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Matthew Fainor

@matthewfainor.bsky.social
285 followers 464 following 42 posts

Tissue engineer by day | writer, knitter, scifi reader, and tea enthusiast by night

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Matthew Fainor @handle.invalid · 10/10/2025
Really interesting science-art collaboration story that speaks to something I think a lot of biodesigners are looking for: deeper connections with other organisms as a way to connect more deeply with other people. nautil.us/a-living-gow...
nautil.us
A Living Gown
Iris van Herpen’s new bioluminescent dress made of algae debuts in Paris
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Matthew Fainor @handle.invalid · 31/05/2025
undark.org/2025/05/29/m...
undark.org
'Make America Healthy Again' Report Cites Nonexistent Studies
The original report misinterprets some studies and cites others that don’t exist, according to the listed authors.
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Matthew Fainor @handle.invalid · 11/04/2025
LITERALLY Really devastating cuts being proposed wwww.septa.org/wp-content/u...
wwww.septa.org
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Conrad Benner @streetsdept.bsky.social · 10/04/2025
Philly was recently named the “Best City for Street Art.” And if you’re interested in learning more about this dynamic world, I’d love to invite you to check out my podcast with WHYY called, Art Outside!
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Conrad Benner @streetsdept.bsky.social · 03/04/2025
1/6 New sticker from local scientist and artist, @sarahmackattack.bsky.social, spotted in Philly. I texted Sarah to learn more: “Shrimp and Krill are these tiny little animals that you don’t think of as being particularly powerful in the oceans, but in the huge schools they’re incredibly important.”
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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 28/03/2025
I wish all Americans would watch this, in particular Trump/Musk supporters who might consider this without their pre-existing biases that blind them. This is framed so well. This is how I would be convincing people that they are going to end up funding this huge scam where they are the losers.
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Nathan Grayson @nathangrayson.bsky.social · 27/03/2025
If you consider, as Gareth Watkins laid out so wonderfully last month, that AI, which is "embarrassing, destructive, and looks like shit" and as a result is "the new aesthetics of fascism", Altman and OpenAI's singling out of Studio Ghibli starts to make more sense. Especially when figures like Altman are being increasingly described as "technofascists". This isn't another laugh, another coy attempt at circumventing someone's rights to their creations; the way this has been pitched and sold is a direct attack, a flex revelling in the fact creators have so far proven largely powerless to stop these vultures from looting the history of human creation wholesale.

So yeah, it sucks! Which is why people need to stop sharing that shit. If you accidentally fell into it via a chat or a message from a friend or whatever, and made an image because you thought it was cute, cut it out. If you're trying to dunk on the practice by linking to articles or examples that showcase the work, inadvertently flooding people's timelines with examples of this ghoulish, stolen work, stop.

