Just published in @science.org 🚀

By controlling how cells align, we show that living nematic tissues can be programmed to generate forces and fold into predictable 3D shapes.

A new platform for tissue engineering and the design of smart active materials! 🫆

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

1/25 New paper out in PNAS! We show that the fitness costs of reproductive specialization, where somatic cells give up reproduction, scale inversely with organism size. Larger organisms can afford far more soma, removing a key barrier to multicellular complexity.

evodevmec2026.sciencesconf.org

"Roadmap for EvoDevoMec", 
Nov. 2nd - 5th, 2026, Université Paris Cité.

Our study on shape diversity in cnidarians is now published. The final version includes extensive new data that substantially extend the original bioRxiv preprint. Congrats to everyone who contributed to this work! www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
@embl.org

Congrats Lisa!!

3 Faculty Members Named AAAS Fellows Duncan Brown, Kevin Crowston and Lisa Manning are the first trio from Syracuse to earn the prestigious science honor in a single year.

Thanks to all the students, postdocs, and collaborators over the past 15 years that really did the work that this AAAS Fellowship celebrates. Happy to share it with all of you! news.syr.edu/2026/03/26/3...

🧵 New preprint led by @bingbrunton.bsky.social, @elliottabe.bsky.social, @lawrencehu.bsky.social

We gave a worm brain control of a fly body and it walked

What did we learn? Nothing, other than deep reinforcement learning is effective

We call it the digital sphinx

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

If you are interested in doing a postdoc of quantitative biology, biological physics or similar areas… we got you covered 😃 👇🏻

How do pairs of DNA loci - such as enhancers and promoters - find each other inside the nucleus? 🤔

Most models assume the random forces driving locus motion are independent in space

New preprint by
@janniharju.bsky.social: this assumption fails in living cells 🧵

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Looking forward to first day of APS! Going to talk about odd robotic matter and information processing at "Emerging Active Matter" session summit.aps.org/events/MAR-B... Mon Mar 16 12-3pm, @apsdsoft.bsky.social @aps-dbio.bsky.social @aps-dsnp.bsky.social

Can scientists really resurrect the dodo? Inside the company that says they can Colossal Biosciences’ CEO says its work follows a ‘moral obligation’ while critics say it’s ‘tech bro’ hype that could undermine conservation

More lies from George Church's company. They cannot do what they claim. Perhaps not surprising from a scientist whose work was funded by Jeffrey Epstein
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

This is such a nice event! I'm very impressed.

Today's the day! Can't wait to see you all there and kick off Global Physics Summit 2026
@apsphysics.bsky.social

Cracked, but still there: the glass ceiling persists for senior women in science To mark International Women’s Day on 8 March, Mangala Srinivas reminds junior colleagues that career success won’t protect you from gender-based bias.

"...I have learnt that success does not overcome bias. Women are doubted until they overdeliver... the glass ceiling remains. Cracked it might be, but it still holds..." www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Delighted this paper is out! Soft solids fracture in complex ways. Can we control it using structure and activity? Yes, using defects that localize energy injection for targeted failure! Amazing work combining exp, theory & ML by Sheng Chen and collab with Murrell lab (Yale).

Break It To Make It: How Fracturing Sculpts Tissues and Organs | Quanta Magazine Growing tissues can crack, break, and dissociate to form structures that can later withstand immense forces.

Sometimes, the only way to build back up is to let everything fall apart. This is certainly true at the cellular level. www.quantamagazine.org/break-it-to-...

In case you missed it: our review titled "Spatial structure: shaping the ecology and evolution of microbial communities" is out! 🚨

Let me hit you with some highlights on why spatial structure matters. (and why you should care!)

Sharing is appreciated 🙏 🧵👇

doi.org/10.1093/fems...

Tissue phase transitions in development: more than just mechanics Summary: Tissue material phase transitions are classically thought to regulate tissue deformability. This Review emphasises their unexpected roles in directly influencing growth and patterning signall...

Excited to share our new review in @dev-journal.bsky.social on tissue phase transitions during development!

@karengrace12.bsky.social @nicolettapetridou.bsky.social

🔗 doi.org/10.1242/dev....

