My first PhD paper with Prakash Lab is out in its final form! Here we uncover the many folded forms of Placozoa and how cilia unfold them. Enjoy the paper and our stop motion summary of this story! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

priceless comment from your kids! give them a hi-five ✋

Ok, so my 11 yo says he is going to work it out as well, but has informed me that he'll probably need a lot of machinery. He has to do some unfolding to get started, as apparently you can't do inventing in school uniform!

Amazing research and such a fantastic scicomm video. I'd like to show it to my kids, but I'm afraid that it'll backfire and they'll use it to explain why all the clothes in their cupboards are unfolded despite the fact they were folded when they went in....

(1/n) What if you never had to make your bed? What if your laundry could fold itself? Folding is everywhere around us - but did you know that folding flat sheets are at the ❤️ of diversity of shapes in the animal world - since 500 million years ago. Our latest work: www.youtube.com/watch?v=nudC...

You can read Manu's recent @jcellsci.bsky.social interview here: journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...

Our next extraordinary biologist is Manu Prakash, plenary speaker at the Biologists @ 100 conference, who was recently interviewed for @jcellsci.bsky.social. #100biologists @prakashlab.bsky.social

Cephla is at #SfN2025 through Wednesday 11/19. Come to our booth at 3217 to check out our Squid+ spinning confocal and fluidics system + learn how we help accelerate developing/disseminating/adopting new methods and scale data production capacities! #HCS #LiveCell #SpatialOmics #ExpansionMicroscopy

⬆️ This is the way! ⬆️

yeah! 🎃

Now that is a great idea - when my kids were young enough to trick or treat I would have been delighted if they had come home with a Foldscope.

Success. Nearly 259 Foldscope deployed in hands of unsuspecting candy crazy kids. Halloween is always more colorful with the microscopes - specially in a few weeks they could look at the micro-fauna of the teeth with so much sugar consumption.

Happy Halloween! Are you celebrating by searching for ghosts and spiders with your #Foldscope?

🧪hey all, a friend and colleague, @maddoxfornc.bsky.social, is running for Congress in North Carolina. He is a scientist, professor, and parent, perspectives that are especially important right now. I hope you will support his run for Congress. Find out more here: www.maddoxforcongress.com/about/

💥 🏛️ 🧪 Paul Maddox for US House of Representatives from NC

An intimate conversation about what drives me every day in “sharing experience” of science by getting tools of science in hands of kids everywhere. themicroscopists.bitesizebio.com/episodes/man...

Manu Prakesh ($1 #foldscope fame) guest stars on #TheMicroscopists. Quite incredible drive & desire for making science hands-on & accessible. He also talks about his passion for fieldwork, & explains why he has barnacles growing in his bathroom! Stream bit.ly/microscopist... @prakashlab.bsky.social

That’s amazing; thank you for it! I acquired a Foldscope last year and I love everything about this effort. If there‘s a way to support your Halloween (or other) Foldscope giving, point the way please! (Also: I’ll be at Stanford early December: I hope the stars align so I can meet you).

Love that you give the awesome Foldscope 'with the candy on Halloween'🍬🍭- best of both world, Manu! Hopefully not to see the shifting microbiome in their mouths pre and post sugar... scary!!

Science needs to be part of our day to traditions. For many years - I have continued to give Foldscope @teamfoldscope.bsky.social with the candy on Halloween. Try it out and surprise the kids with the capacity to see and discover real #microMonsters crawling on our planet. 🎃👻 #FoldscopeHalloween

Math professor Terence Tao and neuroscientist Vidya Saravanapandian told PBS Newshour's Stephanie Sy that US's global leadership in science hangs in the balance. 🧪

story by me! 🧪 (and guest starring @treacherousbuzz.bsky.social )

💥 🍃 🏛️ 🧪 Paul Maddox for Congress Paul is a scientist running for Congress to cure the sickness in Washington - become a donor to Paul Maddox’s campaign!

“Cellular Olympics” our catalog of freeky ultra fast cellular superhero’s is freely available “Ann Rev of microbiology” www.annualreviews.org/content/jour... This is a compilation of world’s fastest single cell organisms - enjoy this buffet of rare delightful protists with mind bending speeds. 🧪

there is a special lounge in pape heaven reserved for authors who take the time to aggregate and plot out how species vary across a physical variable

“Cellular Olympics” our catalog of freeky ultra fast cellular superhero’s is freely available “Ann Rev of microbiology” www.annualreviews.org/content/jour... This is a compilation of world’s fastest single cell organisms - enjoy this buffet of rare delightful protists with mind bending speeds. 🧪

אם את לא רוצה להתחיל עם משהו יקר ומסורבל, יש את המיקרוסקופ המתקפל שפיתחו במעבדה של @prakashlab.bsky.social foldscope.com

From the abstract, they define “a unique playground merging top-down cellular physiology and classical branching morphogenesis with bottom-up non-equilibrium mineralization processes at the interface of living and non-living matter” 👏👏👏

Congrats @laurentformery.bsky.social Often people ask why we chose to work on a certain problems and a simple answer for us in this case - it’s beautiful. If you want to learn the magic of building crystalline « gems » inside the body - see our latest paper at www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Animal origami: The physics of nature’s folds 🧪 #Scicomm #Nature knowablemagazine.org/content/arti...

