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surajshankar.bsky.social
Suraj Shankar 🏳️‍🌈
@surajshankar.bsky.social
970 followers 940 following 13 posts
Asst. Prof. in Physics LSA Collegiate fellow University of Michigan Previously JF at Harvard & PhD at SU he/him https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/shankar-lab/ How function emerges collectively in soft, active, living matter? | Physics, maths, & biology
sites.lsa.umich.edu
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surajshankar.bsky.social
Suraj Shankar 🏳️‍🌈 @surajshankar.bsky.social · May 30
Excited to share the first preprint from our lab! Active solids show oscillations, but can they be fast (inertial)? Yes! We show how mechanochemical feedback can power inertial dynamics and chaos, in soft solids. A great colab with groups of X. Mao and N. Boechler!
See more: arxiv.org/abs/2505.18272
Mechanochemical feedback in inertial active solids and a phase diagram showing the different emergent dynamics, including oscillations and chaos.
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Reposted by Suraj Shankar 🏳️‍🌈
prakashlab.bsky.social
Prakash Lab at Stanford @prakashlab.bsky.social · 1d
Life knows how to keep going - even if it’s freezing -15 degrees C 🥶 outside. AGU just covered our discovery of ultra resistant ice diatoms gliding into a world record! 🧪🔬Enjoy the story here:

eos.org/articles/ice...
Ice Diatoms Glide at Record-Low Temperatures - Eos
New observations reveal how microscopic organisms move through polar ice and illustrate how they may have evolved to thrive in extreme environments.
eos.org
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Reposted by Suraj Shankar 🏳️‍🌈
hansclevers.bsky.social
Hans Clevers @hansclevers.bsky.social · Sep 6
1/11 In @science.org: A new perspective on how our intestines renew. Cells are not “pushed out” by crowding or die from apoptosis. Instead, cells play a mechanical tug-of-war, where weaker cells extrude, reframing gut renewal as force-regulated. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Epithelial tension controls intestinal cell extrusion
Cell extrusion is essential for homeostatic self-renewal of the intestinal epithelium. Extrusion is thought to be triggered by crowding-induced compression of cells at the intestinal villus tip. In th...
www.science.org
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Reposted by Suraj Shankar 🏳️‍🌈
mpi-cbg.de
Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics @mpi-cbg.de · Sep 3
Dresden researchers @paveltomancak.bsky.social @bruvellu.bsky.social, Carl Modes, @cuencam15.bsky.social ‬ & colleagues published in @nature.com that a tissue fold in fruit fly embryos buffers mechanical stresses & may have evolved in response to mechanical forces. www.mpi-cbg.de/news-outreac...
Mechanical forces drive evolutionary change
A small tissue fold present in fruit fly embryos buffers mechanical stresses and may have evolved in response to mechanical forces.
www.mpi-cbg.de
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Reposted by Suraj Shankar 🏳️‍🌈
irenemiguel-aliaga.bsky.social
Irene Miguel-Aliaga @irenemiguel-aliaga.bsky.social · Mar 19
Lab’s latest: (mouse) mums grow their guts during pregnancy and lactation: www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
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Reposted by Suraj Shankar 🏳️‍🌈
oritpeleg.bsky.social
Orit Peleg @oritpeleg.bsky.social · Aug 9
More on collective behavior: Our new Annual Review of Biophysics piece - with the stellar Danielle Chase - explores how animals sense, share information, and make group decisions. In honeybees and beyond 🐝

www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...
Title page of the review article 'The Physics of Sensing and Decision-Making by Animal Groups' by Danielle L. Chase and Orit Peleg in Annual Review of Biophysics. Includes illustrations of collective behavior in honeybees: a diagram showing uncommitted scout bees transitioning through decision-making to choose between two nest sites; a honeybee on a honeycomb cell; a cluster of bees hanging from a branch; and a schematic of bees forming a layered cluster.
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sespagnolie.bsky.social
Saverio E. Spagnolie @sespagnolie.bsky.social · Aug 4
Out today in Phys. Rev. Fluids, our 'Arrested development and traveling waves of active suspensions in nematic liquid crystals'. The bend instability in active suspensions pairs off against bending resistance in LCs to tell quite a story! 1/20

