Living Physics Lab
Biological theory | “Cell learning” | Function spaces | Projection operators | Manifolds | Dynamics | Behavior | Evolution
livingphysics.org
Cambridge, UK
Living Physics Feed: tinyurl.com/living-physics
- 📖 Leemon B. McHenry reviews "The Life Organic: The Theoretical Biology Club and the Roots of Epigenetics" by Erik L. Peterson (@upittpress.bsky.social) in Process Studies Vol. 54, No. 2. cc: @ctr4process.bsky.social scholarlypublishingcollective.org/uip/ps/artic...
- How do cells adapt morphology to function? In a 🔥 preprint by @zjmaggiexu.bsky.social , with @dudinlab.bsky.social and @amyweeks.bsky.social , we identify a self-organizing single-cell morphology circuit that optimizes the feeding trap structure of the suctorian P. collini. 🧵 tinyurl.com/4k8nv926
- now i've seen everything... 😱 don't care what anybody says but #protists are cognitive
- Zoë Blade, who’s been creating music for my videos for years, is on Spotify! Her version of “On the Hills of Manchuria” was featured in the CONSPIRACY video: open.spotify.com/track/0WLiK0...
- 🚨 Late preprint alert! Why do biological process rates scale nonlinearly with temperature, deviating from the straight line on an Arrhenius plot? The key may lie in their inherent complexity! More in thread and here: doi.org/10.1101/2025...
- We have a bunch of new job ads out @arcadiascience.com. If you haven’t checked them out, take a look! www.arcadiascience.com/careers
- Well hey, I got new sunglasses as a belated birthday present for myself (•_•) ( •_•)>⌐□-□ (⌐□_□)
- In the early days of quantum chemistry, before we had computers to calculate the shapes of electron orbitals, one man invented a mechanical machine that simulated their shapes. My latest column for @chemistryworld.com www.chemistryworld.com/opinion/the-...
- Apply for our Master of Science in Physics of Life – training in cutting-edge research at the interface of physics, mathematics, engineering and life sciences. Scholarships available. Application deadline: 30 November. More: www.biozentrum.unibas.ch/education/de... @biozentrum.unibas.ch @unibas.ch
- Have you submitted your abstract for #EESCollectivity? No? It's about time! This new event will discuss how collective behaviours arise from fundamental principles across biological systems, from cells to animal groups. 🦠🐾 👉 Join us and submit your abstract by 18 Nov: s.embl.org/ees26-01-bl
- Torkel E Loman, Ruth E Baker Functional and parametric identifiability for universal differential equations applied to chemical reaction networks arxiv.org/abs/2510.14140
- Instantly feel young again with this one simple trick: I asked my 3 year old nephew how old he thought I was, and he said 6. Then I asked how old my brother (his dad) was, and he said 100.
- We’re looking to fund short discovery projects to build community and dive into potential research directions for a programme and within our Trust Everything, Everywhere opportunity space, led by PD Alex Obadia. Find out more + apply by 12 November: link.aria.org.uk/TEE-disc-BS
- Happy to share our latest in @natcomputsci.nature.com led by (amazing) Ryan Krueger + colab w M. Brenner! We introduce a framework to directly design intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) from physics-based simulations. 🧬 doi.org/10.1038/s435... 📰 www.mccormick.northwestern.edu/news/article...
- testing the exact 3D printer settings to retain a #makerbeam
- Oh this is useful! Can you share the outcome?
- For the Bambu P1S - 10.3mm square hole; 2.5mm wide and 2mm depth pegs (could be deeper than this, I didn't try)
- Our next book: "Making the Modern Laboratory" An illustrated, coffee table-sized volume, it covers the origins of the machines, organisms and tools used in modern biology research. More importantly, it's a call to imagine the FUTURE of the laboratory. Come help us write it!
- Read and pitch an idea: press.asimov.com/articles/ma...
- I adored writing this piece. It brings together several of the things preoccupying me right now, like chromatin organization and gene regulation. There's so much more to be said on that. Also, these marine critters look gorgeous. www.quantamagazine.org/loops-of-dna...
- Some scientists aren’t waiting for journals to catch up. They’re showing us what’s next. The Beyond the Journal awards honor those breaking the mold in how science is shared. More details: pracheeac.substack.com/p/off-roadin... Nominate or self-nominate here: www.experiment.foundation/beyond
- What’s the greatest hurdle in improving food security: the science or the system? Join us on 16 October to hear from an expert panel + ARIA Creators and get a taste of tomorrow’s crops. Register here: link.aria.org.uk/VC-WFD-BS
- Reading group alert!🔔 This term, our History and Philosophy of Biology reading group will be reading 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘖𝘯𝘵𝘰𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘐𝘯𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 (2000) by Susan Oyama. Online participants welcome! More details here: www.hps.cam.ac.uk/news-events/...
