Sam Foley
@physfoley.bsky.social
Physics of membranes and self-assembly || Biophysics postdoc at Johns Hopkins || Previously Penn State -> Carnegie Mellon || for I perplex others not because I am clear, but because I am utterly perplexed myself ||
www.samuelfoley.com
www.samuelfoley.com
Pinned
Sam Foley
@physfoley.bsky.social
· May 26
I’m excited to finally share our new preprint! Membrane-associated assembly processes like CME function as precisely-tunable, spatially targetable, robust on/off switches that don’t require energy at decision-time.
arxiv.org/abs/2505.17290
🧪
arxiv.org/abs/2505.17290
🧪
This was an awesome workshop!
It was a pleasure to co-organize with @allysonsgro.bsky.social Junior Scientist Workshop on Theoretical Biophysics at @hhmijanelia.bsky.social. We had great lectures and tutorials on theoretical approaches used to understand biological phenomena. Can't wait for the 2026 iteration, stay tuned.
November 12, 2025 at 12:47 AM
This was an awesome workshop!
Reposted by Sam Foley
If only science communicators, doctors, and the people who have monitored the anti-vaxx movement for years could have convinced journalists and politicians of this....
They want zero vaccines. They're not hiding it.
They want zero vaccines. They're not hiding it.
As predicted, they’re going after the entire childhood vaccination schedule (second slide, from WaPo).
November 10, 2025 at 9:30 PM
If only science communicators, doctors, and the people who have monitored the anti-vaxx movement for years could have convinced journalists and politicians of this....
They want zero vaccines. They're not hiding it.
They want zero vaccines. They're not hiding it.
Reposted by Sam Foley
A question came up in the lab today:
How many fish could you (completely) boil with the energy it takes to train an LLM like ChatGPT?
How many fish could you (completely) boil with the energy it takes to train an LLM like ChatGPT?
November 10, 2025 at 8:23 PM
A question came up in the lab today:
How many fish could you (completely) boil with the energy it takes to train an LLM like ChatGPT?
How many fish could you (completely) boil with the energy it takes to train an LLM like ChatGPT?
A question came up in the lab today:
How many fish could you (completely) boil with the energy it takes to train an LLM like ChatGPT?
How many fish could you (completely) boil with the energy it takes to train an LLM like ChatGPT?
November 10, 2025 at 8:23 PM
A question came up in the lab today:
How many fish could you (completely) boil with the energy it takes to train an LLM like ChatGPT?
How many fish could you (completely) boil with the energy it takes to train an LLM like ChatGPT?
Reposted by Sam Foley
Just thinking again how Democrats asked people to accept short-term suffering in order to give space to prevent long-term, worse suffering and then said, "Thanks for suffering in the short-term. You'll get to suffer long-term too so that our Thanksgiving plans don't get disrupted."
November 10, 2025 at 1:18 PM
Just thinking again how Democrats asked people to accept short-term suffering in order to give space to prevent long-term, worse suffering and then said, "Thanks for suffering in the short-term. You'll get to suffer long-term too so that our Thanksgiving plans don't get disrupted."
Reposted by Sam Foley
i think this is key. taking the deal would amount to taking the blame. it would turn a clear political victory into an unambiguous defeat.
If the Dems blink after all of this, for a deal that all but ensures no ACA subsidies in 2026 anyway, then what was the purpose of letting the shutdown go for 40 days in the first place?
November 10, 2025 at 12:56 AM
i think this is key. taking the deal would amount to taking the blame. it would turn a clear political victory into an unambiguous defeat.
"Why do you like membrane bending simulations so much?"
November 6, 2025 at 5:42 PM
"Why do you like membrane bending simulations so much?"
