iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Giacomo Bartolucci (he) @gbart.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

Another incredible chapter of this cheesy story: @vicioms.bsky.social Ivan and Daniel wrote a piece about the physics of cacio e pepe that got to the cover of @physicstoday.aip.org!! physicstoday.aip.org/quick-study/...

083

Giacomo Bartolucci (he) @gbart.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

Congrats to Dr. @ivarhaugerud.bsky.social who just defended his PhD AND published in PNAS his work studying how droplets influence polymerization of sequences, while, in turn, sequence polymerization affects droplet dynamics! With @m-pol.bsky.social + Dieter Braun www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

042

Giacomo Bartolucci (he) @gbart.bsky.social · 15/11/2025

Active droplets are fundamental in cell biology and origin of life. With Jonathan Bauermann, @boekhovenlab.bsky.social, Frank Jülicher, and @m-pol.bsky.social, we show that a critical transition influences their size, morphology, ripening and division propensity journals.aps.org/prx/abstract...

1267

Giacomo Bartolucci (he) @gbart.bsky.social · 03/10/2025

Good news in rough times: Our work on generalising Lifshitz-Slyosov-Wagner (LSW) theory to active systems, led by the all-mighty Jonathan Bauermann, is out on PRL!! Special thanks to Christoph Weber @m-pol.bsky.social and Frank Jülicher. doi-org.sire.ub.edu/10.1103/f5x9...

0123

Giacomo Bartolucci (he) @gbart.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

Finally, we move to the opposite limit: fast reactions! We observe spirals of droplets, but, perhaps surprisingly, phase equilibrium still holds on the mesoscale. Indeed, local averages show that the concentrations in and outside of drops still lie on the binodal manifold!

010

Giacomo Bartolucci (he) @gbart.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

By imposing timescale separation between slow reactions and fast diffusion, we define a dynamics at phase equilibrium.  We exploit it to study the effects of localisation of B and C in the A-rich and A-poor phases, showing dampening and amplification of the oscillations.

000

Giacomo Bartolucci (he) @gbart.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

As expected, we see a periodic emergence of droplets:

000

Giacomo Bartolucci (he) @gbart.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

Proud of this preprint with my friends Jonathan Bauermann and @artemyte.bsky.social, about chemical oscillators & phase separation! Main findings: 1. Phase separation controls frequency and amplitude of oscillations 2. If reactions are fast, spirals of droplets emerge! arxiv.org/abs/2507.16030

5154

Giacomo Bartolucci (he) @gbart.bsky.social · 04/01/2025

Fun fact 2: we did all experiment in a very reproducible way, using simple kitchen tools. For the imaging part we need a box as a support. Could have been any box, we ended up using a very stereotypical one:

0320

Giacomo Bartolucci (he) @gbart.bsky.social · 04/01/2025

Fun fact 1: after making experiments with a small amount of sauce on the Petri dish, we of course performed the thermodynamic limit:

0481

Giacomo Bartolucci (he) @gbart.bsky.social · 04/01/2025

It was very tempting to model the observed phase behaviour as a lower critical solution temperature, and we did it introducing a minimal theoretical model. However we stress that this is a very oversimplified framework.. Any feedback on this point would be very appreciated!

0340

Giacomo Bartolucci (he) @gbart.bsky.social · 04/01/2025

Then we fixed the starch amount and varied water, finding an interesting paraboloid as the phase boundary between the homogeneous and clumpy phases.

0330

Giacomo Bartolucci (he) @gbart.bsky.social · 04/01/2025

This is why we decided to make a phase diagram varying systematically temperature and the starch amount. We found that above a certain threshold huge mozzarella-like clumps disappear in favour of smaller cheese clusters.

0380

Giacomo Bartolucci (he) @gbart.bsky.social · 04/01/2025

Cacio e pepe is a traditional recipe from Rome. It consists of tonnarelli noodles served with a cream of cheese, starch-enriched water and pepper. Despite its simplicity, it is hard to avoid cheese clumps. Interestingly, omitting starch leads to huge clumps ("mozzarella phase")

2480

Giacomo Bartolucci (he) @gbart.bsky.social · 04/01/2025

1/n Some time ago my colleague, excellent cook, and friend Ivan told me: "Cacio e pepe is the recipe that I screw up more often. Let's make a project studying systematically the physics of that sauce". Prepare to get cheesy, I'm glad to share the Cacio e paper preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2501.00536

24496166

Giacomo Bartolucci (he) @gbart.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

What sets the size of active droplets? Which factors affect their ripening and facilitate division? In a project led by the brilliant mind of Jonathan Bauermann, we delve into these profound questions together with Christoph Weber, Frank Jülicher, and Job Boekhoven arxiv.org/abs/2409.03629

0122