Sachin Rawat

With Tom Lehrer's passing, I suppose this is a moment to share the story of the prank he played on the National Security Agency, and how it went undiscovered for nearly 60 years.

Cicadas Decide to Sing with a Little Help from Their Friends The daily start of a cicada’s mating call is triggered by the amount of light in the sky and also by the behavior of nearby insects.

Researchers studied recordings of cicadas to discover that the insects’ singing is synchronized with the Sun's position in the sky. The rapid rise in volume suggests that each cicada starts singing in response to both the light level and its neighbors' behavior.

Thanks to De-Ming Liu (one of the study authors) and @robjohnnoble.bsky.social for the comments.

Game-Theory Paradox Inspires Cancer Therapy Simulations suggest that the combination of two cancer-therapy strategies, which individually deliver poor outcomes, might produce optimal results.

🧪 Often, in a counterintuitive phenomenon called Parrondo’s paradox, two losing strategies can be combined into a winning one.

✍🏽 For @physicsmagazine.bsky.social, I wrote about a new study on harnessing this paradox for cancer treatment. physics.aps.org/articles/v18... #MathOnco

A do-or-die moment for the scientific enterprise Reflecting on our paper “The entities enabling scientific fraud at scale are large, resilient, and growing rapidly”

Today, our article "The entities enabling scientific fraud at scale are large, resilient, and growing rapidly" is finally published in PNAS. I hope that it proves to be a wake-up-call for the whole scientific community.

reeserichardson.blog/2025/08/04/a...

Brokers of scientific fraud growing rapidly, study finds Publishers are not keeping up with paper mills and other purveyors of shoddy academic papers

Companies that broker and facilitate scientific fraud are large, resilient, and growing rapidly, according to a new study. cen.acs.org/policy/publi... #chemsky 🧪

We have reams of evidence - including this new paper - that obesity is much more about food than exercise.

Calories in matters way more than calories out.
www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1...

Thanks to @simonepigolotti.bsky.social and @davidbrueckner.bsky.social for their time and insights.

The Secret Disorder of Squids A structural phenomenon traditionally confined to inanimate systems has now been observed in biology.

Many densely packed systems have a hidden structure. They seem random, but become uniform as you zoom out. Conversely, variation increases with scale in hyperdisorder. 🌌 🧪

✍🏽 New for Physics Magazine: A new study reports the first example of hyperdisorder in biology. physics.aps.org/articles/v18...

The Secret Disorder of Squids A structural phenomenon traditionally confined to inanimate systems has now been observed in biology.

Physics Magazine writes about our research on hyperdisordered patterns. Thanks @sachinxr.bsky.social for the article and @davidbrueckner.bsky.social for the quotes!

The only problem is that the citations go to papers that don't actually exist.

Colossal Biosciences Can't Have It Both Ways | Defector On April 7, the New Yorker and Time ran nearly identical stories that might be better described as press releases for the de-extinction company Colossal Biosciences. The two stories differed slightly:...

I wrote about how irritated I am by the latest Colossal misrepresentation.
defector.com/colossal-bio...

I read your article and tried the first tip haha.

😂

Astronomical twilight on Mars, including the moon Deimos. Taken by the Engineering Cameras aboard the Perseverance Rover.

No AI, this is a real photo taken by Percy’s engineering cameras of astronomical twilight on #Mars! You can see Deimos in the sky too.

I worked pretty hard to plan, execute, and analyze this image, and it came out beautifully! A bit noisy, but it was very dark out after all.

#astro #planetary

When Artificial Intelligence Takes Shortcuts, Patient Needs Can Get Lost | SIAM Artificial intelligence models may take shortcuts by drawing inferences based on incidental details rather than actual diagnostic factors.

Speaking of "AI" (since that's all we talk about anymore), my latest article on "AI" in medical imaging is up! When hospitals push this tech on doctors, it can lead to misdiagnoses or diagnoses on entirely wrong criteria: www.siam.org/publications...

If you stop collecting weather & climate data it does not have an impact on rising GHGs. They will still continue to grow if we continue to burn fossil fuels. And it certainly won't end droughts, floods, or extreme weather events. It will just make us less prepared for those disasters. 🧪🌊🔌💡☀️💨🔋

Halting Deforestation With Synthetic Biology-Produced Fats - SynBioBeta

🧪 The world has a seemingly insatiable appetite for fats and lipids but this high demand comes at a massive ecological cost.

