Bhamla Lab @ Georgia Tech

<i>Chondronema passali</i> The horned passalus beetle ( Odontotaenius disjunctus )  is an insect that is commonly found in rotting logs. These beetles do more than jus...

How much stress would a wood beetle get if the wood beetle was filled with worms?

Horned passalus beetles can have dozens to thousands of worms squirming inside them - and these worms can affect how their host responds to stress
#invertebrate 🧪
dailyparasite.blogspot.com/2023/06/chon...

Domesticated animals have pulled our heavy carts and turned our large mills for centuries. But what about the opposite end of the spectrum—what if the wheel you want to turn is so small you can’t see it?

Turns out we can harness the power of bacteria to power the world’s smallest machines.

1/7 ⚛️🧪

Expanded mouse olfactory bulb imaged with fluorescence at 20-50 nm resolution!

Ingenious concept - light sheet on serial sections by photo-etching the expanded hydrogel, layer by layer.

Photo-sectioning is quite slow, and the volumetric images are insanely large and complex, but the data look wonderful.

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Welcome to all the new Packard Fellows- this is an incredible community. I look forward to meeting you at the reunion!

Also, huge congrats to my colleague @jameststroud.bsky.social! Can't wait to see what you discover in your long-term eco/evo experiment, Lizard Island!

This is my 1st time catching my pet archer fish, Legolas, spitting on camera. Archerfish use modified jaw and tongue bones to fire a jet of water to knock down bugs from over hanging vegetation. Here Legolas is shooting down a fruit fly 🪰 🐠🧪

EXPEDITION - Field Scientist in Ocean & Expedition (Global) | Expedition at Viking Cruises Apply for EXPEDITION - Field Scientist job with Viking Cruises in Ocean & Expedition (Global). Expedition at Viking Cruises

🦑🧪 Job doing fieldwork (on ships) with Viking Cruises. Full-time position = ? Salary = ?

I usually don't post without more detail, but the job market is weird right now! And this would be a fun fit for someone, and I'm not sure if it'll hit the usual job feeds

www.vikingcareers.com/global/en/jo...

In another exciting development our new preprint is online:
www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...

This is the work of my brilliant graduate student Katerina Kourkoulou in collaboration with Maggie Liu and Arnold Mathijssen. Here is a video of the subject of our study:

Congrats!!!

How Nobel favorites have fared Over the first six and a half decades, the leading vote-getters received the award that same year less than half the time.

Here's an interesting look into the Nobel Physics Prize nominating process up to the early 1970's. It's a reminder that it's never only been about the science. And that the human factors in science arise especially in recognition of work.

🧪
pubs.aip.org/physicstoday...

Flagellar gliding in choanoflagellates Freire-Delgado and Brunet discover a new mode of cell motility in choanoflagellates, the closest relatives of animals. Under mild confinement, choanoflagellate move over surfaces without cell deformat...

New short paper from our lab @currentbiology.bsky.social, in which we discover of a new mode of cell motility for choanoflagellates: flagellar gliding. www.cell.com/current-biol... - A 🧵

Rapid Ripple Bugs — The Bhamla Lab How insects harness tIny fans to surf turbulent streams

Ripple bugs are aquatic insects about the size of a grain of rice, and it turns out that they can surf! 🦟🏄

A recent discovery by team @bhamlalab.bsky.social ‬found that these insects harness tiny fans to surf streams and glide across fast-flowing water.

More at: bhamla.gatech.edu/project-blog...

We are all super happy and proud to see our work on the function and evolution of the #cephalic #furrow published in @nature.com. Let me say a few things about the background and history of this work on the #Evolution_of_Morphogenesis (1/12)

Earth poetry in the Arctic: a window into another world Lucinda Duxbury’s favourite place is onboard the research vessel (RV) JOIDES Resolution. She’s seeking traces of ancient DNA within Arctic sediments. This

More insights into the life of a scientist cosmosmagazine.com/science/biol.... 🧪 #arctic

Big thanks to our team in @mbarinews.bsky.social Bioinspiration Lab and @moorefound.bsky.social for the wonderful feature and support as we developed EyeRIS. You can learn more about how we use this imaging system to study 🦑🌊🧪 from this 🧵: bsky.app/profile/kaka.... #onwardsanddownwards

How to Cut Through the Noise I'm not shouting.

Advice about sending your message in a noisy environment, from some birds with unusual eyelids: elizabethgpreston.substack.com/p/how-to-cut... 🧪

Can cellular life be created in the lab? We are not yet there, but clearly getting closer! Check this paper where a new scenario for protocell replication is presented by Job Boekhoven and co-workers @manlius.bsky.social www.cell.com/chem/pdf/S24...

This is a really exciting collab with Simon Rogers at Illinois. We're creating a rheological framework to characterize the mechanical behavior of granular materials. We're using it to improve 3D tissue printing & study dynamic processes like cell-mediated remodeling & aging. Supported by NIH. 🧪

More #SciArt comics, and perfect timing for #InverteFest!

Wall Tile

Wall Tile https://www.slam.org/collection/objects/13310/

Beautiful discovery and patient unraveling of a cellular mystery 🕵🏼‍♂️

Altogether, our results suggest that supergiants could serve as a bet-hedging strategy involving a tradeoff between dispersal versus the exploitation of a new trophic niche as a growing population reaches carrying capacity.

9/n

Scanning electron microscopy images of different morphs of Euplotes gigatrox

We found that this Euplotes isolate was in fact a previously undescribed species, displaying a highly polymorphic phenotype, including supergiant cannibals and also winged, "defensive" morphs, captured by SEM by Sam Lord. We named the species "gigatrox" in reference to the fierce supergiants.

4/n

A very large Euplotes cell surrounded by several normal sized cells

After picking cells to start cultures and then neglecting them for weeks, I began to notice the sporadic appearance of very large cells. During a visit to the Keeling lab, Vittorio Boscaro suggested these cells might be cannibals, as described in other protist species including some Euplotes.

3/n

What could be more exciting than watching Euplotes scurry around under the microscope? How about adding some raptorial predation by supergiant cannibal cells?

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Video by Vittorio Boscaro.

1/n

Ripple bugs use a special fan-like structure on their middle legs to speed and steer through turbulent waters. In a new Science study, researchers report a water-walking robot inspired by this feature.

Learn more in our latest issue: https://scim.ag/3V8FjDU

New SciComic!
Check it out!

Folks the paper is on the cover of the latest issue of Science.

New comic about the science of water strider bugs! Was great working with Bhamla Lab on this, check out the paper upthread.

This is fantastic research and even better outreach!!

Featured on the cover of science