Of the myth My mother told me I cried in her womb. They told her: he will be lucky. Someone spoke to me all the days of my life in my ear, slow, slowly. They said: live, live, live! It was death. —Jaime Sabines, Mexican poet

A dream come true: in 2004 I started thinking about counting microstates to predict gene expression with Jane Kondev Rob Phillips Hernan Garcia. 20 years later we can measure them: nature.com/articles/s4158… Thank you William J. Greenleaf Benjamin Doughty Michaela Hinks Julia and all co-authors!

KITP's Munger Physics Residence is situated within a compact hub that provides habitat to wildlife, protects native plant populations, and showcases some of this region’s abundant biodiversity. kitp.ucsb.edu/news/nature-at… #ucsb

If you like Wallace's tweetorial and are going to ASCB, look out for my talk Tues. Dec 17th on how the microtubule cytoskeleton dictates RNA regionalization in Stentor! #cellbio2024 #stentor #protist #NIHMOSAIC

Who up reading Diogenes the Cynic during these troubled times (again)? Few capture the alternating hilarity and horror as well as he.

MBL's Josh Rosenthal and the Woods Hole squid he studies, are the subject of this great story by on NPR. capeandislands.org/2024-12-05/mas…

Excited to share the latest work from postdocs Ameya! अमेय! and Zack! We thought about how multinucleate cells are able to maintain N:C ratio, and found a condensate rheostat that regulates translation of cell cycle + growth mRNAs.

check out my new dispatch article with Wallace Marshall in Current Biology about cellular cognition! cell.com/current-biolog…

if it's behind a paywall for you, here's the pdf: online.fliphtml5.com/UCSFcellbio/oi…

I'm ultra excited about our preprints on mitochondrial pearling! In two concurrent collaborative studies with Wallace Marshall, we investigated its consequences on mtDNA nucleoids (led by Juan Cruz Landoni ) and its biophysical causes (led by @gavsturm). Funders HFSP, ERC, SNSF

But what triggers pearling & how can we make sense of distinct morphological changes? We pinpoint several perturbations that differentially impact membrane tension, elasticity, or osmotic pressure, and present a unifying framework: t.ly/yTsPr Collab w/ Calico

In the richest country on earth, millions of Americans work for starvation wages. Many states have done the right thing and raised their minimum wage. Now Congress must act. No U.S worker should live in poverty. I will reintroduce a bill to raise the minimum wage to $17 an hour.

In our December By the Numbers, Sujit Datta discusses how scaling arguments, dimensional analysis, and chemical engineering fundamentals can be used to describe microbial swimming. Datta Lab Article link ($): nature.com/articles/s4428… Free read PDF: rdcu.be/d5MRz

Just reported a 3.7 earthquake off of the San Francisco coast at 7:02 AM PST. Did you feel it? Report here by clicking on the "Felt Report - Tell Us!" earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/ev…

Highly recommend it!

I attended Trump’s inauguration yesterday. Here are my thoughts:

In 1976, E. M. Purcell used scaling arguments & dimensional analysis to describe the fascinating physics of swimming microbes. These two articles in Nature Chemical Engineering follow that tradition! ➡️ doi.org/10.1038/s44286… (individual cells) ➡️ nature.com/articles/s4428… (collectives) [1/5]

UC Santa Barbara is honoring Black History Month. Stay tuned as we highlight achievements, history, and look to the future this month and beyond.

Throughout February, UC San Diego invites you to join in a campuswide celebration of Black History Month. This year, we're exploring "Black Contributions to Labor: Honoring Our Legacy, Inspiring the Future." Don't miss out—register for events at blackhistorymonth.ucsd.edu.

“… without scientific progress no amount of achievement in other directions can insure our health, prosperity, and security as a nation in the modern world." >50 years ago, more relevant today than ever. see this piece by Princeton University 's Tilghman: doi.org/10.1091/mbc.e1…