✍🏽 For @synbiobeta.bsky.social, I wrote about sustainable, synthetic biology-based fat alternatives www.synbiobeta.com/read/halting...

Change of Heart—Literally: Engineered Cells Flip the Script on Organ Failure - SynBioBeta

🫀 As we age, heart muscle cells thicken and lose elasticity. Cellular damage marks cardiovascular and neurodegenerative disorders, fibrosis, etc. 🧪

✍️🏽 New for @synbiobeta.bsky.social: Regenerative cell therapies could reverse the damage, rejuvenating organs. www.synbiobeta.com/read/change-...

📌 New paper alert!!!

1/5 How is the spread of epidemics shaped by both random walks and commuting? We answer this question in this paper appeard in Physical Review E by @pvalganon.bsky.social, A Brotons, @sorianopanos.bsky.social & @gomezgardenes.bsky.social 👇

A red curved surface made from crochet with wire to give the edges definition, suspended from the top.

Red and blue crocheted surfaces that have wires around their edges. They are lopsided and sagging.

Blue crocheted surface being manipulated by two people whose arms and hands are visible.

#MathArtMarch Day 25 Chaos. In 2018, Julia and I crocheted twin Lorenz Manifolds from the pattern by Hinke Osinga. Not only is this a stable manifold in the Lorenz system, mounting them resulted in chaos of the colloquial kind. 80 hours of crochet, and countless hours of wrangling.

Galactic Gastronomy: The Science of Producing Food Beyond Earth - SynBioBeta

🚀 Growing food in situ will be critical for long-term space travel. Synthetic biology could enable resource-efficient and sustainable food production in space.

🧪 New for @synbiobeta.bsky.social. www.synbiobeta.com/read/galacti...

Decentralized Platforms Upending How Synthetic Biology is Done - SynBioBeta

🧪 Decentralized science platforms are changing how scientists fund, conduct, and publish research.

✍️🏾 For @synbiobeta.bsky.social, I write about what that means for building with #SyntheticBiology. www.synbiobeta.com/read/decentr...

Dozens of Clinical Trials Have Been Frozen in Response to Trump’s USAID Order The stop-work order on U.S.A.I.D.-funded research has left thousands of people with experimental drugs and devices in their bodies, with no access to monitoring or care.

Participants in clinical trials have been abandoned in the middle of clinical trials because of a Trump order. The stop-work order on USAID-funded research has left thousands w/ experimental drugs & devices in their bodies w/ no access to monitoring or care www.nytimes.com/2025/02/06/h...

Engineering Roots for Climate-Resilient Crops - SynBioBeta

New article by @synbiobeta.bsky.social and Sachin Rawat on the advances in synthetic biology driving innovation in climate resilient crop improvement. Interviews with myself, Claire Grierson (Univ. Bristol), Todd Michael (Salk, Cquesta), Karsten Temme (Pivotbio).
www.synbiobeta.com/read/enginee...

Engineering Roots for Climate-Resilient Crops - SynBioBeta

🧪🫚 Plants use roots to find water and nutrients, interact with soil microbes, and withstand environmental stresses. For @synbiobeta.bsky.social, I wrote about how engineering roots to upgrade these functions could make crops climate resilient. www.synbiobeta.com/read/enginee...

🧪 Interview request: I'm looking to interview a #PublicHealth researcher who could speak on how street-level weather forecasts can be used for urban public health. My DMs are open!

How Having Extra Chromosome Sets Shapes Evolution Researchers predict that having extra sets of chromosomes can both speed up and slow down the evolution of an organism, depending on the organism’s “fitness landscape.”

🧪 New for @physicsmagazine.bsky.social: Multiple chromosome sets dilute the impact of a single mutation. However, redundancy also allows for the gain of new functions. Does polyploidy speed up or slow down #evolution?

✍️🏽 I write about a new study on this puzzle. physics.aps.org/articles/v18...

🧪 Interview request: I'm looking to interview a #PublicHealth researcher who could speak on how street-level weather forecasts can be used for urban public health. My DMs are open!