So why do I let AI in my house? Don’t I care about the environmental consequences? What about the theft of intellectual property? Don’t I understand that these are bullshit machines? Yes, yes, yes, and yes. It’s what I do all day long.

I don't mean to shatter anyone's illusions about the academy, but there's literally no information anyone ever got from a professor that wasn't always also available from... reading.

Musk FRS.

The advert for the second (wetlab) postdoc is now live www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

How do cells navigate up gradients of adhesive proteins? 🤔 Termed "Haptotaxis", this effect is ubiquitous in cell migration, but it's mechanism was poorly understood We show that passive friction directs cells & explains complex trajectories on gradients 👉 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🚨 Excited to introduce FuChi (Fucci chicken), the first avian cell cycle reporter line. Thank you to all those who contributed to putting this paper together. I really think it showcases the power and beauty of the chick embryo as a developmental biology model. 🐥 🥚 🔬 @roslininstitute.bsky.social

"When we design tools that welcome different ways of sensing and thinking, we open new reaction pathways for discovery. Inclusive design doesn’t just widen participation; it expands the very structure-function relationship of science itself." cen.acs.org/careers/dive...

Join us at SFU for a 2-year Mekler Postdoctoral Fellowship in mathematical biology to work with me and Ailene MacPherson. Apply at www.mathjobs.org/jobs/list/27... by Nov 15.

Well. The RS is clearly feeling the heat. They could have saved themselves the embarrassment months ago. How did they ever imagine this wasn't going to get even worse?

The advert for the first of these positions (computational/mathematical synbio) is live! www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

IDFC has something special up for y'all: a post co-written with Dr Andrew Krause on the Newman-Sagan model of interstellar civilisation growth, and applying it to both Starfleet and the Romulan Star Empire before and immediately after first contact. Comes complete with interactive graphical model!

📣 Delighted to announce the first edition of the 𝗪𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗻 𝗶𝗻 𝗠𝗮𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗕𝗶𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘆 Day, to take place in Oxford on 𝗙𝗿𝗶𝗱𝗮𝘆, 𝗢𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝟭𝟳𝘁𝗵, with lots of exciting work at the interface of mathematics and biology. 🔗 For more information: sites.google.com/view/oxwmath...

We're working on some exciting new features for VisualPDE, but we want to hear from you! Whether you're a regular user or just tried it once, we'd love your feedback on how you use the tool. It’s a super short survey (promise)! 👇Fill it out here: forms.office.com/Pages/Respon...

Complex behaviour is not limited to animals! Here we map the entire spectrum of waveforms dynamics on a quadriflagellate single cell with 4x 70um (!) #cilia, to a low dimensional behavioural manifold with surprising structure! #protistsonsky All revealed in our new preprint doi.org/10.1101/2025...

As someone who collects genetic defects and chronic illnesses like Pokémon, I heartily agree with this piece! "Adversity is not worth the price of adversity." "We fought and lost, and fought and lost, and then one day we fought and won." www.noahpinion.blog/p/toward-a-s...

I'll admit, I was skeptical when they said Gemini was just like a bunch of PhDs. But I gotta admit they nailed it.

One week left to apply

With respect to biology, I feel we are still very much pre-Newtonian (ie we are still missing THE fundamental paradigm or theoretical framework ), and I really do not understand how people sincerely think we can get to the Moon in 10 years.

5 dynamical systems concepts every developmental biologist needs to know! This came out of the 2023 Morphogenesis Program. @pauformosa.bsky.social ‪@perez-carrasco.bsky.social‬ journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

Workshop on "Modelling Diffusive Systems: Theory and Applications" (MoDiS) @ Erwin Schrödinger Institute (ESI), Vienna, Austria Dates: 26-30 Jan 2026. Apply before 15 September. sites.google.com/view/modis20...

🚨Job alert in theory/math devbio 🚨 I’m currently advertising postdoc positions to join my group. We’re building reaction-diffusion models to understand some of the crazy things embryos can do. We are based in a beautiful part of Scotland :). Please share! www.abdnjobs.co.uk/vacancy/rese...

Our review on dynamical systems of fate and form in development!

from a 2022 paper with @gyllingberg.bsky.social & @soccermatics.bsky.social The lost art of mathematical modelling www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

The fact that trans people are a tiny minority asking for mostly incredibly cheap and unobtrusive accommodations must be utterly obfuscated in the UK. There's well placed people in our media and political class whose self image as liberal and tolerant cannot survive acknowledging this basic reality.

As the parent of a type-I diabetic, I would like to invite the ignorant piece of shit currently directing the FDA to kiss my ass.

