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Book Update: Untitled Biophysics
DNA wrapped around histones — old and new. (See “Today’s Illustration” at the end of the post.) A while ago I announced that I’ve been working on a popular science book about biophysics, and a few...
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The Year in Books, 2020
It’s again time for The Year in Books! (Previous posts: 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, and 2015.) 2020 was challenging in many ways. One consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic was the difficulty of getting...
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Pop-Science Biophysics, now with a title!
I’ve hit “send” on the final manuscript files for my popular science book on biophysics. The last round of revisions and edits took all the time I could spare over the past three months, and lots of...
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Tossing Starfish from the Tidepools — Gut Microbiome Edition
About a paper from my lab [1] on competition and cooperation among gut microbes. Is the whole more than the sum of its parts? This question arises throughout the sciences, as one wonders whether...
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A Puzzle about Paris and Climate
Last week, I gave the final exam for my Physics of Energy and the Environment class, a course for non-science-major undergraduates. Nearly all of the questions were answered correctly by a majority of...
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Course Recap: Physics of Energy and the Environment, Winter 2021
In the quarter that recently ended I taught The Physics of Energy and the Environment, a course for non-science-major undergraduates at the University of Oregon (UO) that I’ve taught before, though...
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Welcome to Biophysics! — A “Resource Letter”
Update June 18, 2021: A preprint of my article is here. Over a year ago, I was invited to write a “resource letter” on Biological Physics for the American Journal of Physics, a very good...
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“So Simple A Beginning,” A Popular Science Book about Biophysics
There’s almost nothing new in this post, but I’ve realized that descriptions of my upcoming (early 2022) general-audience book on biophysics are scattered across multiple places, in some cases with...
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Graphs about out-of-state college students and money
When I graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 1997, non-California-residents made up about 10% of the undergraduate population [1]; the fraction now is 25% [2]. Here at the...
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Course Recap: Physics of Solar and Renewable Energies, Spring 2021
Before my memories grow even dimmer I should write down some thoughts about the class I taught Spring term: The Physics of Solar and Renewable Energies. Like its companion course, The Physics of...
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Living Gels
About a recent paper from my lab: B. H. Schlomann and R. Parthasarathy, “Gut bacterial aggregates as living gels,” eLife, 10: e71105 (2021). DOI: 10.7554/eLife.71105. What do gut bacterial colonies...
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When Should You Make a Plot of p-values? Never.
Our microbial ecology journal club, in addition to being fun and educational, is a limitless source of data presentation examples both wonderful and terrible. Here’s a recent example that drives me up...
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Pushed around by stars
A terrible question to ask in science is unfortunately quite common: Does something affect something else? It seems innocuous enough — after all, one might want to know whether exposure to sunlight...
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How can you push DNA through Jello? (What is biophysics? #1)
An introduction to the series: It’s easy to write that biophysics is the intersection of biology and physics, but this is a minimal and cryptic description. We could elaborate, and describe biophysics...
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What’s the shape of a protein? (What is biophysics? #2)
The second in a series of biophysical questions. Proteins are molecules. As is the case for every molecule, the constituent atoms and inter-atomic bonds determine the overall shape. In general, a...
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The Year in Books, 2021
Once again, my favorites of the books I read during the past year, plus some that weren’t favorites but worth noting nonetheless. (Previous posts: 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, and 2015.) The Covid-19...
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Image Analysis: Reflections on a New Course
This past term (Fall 2021) I taught a course on image analysis. It was a new course — not just new for me but completely new, though it grew out of an informal image analysis class I’ve taught “off...
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Can a brainless bacterium navigate? (What is biophysics? #3)
The third in a series of biophysical questions (one, two). Finding food is an essential activity for any organism. We and many other animals interpret sights, sounds, and smells to make decisions...
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Why is your heart on your left side? (Or is it?) — What is biophysics? #4
The fourth in a series of biophysical questions (one, two, three). If you put your hand on your chest you’ll probably realize that your heart is a bit left-of-center. Or perhaps not: about one in...
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The Physicality of Life
I wrote this essay for the Princeton University Press “Ideas” site as a stand-alone piece connected to my new pop-science biophysics book. It appeared yesterday, and I’m posting it here as well (with...
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