Nobody wants to see that shit. Nobody needs to see it.
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Matthew Fainor @handle.invalid · 27/03/2025
Every new announcement about some update to an AI image generator makes me seethe. People with the audacity to say OpenAI is “making art accessible” so gravely misunderstand what art and the purpose of art is in our society. Not to mention the energy, the water, or the theft.
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Matthew Fainor @handle.invalid · 24/03/2025
The state of my fridge has reached a new lowest point at the end of this grocery cycle. It’s just a jar of olives, eggs, and about 6 things of pickles/pickle juice. And some really old kimchi 😂
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Sarah McAnulty, Ph.D. @sarahmackattack.bsky.social · 09/03/2025
I usually stay around my own neighborhood, so when I venture down to south Philly I get the treat of seeing a different set of street art. This one is by Sean Lugo, whose signature is animal heads on people’s bodies. His stuff is SO good. Love this cat.
Calico cat head wearing headphones on a woman’s body who is talking with her hands on the radio. She’s got green pants and a yellow sweater over a blue shirt, very cool, and the sign above the cat says she’s on air. She’s talking into a metal wxpn microphone.
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Matthew Fainor @handle.invalid · 08/03/2025
BUGS ARE SO COOL!! “The ant scurries along on six nimble legs. It catches up to its peers, a line of antennaed bugs roaming the winding surface of a tree, perpetually hunting for food. While doing so, each unknowingly leaves antibiotic microorganisms secreted from its feet” grist.org/food-and-agr...
grist.org
A secret weapon in agriculture's climate fight: Ants
Ants — yes, ants — could protect apples, nuts, cocoa, and other beloved crops from disease and climate change.
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Matthew Fainor @handle.invalid · 05/03/2025
😐
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Matthew Fainor @handle.invalid · 04/03/2025
I love the South Street Art Mart!
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Lindsay Lindhult, PhD | Science Illustrator & Arthropod Artist @lindzeamays.bsky.social · 04/03/2025
I've received several inquiries as to why I don't paint many butterflies. This is why. There are massive multitudes of more interesting and ecologically vital arthropods out there who are underrepresented in our societal advocacy. I want to help remedy that through art. #bugsky 🐝🕷️🐡🦋🪲🌱
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Matthew Fainor @handle.invalid · 03/03/2025
This is one of my favorite kinds of stories in that it surprised me! These activists are challenging the notion that “mine sites are considered ideal locations for prisons or a dumping ground for waste, rather than places of ecological value.” grist.org/justice/biso...
grist.org
Bison, not prison: Activists buy a prison site to rewild the land
A coal mine was the first to wreck the land. Now activists want to keep another extractive industry from taking root there: prisons.
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Matthew Fainor @handle.invalid · 24/02/2025
Sad news for my Philly friends. share.inquirer.com/z6Xct9
share.inquirer.com
DOGE cuts four local U.S. Fish & Wildlife workers, three of them from the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge, another from S. Jersey
All three sacked employees from the Heinz refuge were under the one-year mark in employment. One of them —a bio-technology worker —was just two weeks shy of a full year of service.
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Matthew Fainor @handle.invalid · 21/02/2025
I am on the bus, minding my business when the man in front of me begins frantically using 3 phones at once. THREE! What unspeakable force drove him to such madness??? And what could he possibly need to be doing like that???
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Matthew Fainor @handle.invalid · 20/02/2025
Science news, get your science news here! I know a lot is happening right now, but people are still doing excellent research in the field of #RegenerativeMedicine, work that supports people of all kinds. Some of our field’s recent highlights ⬇️ 🧠 🦴🫀 fleshyfutures.substack.com/p/the-tissue...
fleshyfutures.substack.com
The Tissue #7: Recommendations from one scientist to another
FDA approves first MSC therapy, woven PCL hip implant moves toward phase I clinical trial, iPSC treatment for Parkinson's disease
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Allison Raine Chapman @alli.gay · 13/02/2025
UPDATE: The National Park Service have now removed “queer” and the “Q+” from the web page for stonewall, along with any mentions of transgender people.
Stonewall page on the National Park Service website:

