It’s a long time since our last post… mea culpa for neglecting the thread. …but we haven’t been idle! In this period we have been awarded a new grant to look at the stochastic dynamics of the flagellar tip (currently searching for a 2Y postdoc, btw!), together with Idan Tuval we have hosted Henry Fu (U. Utah) for a 6-months mini sabbatical, we are finalising a few papers (cargo transport, active-passive systems, Micromonas motility, etc.) and have hosted our first undergrads from the Physics Department of UIB (Ana Maya Sevilla, Jorge Pottiez and Cristina Martí). Meeting-wise, amongst other things the 2023 ASLO meeting took place in Palma in June. Marco gave an invited talk in the session “From Single Cells to Ecosystems Scales” (org. Soeren Ahmerkamp, Lars Berendt, Klaus Koren) and organised, together with Soeren, a hybrid mini workshop on the same theme at IMEDEA. We’re happy to have had people attending (and speaking) from California all the way to Australia. On the outreach side, within the EU Project Ocean Night, we have been directly involved with a lovely night at the Cafe Tres Bandas in Palma (co-organised with Pint of Science), and have organised a visit of high-school science teachers to one of the poster sessions of ASLO 2023.

After a quick break in August, we look forward to new and exciting news for the next academic year! Together with Sara, we’re heading to Philippe Bastin’s lab at Inst. Pasteur to look at Micromonas flagella. This might lead to a new collaboration with Philippe and Raphaël Jeanneret. In Oct-Nov we will be hosting Ashis Mukhopadhyay (Wayne St. Univ., Detroit, USA), partially supported by a Visiting Professor Scholarship from the UIB. Finally, we are exploring a potential collaboration on biophysical aspects of viral infections of microorganisms… more info on this if/when it will take shape!