If you're interested in any combination of elasticity, surface tension and biology, please check out the latest issue of Interface Focus on "Capillarity and Elastocapillarity in Biology": royalsocietypublishing.org/toc/rsfs/202... @royalsocietypublishing.org

Published this week in @pnas.org: A thin sheet folds deeply from a small, localized pull. No patterning, no compression — just geometry. We call it #TUG_Folding — a new instability with α ∝ ε³⁄⁴. 🔗https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2423439122 @mathobservatory.bsky.social @unibirmingham.bsky.social

Buckling normally happens when you compress something slender, but 'tug' on a piece of crumpled paper at two points and it also buckles. Read more about how this "localized-TUG folding" occurs in many systems at: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2423439122

Fresh off the press, our work on wing deployment in Drosophila 🪰: www.nature.com/articles/s41... Work by: Simon Hadjaje, Ignacio Andrade-Silva, Marie-Julie Dalbe and Raphaël Clément

Last night I had the opportunity of sharing some bite size pieces of my research in biological sensing with St John’s undergrads at the Christmas Maths Seminar. Thanks to everyone for the questions and the tutors for setting everything up!

Read about how the squirting cucumber (Ecballium elaterium) disperses its seeds in a high pressure jet here: doi.org/10.1073/pnas... (or just watch the movie)