people.math.wisc.edu/~spagnolie/P...
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holly-nichols.bsky.social
Holly Nichols @holly-nichols.bsky.social · Jul 18
I’m thrilled to share my first review about microbial ecology + mosquito-borne disease control! Bacteria block pathogen development in the mosquito gut, but which bacteria will produce long-lasting results in the field? Let’s think about colonization and persistence in the mosquito gut! (1/4)
cp-trendsparasitol.bsky.social
Trends in Parasitology @cp-trendsparasitol.bsky.social · Jul 18
Drs @holly-nichols.bsky.social‬ & Kerri Coon review #microbial #ecology for #mosquito-borne disease control. #Paratransgenesis #Colonization #Resistance #Transmission #Microbiota #Transplantation @uwbact.bsky.social‬ ‪@uwmadisonmdtp.bsky.social‬ @uwmadison.bsky.social

www.cell.com/trends/paras...
Leveraging microbial ecology for mosquito-borne disease control
Mosquitoes transmit pathogens causing 700 000 deaths annually. Microbe-based vector control, which reduces vector populations or blocks pathogen development within vectors, offers an innovative way to...
www.cell.com
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surajshankar.bsky.social
Suraj Shankar 🏳️‍🌈 @surajshankar.bsky.social · Jul 14
Congrats Kirsty!
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peiferlabunc.bsky.social
Mark Peifer (He, him) @peiferlabunc.bsky.social · Jul 14
Publishing scientific papers is an obstacle course. There are many aspects to this but lengthy review times are one. That's why I am very excited about the new initiative @biologyopen.bsky.social, @biologists.bsky.social open access journal: Fast & Fair 1/n 🧪
journals.biologists.com/bio/pages/fa...
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Reposted by Suraj Shankar 🏳️‍🌈
rashmi-priya.bsky.social
Rashmi Priya @rashmi-priya.bsky.social · Jul 7
This was a fun exercise... reflecting on my accidental path into science, the questions that drive our lab @crick.ac.uk , and thoughts on building a more inclusive scientific community. Grateful for the opportunity @focalplane.bsky.social and Subhajit .
focalplane.bsky.social
FocalPlane @focalplane.bsky.social · Jul 7
New post from 2024 #FocalPlaneCorrespondent @sdutta.bsky.social

Subhajit talks to @rashmi-priya.bsky.social about her unconventional journey into science, her fascination with organ morphogenesis & her dedication to fostering interdisciplinary collaboration.
An Interview with Dr. Rashmi Priya - FocalPlane
An Interview with Dr. Rashmi Priya - Asian Microscopists and Cell Biologists
focalplane.biologists.com
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Reposted by Suraj Shankar 🏳️‍🌈
onenimesa.bsky.social
Nimesh Chahare @onenimesa.bsky.social · Jul 3
Have you ever thought about inflating tissues?
Or maybe quickly deflating those inflated tissues?

New #EpithelialMechanics pre-print: doi.org/10.1101/2025...
🧵 with pressure control, multiscale buckling, controlled wrinkling
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Reposted by Suraj Shankar 🏳️‍🌈
yairshokef.bsky.social
Yair Shokef @yairshokef.bsky.social · Jul 1
Our two sister papers on combinatorial metamaterials published today in @physrevresearch.bsky.social, a result of a fantastic SKCM2 collaboration with Chaviva Sirote-Katz at Tel Aviv and Tamás Kálmán at Tokyo shokef.tau.ac.il
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Reposted by Suraj Shankar 🏳️‍🌈
peiferlabunc.bsky.social
Mark Peifer (He, him) @peiferlabunc.bsky.social · Jul 1
Scientific collaborations come in many flavors & are fun because they expose you to new areas of science. That was definitely the case for this paper, out today. We were definitely in the passenger seat but it was fun to go along for the ride 1/n
rdcu.be/euiZB.
Emergence of cellular nematic order is a conserved feature of gastrulation in animal embryos
Nature Communications - The morphogenetic events that occur during gastrulation involve dramatic cell- and tissue-level changes. Here they show that propagation of nematic order, leading to...
rdcu.be
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wcratcliff.bsky.social
Will Ratcliff @wcratcliff.bsky.social · Jun 27
good take on the current state of the State attack on scientific infrastructure by @joshuasweitz.bsky.social