Oof, while reading some voting statistics it suddenly dawned on me that I'm no longer in the "young voters" category by most metrics. 😬
November 5, 2025 at 4:58 AM
Oof, while reading some voting statistics it suddenly dawned on me that I'm no longer in the "young voters" category by most metrics. 😬
Apple entering the low-cost market is as sure a sign of a recession as anything
Sources: Apple plans to launch a low-cost laptop in H1 2026 to rival Chromebooks, aimed at students and casual users, codenamed J700, currently in testing (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)
Main Link | Techmeme Permalink
Main Link | Techmeme Permalink
November 4, 2025 at 5:33 PM
Apple entering the low-cost market is as sure a sign of a recession as anything
Good to know that in addition to being a sterile corporate hellscape, LinkedIn suffers from the same slop as twixter: on a post from Penn State Medicine about new highly effective screening/treatment protocols for pancreatic cancer, the top comment is telling them to research Ivermectin instead.
November 3, 2025 at 8:15 PM
Good to know that in addition to being a sterile corporate hellscape, LinkedIn suffers from the same slop as twixter: on a post from Penn State Medicine about new highly effective screening/treatment protocols for pancreatic cancer, the top comment is telling them to research Ivermectin instead.
Reposted by Sam Foley
It’s a tradition that I ask my “Physics III” class to create some memes about our class material. It’s *also* a tradition that they’re super good at this. Please enjoy, like and share! 🧪
(I promised my students extra game points if this goes nano-viral!)
(Front pic is my own entry.)
1/17
(I promised my students extra game points if this goes nano-viral!)
(Front pic is my own entry.)
1/17
November 1, 2025 at 3:07 PM
It’s a tradition that I ask my “Physics III” class to create some memes about our class material. It’s *also* a tradition that they’re super good at this. Please enjoy, like and share! 🧪
(I promised my students extra game points if this goes nano-viral!)
(Front pic is my own entry.)
1/17
(I promised my students extra game points if this goes nano-viral!)
(Front pic is my own entry.)
1/17
I would love a physics conference that included a session that was, "Present your favorite derivation."
Could be relevant to your research area or not, just a derivation that you find particularly insightful, or illustrative of a really neat trick, or just really cool.
Could be relevant to your research area or not, just a derivation that you find particularly insightful, or illustrative of a really neat trick, or just really cool.
October 23, 2025 at 8:06 PM
I would love a physics conference that included a session that was, "Present your favorite derivation."
Could be relevant to your research area or not, just a derivation that you find particularly insightful, or illustrative of a really neat trick, or just really cool.
Could be relevant to your research area or not, just a derivation that you find particularly insightful, or illustrative of a really neat trick, or just really cool.
Reposted by Sam Foley
"There's a story that someone ran into an old physicist at a conference and asked him "How's your wife?" To which the physicist replied "Compared to what?""
October 22, 2025 at 6:04 PM
"There's a story that someone ran into an old physicist at a conference and asked him "How's your wife?" To which the physicist replied "Compared to what?""
Reposted by Sam Foley
Wow. Harvard nuking its PhD programs
- Science PhD admissions reduced by more than 75%
- Arts & Humanities reduced by about 60%
- Social Sciences by 50–70%
- History by 60%
- Biology by 75%
- The German department will lose all PhD seats
- Sociology from six PhD students to zero
- Science PhD admissions reduced by more than 75%
- Arts & Humanities reduced by about 60%
- Social Sciences by 50–70%
- History by 60%
- Biology by 75%
- The German department will lose all PhD seats
- Sociology from six PhD students to zero
Harvard FAS Cuts Ph.D. Seats By More Than Half Across Next Two Admissions Cycles | News | The Harvard Crimson
The Faculty of Arts and Sciences slashed the number of Ph.D. student admissions slots for the Science division by more than 75 percent and for the Arts & Humanities division by about 60 percent for th...
www.thecrimson.com
October 21, 2025 at 5:11 PM
Wow. Harvard nuking its PhD programs
- Science PhD admissions reduced by more than 75%
- Arts & Humanities reduced by about 60%
- Social Sciences by 50–70%
- History by 60%
- Biology by 75%
- The German department will lose all PhD seats
- Sociology from six PhD students to zero
- Science PhD admissions reduced by more than 75%
- Arts & Humanities reduced by about 60%
- Social Sciences by 50–70%
- History by 60%
- Biology by 75%
- The German department will lose all PhD seats
- Sociology from six PhD students to zero
Always good to remember that even the most advanced LLM AI models currently available have extremely high rates of hallucination, and all outputs should be thoroughly validated.
source: research.aimultiple.com/ai-hallucina...
source: research.aimultiple.com/ai-hallucina...
