Markus Deserno
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markusdeserno.bsky.social
Markus Deserno
@markusdeserno.bsky.social
Theoretical and computational biophysicist at Carnegie Mellon University. Loves lipid membranes, music, and art. (he/him) 🇩🇪🇺🇸
Pinned
I am super excited to announce that we have a tenure-track faculty position in biophysics open in the Department of Physics at Carnegie Mellon! 🧪

Interfolio link: apply.interfolio.com/174360

PLEASE, share widely across the blue skies!

Let me briefly explain what we're looking for:

1/10
Everything that’s old is new again.
Private Faschismustheorien (Folge XII): “Of course the would not call it fascism. They would call it Americanism.”

youtu.be/_abRxAL3hnw?...
excerpt from keeper of the flame
YouTube video by beverly crusher
youtu.be
December 27, 2025 at 5:03 PM
Reposted by Markus Deserno
Don't need to imagine, Sinatra had something to say about multicultural liberal democracies 🧵
December 26, 2025 at 8:53 PM
Reposted by Markus Deserno
Dean Martin, born Dino Paul Crocetti, son of Italian immigrant Gaetano Crocetti

Frank Sinatra, son of Italian immigrants Antonino Sinatra and Natalina Garavanta

Merry Christmas to everyone except Stephen Miller and his enablers and handlers
December 26, 2025 at 6:49 PM
Reposted by Markus Deserno
i've been weirdly invested in this dog's sweater alteration

IG roodabeguh
December 24, 2025 at 10:32 PM
Episodes I–VI is …… a statement.
December 24, 2025 at 9:44 PM
Looks like Stephen Miller is stalking the background.
December 23, 2025 at 12:21 PM
Besides the sheer incompetence, I really want to know precisely what reasons could possibly justify these (failed) redactions.
Ok. Now had a chance to check and, well, at least some docs do appear to be straight up classic redaction fail. And there are some *interesting* bits here.

www.justice.gov/multimedia/C...
December 23, 2025 at 8:22 AM
Reposted by Markus Deserno
Klar, auch die Tagesschau kann mal einen Bock schießen. Aber ich helfe gerne beim Faktencheck in Sachen E-Mobilität …
E-Mobilität: Dichtung und Wahrheit
Die Tagesschau präsentierte ihrem Millionen-Publikum einen deutschen Pendler, der keinesfalls auf ein E-Auto umsteigen kann. Dies und die Berichterstattung über das „Aus vom Verbrenner-Aus“ 2035 la…
buggisch.wordpress.com
December 21, 2025 at 8:03 AM
Reposted by Markus Deserno
Hi @physgal.bsky.social! We are a university account that often posts physics news, and we'd be interested in joining the Physics and Science feeds! Here are some of our articles: www.cmu.edu/mcs/news-eve...
www.cmu.edu/mcs/news-eve...
Kyungmin Park Accelerates CMS Trigger Work at CERN
Physics graduate student Kyungmin Park is working with CERN to upgrade the Large Hadron Collider.
www.cmu.edu
December 19, 2025 at 6:27 PM
Reposted by Markus Deserno
this might be the greatest Christmas photo ever
December 19, 2025 at 4:16 PM
Reposted by Markus Deserno
December 18, 2025 at 7:49 PM
Reposted by Markus Deserno
Organelles do NOT have a single uniform pH.
And if you think they must, because “protons diffuse fast,” this paper is for you.
A thread on why that assumption is wrong; and what we found instead. 🧵 1/n
December 17, 2025 at 12:46 AM
Reposted by Markus Deserno
ICE sprayed a one-year-old in the face with pepper spray.

The child and parents are US citizens, but that doesn't even matter.

These monsters pepper-sprayed a baby.

We cannot allow ICE to continue this behavior, and they aren't going to reform themselves.

www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/...
December 15, 2025 at 3:24 AM
Reposted by Markus Deserno
There hasn’t been enough appreciation for how thoroughly BENNIE THOMPSON humiliated FBI official GLASHEEN after he tried to sell the lie that ANTIFA is the top domestic terror threat.

The claim collapsed because it’s a cover.

Check my latest…
open.substack.com/pub/cwebbstu...
December 14, 2025 at 5:16 PM
Reposted by Markus Deserno
NSF

- Forced reorg

- POs down ~ 40% (DRP, most rotators not renewed, retirements)

- Forced move (and we have to pack and clean) to a building with no furniture, little to no conference space for panels, inadequate 🛜, …)

I personally love the boxes they gave us for packing.
“Details matter” 🙃
December 11, 2025 at 11:16 AM
How old does one have to be to understand this joke?
December 10, 2025 at 11:55 AM
Reposted by Markus Deserno
So, the basics of this piece are recent Republican governor teaches a class at Harvard and finds students there are not like he was told to expect.

What I find interesting enough in this piece to share a gift link for it comes near the middle:

wapo.st/3XJkFf5
Opinion | I was a red state governor. What I saw at Harvard surprised me.
The spirit of association remains alive in unexpected places.
wapo.st
December 8, 2025 at 2:52 PM
Reposted by Markus Deserno
TIL about a memorial ceremony in Iceland in 2019 to mark the end of a glacier, changing the place name from Okjökull to Ok (jökull = glacier). Uncompromising wording on the bronze plaque:
"This is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it".
December 7, 2025 at 5:17 PM
It’s curious:
Some people
Paint the Mona Lisa,
Or compose Tosca,
Or sculpt David,
Or write Romeo and Juliet.
Others molest children,
Or start ruinous wars,
Or enslave millions,
Or engineer the Holocaust.
It’s curious.
December 6, 2025 at 6:32 PM
Reposted by Markus Deserno
From The Betrayal of Anne Frank, by Rosemary Sullivan. #booksky
December 5, 2025 at 9:20 PM
Reposted by Markus Deserno
Today, our animation synthesizing decades of research on actin-mediated endocytosis in budding yeast was published:
journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...

The result of a fantastic Iwasa-Drubin lab collaboration.

@margotriggi.bsky.social @jiwasa.bsky.social
movie.biologists.com/video/10.124...
December 2, 2025 at 9:02 PM
Reposted by Markus Deserno
December 2, 2025 at 11:45 AM
Remember this scene from “Ready Player One,” when Sorento brags “We estimate we can sell up to 80% of an individual’s visual field before inducing seizures.”
You know, just like so many current webpages, which have become unreadable and are so pop-up-infested that they regularly crash the browser.
Ready Player One - Nolan Sorrento sells ads
YouTube video by Steven Tuccio
m.youtube.com
November 30, 2025 at 5:14 PM
Melania memecoin not doing so hot.
November 29, 2025 at 2:23 PM
For everyone who missed it:

My BPPB talk is now available on YouTube!

If you're curious how we propose to think about ternary lipid mixtures in the presence of membrane asymmetry—including differential stress!—then this is probably a good place to start! 🧪
November 26, 2025 at 4:51 PM