Friends in Canada and Europe are asking me if it's safe to travel to Houston this November for the big annual conference in our field.

If you see this, quote the energy you bring to Bluesky.

What poster did you have hanging in your room as a kid?

Choose your weapon.

Ruin a book by adding Tom Clancy’s name to the title Tom Clancy’s Principles of Mathematical Analysis

Dublin has been so weird this week.

New York

These are the most challenging times for early-career scientists and engineers. My team is doing its bit to help by maintaining and even expanding our database of funding opportunities for early-career researchers. We found 437 of them. Download it freely here: research.jhu.edu/rdt/funding-...

Out today in Phys. Rev. Fluids, our 'Arrested development and traveling waves of active suspensions in nematic liquid crystals'. The bend instability in active suspensions pairs off against bending resistance in LCs to tell quite a story! 1/20 people.math.wisc.edu/~spagnolie/P...

Who can I look forward to seeing in Dublin next month? www.efdc2.com

This is a remarkable paper, or probably many papers squeezed into one. I cannot help but be amused that sperm hyperactivation (a swimming state with large amplitude, asymmetric flagellar beating) can be triggered by... caffeine.

Gordon Research Conferences way station - a hotel near Boston Logan. Different shuttles heading off to different week-long meetings. Pretty neat!

Love is a tendril perversion.

Nazi Germany did literally ban Nature: "Articles are often published in the London weekly scientific journal Nature containing outrageous and vile attacks on German science and the national socialist state. The journal must therefore be excluded from general use in the scientific libraries."

Dear #mathsky, if you repost this, it will let people see the article for free. Thanks! www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Spending the longest day of the year with the Figueroa group in beautiful Boulder. The city has changed a ton over the years, but I appreciate that KBCO still has Alanis Morissette on repeat.

What is common knowledge in your field, but shocks outsiders? You can (sometimes) determine whether an equation has a solution or not even if you can't find it. I don't actually know if this shocks outsiders. At best it might elicit a "huh". At worst, a yawn, or maybe a punch in the face.

Out today in Phys. Rev. Research, we ask "how does an active nematic fluid respond to a deformable body or boundary?" We were pretty amused by a few observations. 1/20 journals.aps.org/prresearch/a...

State Street in Madison, WI, packed for a mile from the university to the capitol. Many thousands of pissed off, peaceful people out there in the heat today.

The cost of the disgraceful military parade this weekend? $25-45 million, which could have paid for 150-300 NSF GRFPs (3-year-long grad research fellowships). These awards are hugely important for training the next generation of scientists, and for their research areas. www.aps.org/initiatives/...

Over 500 games played in the first few weeks on RTT! Medieval India is hoppin'.

I feel about 100 times more threatened by the current administration's activities than anything I've heard said on campus.

I'm proud to work at an institution that has this plaque posted prominently for all to see. @uwmadison.bsky.social Photo from hannemanarchive.com/tag/sifting-....

Congratulations to our 2025 class of SoR Fellows! Fellows will be inducted in our Oct Annual Meeting in Santa Fe #SoR02025. Join us there to celebrate Paulo Arratia @arratiapaulo.bsky.social, Randy Ewoldt, Anke Lindner, Joao Maia, Matteo Pasquali, Fernando Pinho, and Patrick Spicer! #everythingflows

This is the best tool I've seen for rapidly writing your reps. DO IT! www.aps.org/initiatives/...

When the world gets you down, let the joyful wisdom of Tadashi Tokieda brighten your day. youtu.be/pkfDYOZ1p4Y?...

Those of us deeply worried about the attacks on science are not overreacting. The sum total of what’s been happening is a full on assault on the independence of scientific endeavor. Its goal is not “efficiency.” open.substack.com/pub/christin...

Movie you’ve watched more than six times using gifs. (“Hard mode” no Star Wars, Star Trek, or LOTR)

BREAKING:The National Science Foundation (NSF) has put a cork in its grantmaking pipeline after billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) set up shop at the agency this week. | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...

Join us this Fall at ICTS for an advanced course on Geometry, Mechanics & the Physics of Growth: www.icts.res.in/program/Geom... Co-organized with S. Ganga Prasath & @surajshankar.bsky.social

Amazing work by @ccxvii.bsky.social & Co. at RTT (especially Joël Simoneau). Such a high quality implementation, and free! rally-the-troops.com/vijayanagara

"Everything's fine, just multitasking, sorry. I'll try to send something over by next week, for real this time. Best, Carl"

Have they tried injecting bleach into the market?

A gorgeous spring day in Madison, WI. State Street was jam-packed for some reasons. #HandsOff2025

Happy to share our recent preprint on (the absence of) giant number fluctuations in microswimmer suspensions. arxiv.org/abs/2503.18068

Re-posts appreciated! We have an open PhD position w/ Prof Harold Auradou on #microswimmers/#protists in complex media! Students get to spend at least 12 months in Paris, and will receive their PhD from both Exeter and Paris-Saclay! Apply by 31st Mar. More details: adum.fr/as/ed/voirpr...

Normally I prefer my science sitting down, but on March 7 I'll try something different. See you out there.

Calling or otherwise contacting representatives is a surprisingly smooth process, and it's easier than you may think. It's certainly worth doing at least once to have the experience, and to make your voice heard. See the link below.

Sad news… A giant in fluid mechanics and particulate flows cse.umn.edu/cems/news/me...

NSF/NIH cuts will take US leadership and prosperity on an exciting adventure. It will be fine! Come on in.

To kick off the semester we start with the hard hitting questions.

No electronics or other hard drugs in the classroom, at any age! Phones off and in bags - not even in pockets! Cultivate a sanctuary. Occasional boredom fosters creativity. Even grad students need the help. I would too. Can we make this the default?

I am happy to announce that the Midwest Mathematical Biology Seminar is running again in the Spring 2025 semester, with talks held via Zoom on Fridays at 4pm Eastern / 3pm Central. Please reach out to Ning Wei (Purdue University) or me with any questions. sites.google.com/view/midwest...

The COMAP math modeling contest is underway. It's a really neat way for students to learn about modeling real world problems. 4 teams here will be at it for the next 96 hours. Take a look at this year's problems! www.contest.comap.com/undergraduat... More: people.math.wisc.edu/~spagnolie/C...

Thank you to the great State of Wisconsin for reminding us that 0°F can feel *relatively* warm.

Choose your weapon.

1/n Some time ago my colleague, excellent cook, and friend Ivan told me: "Cacio e pepe is the recipe that I screw up more often. Let's make a project studying systematically the physics of that sauce". Prepare to get cheesy, I'm glad to share the Cacio e paper preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2501.00536

The physics of hula hooping are more complex than one might think. A study of hula hooping robots reveals that an hourglass shape is required to keep the hoop in motion as both body and hoop rotate in opposite directions. In PNAS: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Wonderful! It's been dreamlike to see people engaging with and enjoying Vijayanagara. The second printing can be found on GMT's P500 list. And the game keeps opening doors to new meetings and friendships all over the world. Next stop... Bangalore?