their research, support each other and network. ⚛️🧪👩‍🔬🇨🇦

Are you ready for the APS Global Physics Summit? For all you soft matter lovers, we’ve gathered a list of the DSOFT invited sessions below. For the full GPS schedule, see summit.aps.org/schedule/

Squishy Science Sunday is back at the Global Physics Summit! Join us for hands-on activities about physics, including the physics of slime, sand, and cotton candy! Find us at Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Use code APSSQUISHY26 for a discount on general admission tickets!

A new paper on falling cat science came out and I just have to draw people's attention to this image

We are excited to present the finalists for this year's DSOFT Emerging Soft Matter Excellence Award! Join us in celebrating the work of these exceptional soft matter physics students, who will present their work in a special DSOFT Awards Session at the 2026 APS Global Physics Summit.

NSF Update (Awards through 2/27/26) Directorates to follow 1/10

Appropriate for this evening in Blacksburg.

Thrilled to see our work, titled "Architectural swarms for responsive façades and creative expression", published in Science Robotics @science.org ! Huge congrats to Merihan Alhafnawi, who led this project. Read more: science.org/doi/10.1126/scirobotics.ady7233

Map of NATO countries by number of those who died in Afghanistan answering America's call to aid following the 9/11 attacks. 90 French soldiers died out of 23,200 who fought in defense of the United States.

Our new paper (with @biotay.bsky.social) is out and on the cover story of @currentbiology.bsky.social !!!! Veronika, a Carinthian mountain cow flexibly uses a “multi-purpose tool” to scratch herself. A video and more information will follow in the comments. www.cell.com/current-biol...

Iryna Kaluyzhna, Ukrainian beauty series Red Bird, 2019 This artwork is a part of the Art of Ukraine fundraiser. All proceeds will go towards supporting Ukrainian efforts 🇺🇦 Buy now

Great to see Wathsala Jayawardana's last thesis work published. She was looking at how thin crumpled sheets absorb energy during low speed impact. Fun to think about why we like crumpled paper when we have to move! doi.org/10.1002/adem...

Autumn

APS Meeting abstracts for Denver deadline was extend to October 31! Consider submitting to the "Engineered Biopolymers and Living Materials" focus session organized by Melody Morris and me. We invite abstracts covering research using polymer physics for engineered biopolymers and living materials.

The dark truth behind FormatMyPaper.com

All Royal Society journal content is freely available this week for open access week @royalsocietypublishing.org

Just popped into the Royal Institution for a coffee, to discover they have a lovely display on benzene to mark the bicentenary of Faraday's discovery of it. Here are his notes, his paper, and one of his first samples. Glorious.

Adding polymers to a liquid speeds up its flow through a pipe by reducing the frictional drag at the pipe’s inner surface. Now researchers have found that the polymers also suppress eddy formation and thus reduce the loss of flow energy to heat.

Ha ha, jokes on them! As a scientist, I don't own the rights to anything I publish!

Well don't I feel stupid

RIP. He was a good man. cyclingmagazine.ca/mtb/edmonton... @drdagly.bsky.social #Alberta #Edmonton

jamanetwork.com/journals/jam... A 2024 study published in JAMA involving 2.4 million children in Sweden, used sibling-control analysis. When comparing siblings—one exposed to #acetaminophen in utero & one not—the researchers found NO increased risk of #autism, ADHD, or intellectual disability.

Sand Patterns on the receding tide. County Clare, Ireland.

A nice historical look at the origins of the Ising model. www.arxiv.org/abs/2509.00632

No one has been able to invent a technological innovation that is better for learning than simply reading books and getting together in small groups to talk about them.

The Faculty of Arts at UWaterloo is pushing through a 'reorganization' plan that will - administratively, at least - collapse a number of its departments into 'schools'. Problems abound with both the process and the plan. A long thread... 1/n

Action shot!

Okay. I've got admin bits to sort today. So to distract me while i wait on things to run at various points: For every few likes this get, a fact about university websites and how gen z and below interact with information, as proven by testing/data. (Most of which unis aren't handling well yet)

These gorgeous origami shapes - an entirely new family called bloom patterns - could be used to design new, more effective space telescopes or solar panels. www.newscientist.com/article/2493...

Hard to beat the north shore.

A nice day on the bluffs.

This spring I challenged myself to write my first perspective article about ultrathin polymer film mechanics. I had a lot of fun writing it. I think there are some interesting questions that are still out there. doi.org/10.1002/pol....

1/? Ever wanted to understand Einstein's theory of special relativity? I'm feeling remarkably proud of a web page/app I've written that introduces the idea using "spacetime diagrams" (and lets you play with them yourself). steuard.github.io/spacetime/in... 🎢🧪 #ITeachPhysics

Thanks @newscientist.com for shining a light on the smear campaign against @toriherridge.bsky.social, @devoevomed.bsky.social, @flintdibble.bsky.social & myself just for fulfilling our critic & conscience role to provide expert commentary about de-extinction www.newscientist.com/article/2490...

It happened again yesterday: I informed someone they were Canadian who didn’t know they were Canadian. This has now happened about 10 times for me. Americans, take note: if your parent was a Canadian citizen born in Canada, you are a Canadian citizen. And there’s a law working its way through…

We turn complex science into striking visuals, like this cover we illustrated for Dr. @behnamnabet.bsky.social et al. on FAK inhibitors and PROTACs. 🦋 👩‍🔬 Know someone doing great research? Tag them, we’d love to help share their story. #JournalCovers #DrawImpacts #SciArt

Once again, I am close but not close enough...

ESMC2025 even has Green Day, why would you not come to Lyon?

I will be moderating a a discussion with several experts this afternoon on ticks. We will be talking about the rise of these pests and the dangers they pose. It's free and online. Love to see you there! hsph.harvard.edu/events/ticks...

This is fun. Do there exist tetrahedral objects that will only rest stably on one of its four faces, tumbling spontaneously under gravity until it rests on this one? These authors say they have found such an object. www.arxiv.org/abs/2506.19244

🧪🔭 It's conference season, so if you're giving a talk this summer: please check out the "Colour Blindness Simulator" – an accessibility tool where you can upload slides & ensure they will be visually legible to people with different types of colour blindness. It's a quick act but it really helps! ⬇️

NEW: NSF will be kicked out of their building. Announcement will be made tomorrow by HUD Sec. and Governor of VA. HUD will take over the NSF building over the next two years. NSF staffer: "There is no planning for NSF, no identified future location, appropriation for a new building or a move."

Our first flight yesterday was inside the tornadogenesis and growth phase of a soon-to-be wedge tornado near Spiritwood and Jamestown, ND. Data and more video will be shared as we process material.

amtrak’s marketing team gets it

Some good storms rolled through last night! Hopefully the hail didn't murder my garden.