New from us in @pnas.org :
We considered the limits of condensate diversity, and engineered DNA droplets to form 9 distinct, homotypic, coexisting phases. Very hard to do this except with nucleic acids. Probably you can make more than 9. (1/3)

Break to build: fracture as a unifying morphogenetic strategy Summary: This Review presents mechanical fracture as a unifying morphogenetic strategy and describes how developmental systems actively exploit mechanical fracture to drive morphogenesis, reproduction...

Our latest with @torres-sanchez.bsky.social journals.biologists.com/dev/article-...
Breaking isn’t always a bad thing! Think of birth, seed release...
We highlight how living tissue not only tolerates fractures but actively fracture to grow, shape, reproduce, or adapt – across species and scales.

Permeability-driven pressure and cell proliferation control lumen morphogenesis in pancreatic organoids - Nature Cell Biology Using pancreatic organoids, Lee et al. show that the balance between epithelial tissue permeability-driven lumenal pressure and cell proliferation affects ductal morphogenesis.

☕Using #pancreatic #organoids, Lee et al. show that the balance between epithelial tissue permeability-driven lumenal pressure and cell proliferation affects ductal morphogenesis.
bit.ly/4qozmjG

We Found More Than 40 Cases of Immigration Agents Using Banned Chokeholds and Other Moves That Can Cut Off Breathing Civilians have had apparent seizures. One had his eyes roll back. Another had ribs broken. “I felt like I was going to p

Arnoldo Bazan, a 16-year-old U.S. citizen, was put in a chokehold by ICE agents.

Agents took his phone, which he tracked to a used electronics vending machine near an ICE detention center.

Yes: ICE is stealing and selling people’s things after brutalizing them. There are no words.

Why does life explore so few of the forms it could possibly take? Using fractal descriptors, this #scienceadvances paper shows that Earth’s biosphere clusters around simple shapes, reflecting deep evolutionary constraints. @artemyte.bsky.social @manlius.bsky.social www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1...

Engineering the development of the pancreas Researchers found that the shape of the fluid-filled cavities in the developing pancreas is controlled by pressure and the rate cells divide.

With Byung Ho Lee and Kana Fuji as first/lead authors, @anne-grapin.bsky.social group, @utokyoofficial.bsky.social, Inst. of Physics of Academia Sinica, & @igbmc.bsky.social found the shape of lumens in the developing pancreas is controlled by pressure & proliferation. www.mpi-cbg.de/news-outreac...

Are you a junior scientist working in theoretical biophysics? @zamakany.bsky.social and I are organizing another workshop this fall here at @hhmijanelia.bsky.social. Travel and the workshop expenses are all covered!

tinyurl.com/yc66fawc

Excited to share Alison's @alisonkickuth.bsky.social paper from the lab out in @nature.com this week! We uncovered how a mechanical ratchet mechanism drives cytokinesis in early #zebrafish embryos. Read more in this thread 🧵 and at www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🤩
@poldresden.bsky.social @mpi-cbg.de

Summer program for workshops at the Aspen Center for Physics

With @tzerhan29.bsky.social, @jasnir.bsky.social and Asja Radja, we are thrilled to organize an Aspen summer workshop (Aug 9-Sept 6) on the "Physics of Collective Function in Active Living Matter". Applications are open at aspenphys.org/event/physic... till Jan 15!!
Please share and apply soon!

I am beyond excited to announce that the Bisson Lab has a new home!!! Starting January 2026, I will join the Biology Department at Indiana University Bloomington as Associate Professor with tenure.

I am actively recruiting scientists across all levels. More in our website: bissonlab.com/join

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Katherine was a fantastic editor and writer. I got to know her when I was a graduate student, and she was always so supportive and encouraging of younger scientists. A shocking loss, she will be sorely missed.

🚨 POSTDOC OPENING 🚨
NIH-funded Bio-Fluid Mechanics Postdoc in my lab @univmiami.bsky.social
Hofstenia miamia | cilia-driven flows | behavior & neuroscience
Collab w/ Mansi Srivastava @harvard.edu
🕒 Start: Jan–Feb 2026
⏳ 1 yr, renewable | Email me ASAP!
#Postdoc #Biophysics #FluidDynamics