Dear Thomas Woolley, Congratulations! It is our pleasure to inform you that you have been nominated for Most Outstanding Learning Experience in the Enriching Student Life Awards 2026!

Lovely email to get on a Monday morning

"Dear Thomas Woolley,
Congratulations!
It is our pleasure to inform you that you have been nominated for Most Outstanding Learning Experience in the Enriching Student Life Awards 2026!"

We don't do it for the awards, but nominations are nice.

A range of Turing patterns on different domains.

So, why does it matter?
Explicitly, I've shown that we have to be careful when approximating geometries in applications. Curved edges can fundamentally alter what it means for a domain to be 1D, or 2D.

#TuringPatterns #MathBio #AppliedMaths #PatternFormation @springernature.com

Illustrating patterning bifurcation points. The square point represents the solution for the 1D line. The diamonds points represent ellipses and the circle point represents the solution for the circle domain. As you can see, the ellipses don't connect the square and circle points.

Although the patterns on ellipses do tend to circle-like behaviour they don't tend to act like lines as the ellipses become thinner.

To explain this I had to use Mathieu equations, which first appeared in 1868!

Mathematics: once true, always true.

An elliptical coordinate system linking the flat line and the circle.

Due to their simplicity, rectangular and circular domains are often used to represent reality as they make the mathematics easier to work with. I assumed I could use an elliptical domain to interpolate between the circle and the thin rectangle.

How wrong I was.

A Turing simulation on a circle, rectangle, and ellipse domain (top to bottom). As the domains grow, left to right, patterns appear on the domains at different points.

🎉 New paper out! 🥳
rdcu.be/e5A3P

Turing patterns are a wonderful mathematical framework for generating nature’s pattern. I thought I understood them. But they can still lead to surprises!

Beautiful Christmath trees by Daniel Mentrard.
www.geogebra.org/m/fgdr5ama

S3 Ep1: SMB 2025 Podcast Episode · Biology in Numbers · 09/29/2025 · 53m

And listen to the whole podcast here!

Many greats in this podcast with far better answers, like @adamlmaclean.bsky.social, @amyhurford.bsky.social, @gosiaweh.bsky.social, @thomasewoolley.bsky.social !

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/b...

Woohoo! @smbmathbiology.bsky.social #SMB2025

BBC Radio 4 - The Infinite Monkey Cage, Series 32, Nature's Shapes - Dave Gorman, Sarah Hart and Thomas Woolley Brian Cox and Robin Ince reveal the hidden codes behind the shapes we see in nature

#TheInfiniteMonkeyCage
Nature's Shapes - @davegorman.bsky.social, @sarah-hart.bsky.social and @thomasewoolley.bsky.social
Today 11:00
BBC Radio 4
@profbriancox.bsky.social and @robinince.bsky.social reveal the hidden codes behind the shapes we see in nature
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Nature's Shapes - Dave Gorman, Sarah Hart and Thomas Woolley Podcast Episode · The Infinite Monkey Cage · 26/03/2025 · 42m

Nature’s Shapes with @davegorman.bsky.social @sarah-hart.bsky.social and @thomasewoolley.bsky.social

podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...

The Infinite Monkey Cage - Series 32 - Nature's Shapes - Dave Gorman, Sarah Hart and Thomas Woolley - BBC Sounds Brian Cox and Robin Ince reveal the hidden codes behind the shapes we see in nature.

The most interesting of episodes of The Infinite Monkey Cage for someone who, like me, is fascinated by
#Physics
#Nature
#Mathematics
#Comedy

Nature's Shapes 👇
www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

HT @bbcsounds.bsky.social @davegorman.bsky.social @profbriancox.bsky.social @thomasewoolley.bsky.social