New paper out in @pnas.org We followed cells migrating along signalling gradients in 3D, and found they collectively behave as a living droplet - a self-propelling fluid that grows. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

In this endearing 1923 caricature by his mother, 11-year-old Alan Turing gazes at daisies instead of playing hockey. Decades later, he’d explore phyllotaxis—the spiral patterns in plants—using a 'digital computer', in one of his final works, cut short by his untimely death in 1954.

Interested in Developmental Mechanics??? We are organizing a mechanobiology workshop in Baeza, Spain, October 21-23, 2025. Come join us (and please help us spread the word)!!!

We’re advertising an @iapetusdtp.bsky.social undergraduate summer research experience project on ‘Ecosystem Resilience in a Changing Climate’, with me, @blindmath.bsky.social, Denis Patterson & @tjohnwainwright.bsky.social. Please share with your undergrads! iapetus2.ac.uk/wp-content/u...

Undergrad in the life sciences? Want to do a research placement over the summer but also need a job - NERC are running the REP scheme again, paid summer research placements to widen participation in the life sciences. Details here iapetus2.ac.uk/new-rep-sche...

This very cool paper, and Carl's very nice short thread describing the value of basic research in biology, may be of interest to @thecopperdoctor.bsky.social @oneofmanychris.bsky.social and others.

12 examples of how developmental biology research led to fundamental discoveries for biomedical research. There are many more! Download ppt & jpg versions on @socdevbio.bsky.social website. Use & modify as needed. Poster formats are also posted to print & hang in your lab!

1/35 New paper out! @jamesTstroud and I dive into why long-term studies are crucial for understanding evolution. They reveal processes impossible to detect in short timescales and capture rare events that transform our understanding of evolutionary dynamics. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Fully-funded PhD opportunity in mathematical biology and applied mathematics with Pascal Buenzli and me at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia. Details at smb.org/Member-Forum... @smbmathbiology.bsky.social

KLAXON 🚨: Indie SAGE has come out of retirement to release a new short report standing up for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the sciences! DEI is not just the right thing to do, it *improves* the quality of the science. Please read and share. independentsage.org/wp-content/u... 1/2

Turning myself into a Turing pattern (or nightmare fuel, depending on your perspective) is a fun way to end the day!

Here's a new #BulletinMathBio paper by @danielcooney1.bsky.social on Exploring the Evolution of Altruistic Punishment with a PDE Model of Cultural Multilevel Selection. link.springer.com/article/10.1... 🧪

Check out my 🧵on tricellular vertices!

I reshare this every few years. Please read it and remember: "Never forget what we are capable of, when we band together and declare battle on what is broken in the world." laneless.substack.com/p/500-millio...

Beyond all the improtant political issues here, I hope that some of the Fellows of the Royal Soc will speak up to remind peers that if the Code of Conduct is not applied and seen to be applied to powerful people, that provides a licence to the powerful to harrass and harm the vulnerable in STEM.

New preprint! “Mesoscopic heterogeneity of biomolecular condensates from sequence patterning.” We explore how the distribution and preferential crowding of cohesive and spacer polymer blocks dictate the rich organization we see in assemblies of proteins. arxiv.org/abs/2502.14587

We're advertising a fully-funded PhD project at Durham in understanding microbial ecology from a theoretical and multidisciplinary perspective! More details below. Feel free to email me, Denis Patterson, or @thecopperdoctor.bsky.social. March 31st deadline. www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

"Genes are... the easy part" @philipcball.bsky.social argues biologists need to embrace complexity from the start, rather than beginning with oversimplified "one gene, one trait" models +1 www.cell.com/cell-systems...

Theory/conceptual understanding of processes. We really need new ways of thinking to make sense of these increasingly large and complex datasets (as some of the respondents do suggest).

Excited to announce that registration for UK Maths Bio 2025 is open. We have an exciting list of confirmed speakers and are looking for more exciting talks and posters from the community. Please submit your abstract by 31 March 25. ukmathbioconference.github.io

‘Chemists fought no battles for Jews,’ historian Helmut Maier has said.1 ‘They fought no battles for immigrants. They only fought … a battle for their professional interests.’

This is how you do it. Thank you @sicbjournals.bsky.social Read their whole email to membership here mailchi.mp/sicb.org/sic...

Let's look at some cool bilateral cellular flows videos IMHO: this is a goldmine for #EpithelialMechanics Movie from Asai et al 2024 shows beautiful counter rotating flows.

The Midwest Mathematical Biology Seminar features speakers from the Midwest region and beyond. All areas of mathematical biology will be represented in the seminar series, and a goal for this seminar is to build connections and foster research collaborations.

Excited to announce the first UK Maths Bio Conference 4-5 September in Birmingham ukmathbioconference.github.io . Registration will open in a few weeks, save the date! Thanks to my amazing co-organisers Valeria, Kyle, Rachel and Phil for all their work planning the conference.