John Sebastian

New paper!💡 Amir Ohad developed this nifty setup to measure weak forces generated by freely moving plants, based on the deflection of a pendulum (straw from the cafeteria 😎), which does not require any tethering of the plant: academic.oup.com/jxb/advance-...
Plant-obstacle interactions here we come!

“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. 🧪

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...

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...

Sharpen your knives! High-speed video analysis reveals that blunt knives and faster cutting speeds release more eye-irritating droplets from onions by building pressure under the onion’s skin before the ejection of the tear-inducing aerosols. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/5rc750Xcvhj

One day in the lab, we accidentally discovered that the spines of a cactus 🌵 straighten when exposed to fog. I was intrigued and so were my collaborators. How does this work and what can be gained from it? Here are some of the answers in our new preprint:
doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Our new study from Joanne Steiner’s PhD work and with C. Morize, P. Gondret, and I. Delbende has just been published in Phys. Rev. Fluids! We study vortex rings generated when a disk moves toward or away from a wall. doi.org/10.1103/ynxr...

What a great discovery and story!!

🚨Don’t miss out! Last weeks left to register for the Plant Computational Biology Workshop 2025, sponsored by @cambup-lifesci.cambridge.org 🌱
📆Deadline 31 July - www.slcu.cam.ac.uk/computationa...
#ComputationalBiology #PlantSci

wolfram alpha logo (dodecahedral star thing) and a similar floor tile one from Venice

Inverted Wolfram Alpha logo spotted at St. Mark's basilica in Venice

Interface Focus: Vol 15, No 2

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

Help us record firefly flashes! 👇🙏

Reversible kink instability drives ultrafast jumping in nematodes and soft robots A soft jumping robot inspired by nematodes demonstrates ultrafast jumping using reversible kink instability and stiffness.

Excited to share our new work in @science.org #Robotics that shows how reversible kinks can help nematodes perform jumps 1000 times faster than you can blink! scim.ag/4iDIa1i
🧵:
Work co-led by @chemicalsunnyraj.bsky.social , @itiwari93.bsky.social and Victor Ortega-Jimenez with many other colleagues

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

On the shape of air bubbles trapped in ice | PNAS Water usually contains dissolved gases, and because freezing is a purifying process these gases must be expelled for ice to form. Bubbles appear at...

5/ Read more :

🔗 Popular science article FR : www.espci.psl.eu/fr/actualite...
🔗 Full publication in PNAS: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

A new article with @sreeramr.bsky.social is out in JCIS! We study the dynamics of droplets of fiber suspensions impacting surfaces, a topic important for coating processes and additive manufacturing, among others doi.org/10.1016/j.jc... @univofmaryland.bsky.social @ucsbengineering.bsky.social

Join us! 🌺

Advertisement for an advanced course in Udine, Italy 🇮🇹 this summer ☀️. Learn about mechanics for the fabrication and programming of soft robots 🦑. cism.it/en/activities/…
organized along with @joelmarthelot.bsky.social

Congrats, mate!

The Gallery of Soft Matter 2025 @apsdsoft.bsky.social has some amazing entries this year. Check them out here: engage.aps.org/dsoft/galler....
Make sure to vote! Not sure about the deadline, but there’s a QR code at the DSOFT table with all the details.

Lineup from our group at the @APS Global Summit: We will be covering studies on fluids, grains, drops, and suspensions! More details below.

Bioengineer and cell biologist Manu Prakash on embracing and sharing the joy of science The importance of studying nature in its true “playground” and more from Dr. Prakash.

…because one inspired person can make remarkable discoveries that a thousand others might not see right in front of them.”

www.cell.com/news-do/50-i...

Happy holidays! Share the joy of science this holiday season.

This happens thanks to a rapid increase in the insect’s blood pressure. We measured it: the pressure builds up, reaches a plateau, and the wings deploy!

Appreciate it!

👋
john-seb.github.io

Discussing this work (@ Journal Club) already this Friday!