October 21, 2025 at 5:03 PM
Always good to remember that even the most advanced LLM AI models currently available have extremely high rates of hallucination, and all outputs should be thoroughly validated.
source: research.aimultiple.com/ai-hallucina...
source: research.aimultiple.com/ai-hallucina...
Wow my gf is cuddling with the actual Batman rn
October 21, 2025 at 12:02 AM
Wow my gf is cuddling with the actual Batman rn
AWS outage?
[laughs in non-Amazon VPS hosting]
[laughs in non-Amazon VPS hosting]
October 20, 2025 at 7:48 PM
AWS outage?
[laughs in non-Amazon VPS hosting]
[laughs in non-Amazon VPS hosting]
Reposted by Sam Foley
Over and over again, establishment journalists just refuse to describe Republican policies and beliefs in plain language to mislead the public. The GOP says it is purging liberals from academia and journalists reframe it as “rebuilding trust.” That is not journalism, it is regime propaganda.
October 20, 2025 at 11:01 AM
Over and over again, establishment journalists just refuse to describe Republican policies and beliefs in plain language to mislead the public. The GOP says it is purging liberals from academia and journalists reframe it as “rebuilding trust.” That is not journalism, it is regime propaganda.
Now three weeks in, and I haven't booted back into the Windows partition since.
Slowly going through the process of backing up my secondary drives and reformatting them to ext4 for better Linux compatibility.
Slowly going through the process of backing up my secondary drives and reformatting them to ext4 for better Linux compatibility.
After going full time Linux for a year and a half on the laptop I use for work, and in the face of Win10 EOL in less than a month, I'm finally taking the plunge and switching my home desktop to Linux. Year of the Linux Desktop attempt #34
October 15, 2025 at 12:59 AM
Now three weeks in, and I haven't booted back into the Windows partition since.
Slowly going through the process of backing up my secondary drives and reformatting them to ext4 for better Linux compatibility.
Slowly going through the process of backing up my secondary drives and reformatting them to ext4 for better Linux compatibility.
Here's something I haven't seen before: Google search apparently doesn't just directly feed your query to its "AI", but can try to distill your query into a shorter input, which in this case leads to a confused answer from the LLM. Trying to reduce token count to save on computation costs?
October 13, 2025 at 4:30 PM
Here's something I haven't seen before: Google search apparently doesn't just directly feed your query to its "AI", but can try to distill your query into a shorter input, which in this case leads to a confused answer from the LLM. Trying to reduce token count to save on computation costs?
When I used Google Maps yesterday, it told me a store's hours might differ from the usual due to Indigenous Peoples' Day. Today, it says the hours might differ due to Columbus Day. Gotta apply those last-minute patches to appease the administration.
October 13, 2025 at 4:25 PM
When I used Google Maps yesterday, it told me a store's hours might differ from the usual due to Indigenous Peoples' Day. Today, it says the hours might differ due to Columbus Day. Gotta apply those last-minute patches to appease the administration.
POV: laying on the couch with kitty cat
October 9, 2025 at 2:24 AM
POV: laying on the couch with kitty cat
Reposted by Sam Foley
Today is a day when arts degrees are worthless, but the product of those degrees is so valuable it would kill an entire industry if they were made to pay for it.
Nick Clegg says asking artists for use permission would ‘kill’ the AI industry
Nick Clegg says asking artists for use permission would ‘kill’ the AI industry
Paul McCartne, Elton John and others signed an open letter.
buff.ly
October 8, 2025 at 10:29 AM
Today is a day when arts degrees are worthless, but the product of those degrees is so valuable it would kill an entire industry if they were made to pay for it.