- After a long time in the making, my paper on nonequilibrium thermodynamics of Darwinian evolution has been published in Philosophical Transactions B. Updated version: arxiv.org/abs/2112.02809
- "Universal Biology: The Physics of Life through the Macro-Micro Consistency Principle" will be soon published from Cambridge Univ Press. Brief introduction is here:https://cambridgeblog.org/2025/10/universal-biology/
- Hi fellow C. elegans scientists, I've made a few videos that may be of use for new trainees working in worm labs. Hoping to add more in the future, but figured I'd share this resource as is in case it's helpful :) www.youtube.com/@Workingwith...
- Excited to share a new pre-print in collaboration with @sebastianschreiber.bsky.social, "Using Modern Coexistence Theory to understand community disassembly"! We set out to understand how techniques used to study coexistence can be extended to understand community disassembly. (1/X)
- So happy to see my first first-author paper published! 🎈 A short thread on how Ectocarpus and its TE secrets have kept me busy lately: rdcu.be/eITQH
- Pitzer is a writer with a voice that more should heed. Worth the subscription (and her books are off-scale). degenerateart.beehiiv.com/subscribe?re...
- Can pressure gradients persist over long timescales in animal cells? We induced intracellular pressure gradients and examined the resulting flows in single cells. We reveal surprisingly long lasting pressure gradients. More here: elifesciences.org/reviewed-pre...
- Does phenotypic plasticity promote (Baldwin effect) or hinder (Mayr) genetic adaptation? Lambert et al. mathematically show that when adaptive plasticity increases, the Baldwin effect increases, peaks then decreases as plasticity begins to mask selection. www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
- Friday Flower 004: Hibiscus trionum 🌺✨ Hibiscus trionum displays a dark bullseye in the center that acts as a landing pad for pollinators 🎯 The bullseye is made by a developmental boundary delineating distinct cell shapes and pigments.
- Five years after we started it, I'm super happy to share that Works in Progress is now available as a print magazine! 🥹 It'll have everything on web and more. You can subscribe today for $100/£75 to receive 6 beautiful, 120-page issues of our magazine a year. worksinprogress.co/print
- This looks really cool!
- 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...
- New post! A round up of the latest advances in biotech and medicine by @nikomccarty.bsky.social and me. Prime editing, curing whipworm, a new narcolepsy drug, designing protein nanoparticles, the 3D structure of E. coli's genome and more! Read it all here: www.worksinprogress.news/p/whats-new-...
We're looking for highly motivated candidates for PhD positions in the physics of living systems. Our group uses theoretical physics to understand how cells collectively self-organize. If you're interested, get in touch & check out the Biozentrum PhD Fellowship program, deadline October 12th!- Apply now for the prestigious and independent #BiozentrumPhDFellowships. Great science. Unique rotation-based selection of research group and other incentives. The summer call is open until October 12, 2025. bit.ly/4caiqqX @biozentrum.unibas.ch @unibas.ch #fellowship #PhD#Switzerland
- Do tune in if you can bsky.app/profile/comp...
- Dear fellow nonequilibrium beings a.k.a. vertebrates on Bluesky, We are a group of (mainly) physicists studying everything interesting in biology. Happy to seek this new platform!
- Call for a research scientist position (indefinite-term) in our group. Deadline: October 15 www.riken.jp/en/careers/r...
- Interesting: Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi have lost DNA polymerase genes in a lineage-specific fashion.
- I’m super happy to present the first discoveries of the RIKEN-Cambridge Joint Crop Symbiosis Research Team, based in Japan 🇯🇵 doi.org/10.1101/2025... A thread 👇
- Where are memories stored in the brain? The textbook answer is that memories live in the synaptic connections between neurons. But there's long been a dissenting view, and it's showing signs of revival. From the archive, our interview with @gershbrain.bsky.social! Listen: disi.org/of-molecules...
- I can
- Grateful to plants for teaching me patience.
- I’m super happy to present the first discoveries of the RIKEN-Cambridge Joint Crop Symbiosis Research Team, based in Japan 🇯🇵 doi.org/10.1101/2025... A thread 👇
- Published: Noise equals control. I detail an explicit mapping between stochastic systems and control theory, showing how goal-directed behaviour arises from purely causal stochastic systems. Illustrated with stochastic resonance & Brownian ratchets journals.aps.org/pre/abstract...
- Just out in press in eLife, a cool and brilliant piece of work by @amywebster.bsky.social: Gene expression variation across genetically identical individuals predicts reproductive traits. elifesciences.org/articles/106...
- Chlamydomonas cpc1-1 mutant exhibits unexpected growth phenotypes
- In crater Lake Masoko one fish species is splitting into shallow and deep-living ecotypes occupying different light environments. New research shows their visual systems are diverging, and how colours of male eggspots have changed to maximise their visibility. doi.org/10.1093/molb...
- 📢We're #hiring Group Leaders! Apply to lead a lab at Janelia & advance biology using theory, computational modeling & machine learning. 🔹5-year renewable appointment 🔹Pioneer new tools & approaches 🔹Collaborate across disciplines Apply by Nov. 4👉 janelia.link/groupleader
- The latest issue of Scientific American is the 180th anniversary, and they have a series of articles about "180 degree turnarounds" in science. Here's mine on RNA.
- Beatiful article @tobykiers.bsky.social ! Source: NPR search.app/tP7Ep