Life knows how to keep going - even if it’s freezing -15 degrees C 🥶 outside. AGU just covered our discovery of ultra resistant ice diatoms gliding into a world record! 🧪🔬Enjoy the story here: eos.org/articles/ice...

Microscopic diatoms are “the microbial backbone of the entire ecosystem,” says @prakashlab.bsky.social. All Arctic species, including the smallest ones, are threatened by climate change. 🧪🦠

““Ice is an incredible porous architecture of highways,” Prakash explained. “Light comes from the top in the ice column, and nutrients come from the bottom. There is an optimal location that [a diatom] might want to be, and that can only be possible with motility.”“

“Scientists used to think that sea ice was simply an inactive barrier on the ocean surface, but discoveries like these reveal that sea ice is a rich habitat full of biological diversity and innovation,”

#ProtistsOnSky (XS Torvill and Dean)

Life knows how to keep going - even if it’s freezing -15 degrees C 🥶 outside. AGU just covered our discovery of ultra resistant ice diatoms gliding into a world record! 🧪🔬Enjoy the story here: eos.org/articles/ice...

Want to engage and « do something » about microplastics in your own environment. Consider joining the foldscope community that has been mapping novel sources of microplastics around the world. microcosmos.foldscope.com/post/zCoLNt3...

Worried about microplastics around you. We are excited about utilization of our low cost Raman microscopy tools in identifying microplastic pollution - from human body to California beaches to deep ocean. Read the story here: news.stanford.edu/stories/2025... www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Excited to be returning to MIT to give a talk at MIT Biology tomorrow - after nearly a decade and a half. This campus has changed so much and yet almost nothing has changed. If you are in the area and want to join for a little “joy ride around the planet” searching for oddities of the living world!

👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀

For last 10 years - we have worked with thousands of organizations around the world helping support them in integrating foldscope programs. To bring in a new cohort of organizations - we are re-launching “fast and curious” 2025 edition - apply and get a Foldscope trainer and Foldscopes for free!

🔬 Free microscopes + teacher training! 📅 Applications are now open. To apply, visit www.foldscope.com or scan the QR code (video) ✉️ Any questions? Email us at [email protected] #stem #education #science #teachers #training #free #microscopy #educators #professionaldevelopment #microscope

🚨Calling all SciFri Fans in the Bay Area🚨 🎉 SciFri is going LIVE in Redwood City, California! Join us and @KQED for a special 2-hour live show. And yes, ToddlerBot will be there. 🤖 🎟️ Grab your tickets now and use code SCIFRI50 for 50% off! 🔗 buff.ly/HxfLJjc

Happy Science Friday! Here’s what we’re covering today on the show. Listen on your local public radio station, 2-4 p.m. ET. 🐙 🍄🎧

Congratulations Grace!!!! So great to talk with her this summer in Portland about symbioses in non-model systems :)

A fantastic walk into the land of ideas - and now we have a new PhD in the house - congratulations Dr Grace Zhong. That was a spectacular defense covering everything from biophysics to neuroscience to symbiosis and actin-driven motility. So proud of this wonderful moment!

Read the full story: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... Learn more from @stanford.edu : news.stanford.edu/stories/2025... #Arctic #SeaIce #Diatoms #Ecology #Microbiology

Did you know tiny algae can "skate" within Arctic sea ice? ⛸️ Our new study in @pnas.org reveals the secret life of ice diatoms: they are actively gliding to navigate the ice! This adds a new dimension to the sea ice ecosystem, revealing an active, dynamic ecological niche. @prakashlab.bsky.social

Point vocabulaire : On est passés de "innovation/recyclage ingénieux aka jugaad" cher à Manu Prakash par ex (pour lequel j'ai fait des illus pour son projet Foldscope) à "Frankenstein laptops repair markets", quel monde.

Manu Prakash practices “recreational biology,” a scientific approach that explores life in the same playful way that puzzles probe math. “Basic science is not at the service of something, but the groundwork that is our entire society’s foundation.” www.quantamagazine.org/how-paradoxi...