joshuasweitz.substack.com/p/on-sticks-...
On Sticks, Karats, and Charades: The Structural Dismantling of American Science
The displacement of NSF employees from their headquarters opens a new front in the dismantling of American leadership in science.
joshuasweitz.substack.com
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plantevolution.bsky.social
PlantEvolution 🌱🌾 @plantevolution.bsky.social · Jun 25
You hadn’t heard of kleptoplasty before? It is a pretty amazing phenomenon indeed. I was lucky to learn about it when this paper came to @elife.bsky.social a few years ago: elifesciences.org/articles/60176
Chloroplast acquisition without the gene transfer in kleptoplastic sea slugs, Plakobranchus ocellatus
The newly opened genome of a kleptoplastic mollusk, Plakobranchus ocellatus, indicated that sequestered plastids retain their activity within the animal cell without horizontal algal gene transfer to ...
elifesciences.org
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imranrahman.bsky.social
Imran Rahman @imranrahman.bsky.social · Jun 26
Great write-up on our paper by @joshlukedavis.com @nhm-london.bsky.social www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/new...
500-million-year-old fossils reveal how the starfish got its arms | Natural History Museum
How echinoderms evolved such an unusual shape has long troubled biologists.
www.nhm.ac.uk
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nature.com
Nature @nature.com · Jun 21
This week on the Nature Podcast 🔊 Flight simulator for moths reveals they navigate by starlight

https://go.nature.com/461KE6E
Flight simulator for moths reveals they navigate by starlight
Hear the biggest stories from the world of science | 18 June 2025
go.nature.com
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ryankatzrosene.bsky.social
Ryan Katz-Rosene, PhD @ryankatzrosene.bsky.social · Jun 19
Woah! Such an important study published in Nature today! Quick thread with some of their key figures!
🧵
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whysharksmatter.bsky.social
David Shiffman, Ph.D. 🦈 @whysharksmatter.bsky.social · Jun 17
My latest for American Scientist Magazine helps give scientists the tools to fight back against politicized charges that our research is silly or pointless- tools that will work whether you’re asked “why are we funding this” from your asshole uncle at Thanksgiving or an asshole US Senator.
🧪🌎
“Why Are We Funding This?”
Long-standing myths about “silly science” have contributed to the reckless slashing of government-supported research.
www.americanscientist.org
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mollygale.bsky.social
Molly Gale (Gale-Hammell Lab) @mollygale.bsky.social · Jun 16
🧬🌽 Happy Transposon Day! 🌽🧬

Today we celebrate the birthday of Barbara McClintock - scientist extraordinaire and discoverer of jumping genes. Still the only woman to have an unshared Nobel Prize in the biomedical sciences #TransposonDay2025
Barbara McClintock portrait
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jamesbriscoe.bsky.social
James Briscoe @jamesbriscoe.bsky.social · Jun 16
Great work from Mochulska & Francois developing a generative framework for systematically building Dynamical Landscapes of cell fate decision making using modular dynamical components

Important step to interpretable and predictive models of cellular differentiation

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org
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jacob-hanna.bsky.social
Jacob (Yaqub) Hanna - يعقوب حنا @jacob-hanna.bsky.social · Jun 15
After being stuck in Hong Kong after ISSCR meeting unable to fly back home, I managed to get on a plane to London to stay with family, only to learn in the air that our institute was hit. My team is all safe. My lab sustained serious blast damage but we shall overcome! #PeaceNow tnx for messages :)
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benoitbruneau.bsky.social
Benoit Bruneau @benoitbruneau.bsky.social · Jun 15
Weizmann Institute rn
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nature.com
Nature @nature.com · Jun 13
Scientists observe the nematode’s behaviour in the wild for the first time

https://go.nature.com/4dXCMFc
Minuscule worms form living towers to hunt for food
Scientists observe the nematode’s behaviour in the wild for the first time.
go.nature.com
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cdelawalla.bsky.social
Colette Delawalla @cdelawalla.bsky.social · Jun 10
4. Most importantly though, Jay, despite his espoused commitment to science and the scientific process, is destroying the NIH and is NOT equipped for this job.

As seen in the Bethesda Declaration...which you should go read, sign, and share: www.standupforscience.net/bethesda-dec...
Bethesda Declaration — STAND UP FOR SCIENCE
Support NIH Staff Now!
www.standupforscience.net
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