"By the time of Stonewall... we had 50 to 60 gay groups in the country. A year later... 1500."
Before the 1960s, almost everything about living openly as a lesbian, gay, bisexual (LGB) person was illegal. The Stonewall Uprising on June 28, 1969 is a milestone in the quest for LGB civil rights and provided momentum for a movement.
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Matthew Fainor @handle.invalid · 09/02/2025
Really excited to share the scientific research we do in the Gullbrand Lab at #ORS2025. At a time when the scientific priorities, structure, and funding in the US are being reassessed, it’s very grounding to be surrounded by talented scientists working to solve real problems for real people.
From left to right: Sarah Gullbrand with short curly hair in black blazer and pink sparkly boots with her arm around Matthew Fainor in light pink sweater. Janai Augustin in black sweater and grey plaid pants with his arms around Matthew and Brianna Orozco in grey plaid pants and black blazer, her arm around Emily Sharp dressed in a white turtle and flowinf blue pants. Standing in front of their two academic posters.
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Matthew Fainor @handle.invalid · 08/02/2025
The Mauck Lab is well represented at #ORS2025. We work on such a wide variety of problems, that hopefully there’s a little bit of something for everyone! Presenters on Bluesky: @emsharp.bsky.social @meghankup.bsky.social
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Jason C. Marvin, Ph.D. (he/they) 🏳️‍🌈 @jasoncmarvin.bsky.social · 06/02/2025
It's extremely disappointing to see BME colleagues being silent about the imminent danger that the new administration poses to the trans community. Though one can hardly be surprised when the field has been platforming those who hold explicitly transphobic views.
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we have such nickels to show you @snickettes.bsky.social · 05/02/2025
Oh please please i am begging, don't use generative AI for any reason if you can avoid it. It's being marketed as a quick time-saver, but it's messy, inaccurate, it is putting entire industries of people out of work, and the environmental impacts (energy and water usage) are huge and debilitating.
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Matthew Fainor @handle.invalid · 06/02/2025
The Gullbrand Lab is talking science at #ORS2025 this week! Check out our presentations if you’re in Phoenix and interested in intervertebral disc degeneration, cell therapies, and more! @sgullbrand.bsky.social @emsharp.bsky.social @orssociety.bsky.social
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Deb JJ Lee @jdebbiel.bsky.social · 20/01/2025
Would you? Could you? RT for my 29th bday 🙂‍↕️🎂 nothing else is happening in this country
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Sarah McAnulty, Ph.D. @sarahmackattack.bsky.social · 17/01/2025
Inject science into your Valentines Day with LOVE BUGS! Each card has a fact about the animal AND something you can do to help the animal. They come in packs of 20 😎 Art by Michele Scott! Supports @skypeascientist.bsky.social! Get 'em here 👇 squidfacts.bigcartel.com/product/love...
a picture of 4 insect valentines cards, including the cards up front with the rosy maple moth and the praying mantis. The rosy maple says "Are you a lamp because I wanna be around you" and the mantis says "You look good enough to eat". The image is superimposed with the words "Love bugs valentines" and then on the bottom, Skype a Scientist's logo and Michele's Logo and "Sales support Skype a Scientist"
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Gwen C. Katz @gwenckatz.bsky.social · 07/01/2025
My love of body horror comes from the Zoobooks page where live, moving animals were gradually stripped of their flesh
Otter anatomy zoobooks page
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Matthew Fainor @handle.invalid · 31/12/2024
To all the books I read in 2024, thanks for the great times. Would definitely recommend almost all these books, but if I could only pick three, I’d tell everyone they must read A Psalm for the Wild Built, A Certain Hunger, and Crying in H Mart.
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Science News @scinews.bsky.social · 28/12/2024
Breathing polluted air increases the risk of osteoporosis. #Science Open Access www.science.org/doi/epdf/10....
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Matthew Fainor @handle.invalid · 24/12/2024
Twas the night before the night before Christmas
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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
Writing is thinking. It’s not a part of the process that can be skipped; it’s the entire point.
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Matthew Fainor @handle.invalid · 12/12/2024
I’ve loved working on this project with everyone on our incredible spine team! If you are interested in large-scale disc tissue engineering, you know what to do 👀 ⬇️
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Matthew Fainor @handle.invalid · 06/12/2024
Snail mucus?? I didn’t know we were farming that
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Almosthomefree Art & Design @almosthomefree.bsky.social · 03/12/2024
Cover for Hexagon Issue No.19 Speculative Fiction Magazine. Cover at based on L.M. Guay's short story. Thanks so very much to @hexagonmagazine J.W. Stebner for the opportunity to contribute to this wonderful magazine. Great contributors this issue, check It out here: hexagonmagazine.ca
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Matthew Fainor @handle.invalid · 04/12/2024
You're telling me the next generation of medical therapies will be made INSIDE fruit flies? But how? And why? fleshyfutures.substack.com/p/fruit-flie...
fleshyfutures.substack.com
Fruit flies will produce the next groundbreaking medical therapy
And, according to a new life cycle assessment, will significantly reduce biotech's environmental footprint
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Sarah McAnulty, Ph.D. @sarahmackattack.bsky.social · 02/12/2024
Just made the forms for Skype a Scientist enrollment for 2025. Wanna get added to our scientist volunteer database? Fill out this form! forms.gle/6c8F9uVEDzvB...
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The Guardian @theguardian.com · 02/12/2024
‘I’m used to people thinking I’m lying’: are Scotland’s sea eagles killing hundreds of lambs?
theguardian.com
‘I’m used to people thinking I’m lying’: are Scotland’s sea eagles killing hundreds of lambs?
Bringing back the long-vanished bird to the UK was hailed as a conservation triumph. Then farmers started finding the corpses of their prized livestock * Photographs by Murdo MacLeod Two spinal cords, a dozen ribs and a hollowed-out head lie next to…
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Ologies with Alie Ward @ologies.bsky.social · 26/11/2024
ANNOUNCEMENT OLOGIES HAS A STARTER PACK go.bsky.app/NCwaEuf
go.bsky.app
Ologies with Alie Ward's Starter Pack
Join the conversation
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Matthew Fainor @handle.invalid · 23/11/2024
Lovely @sequencermag.bsky.social article by @maxlevy.bsky.social I finally got around to reading! Short but wonderful read. Feels good to clean out my safari tabs today www.sequencermag.com/the-drugs-of...
sequencermag.com
The drugs of the future are in the animals of the past
The genomes of extinct creatures like mammoths and giant sloths code for natural antibiotics we’ve never seen. So, now what?
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Matthew Fainor @handle.invalid · 22/11/2024
Interested in #CRISPR-edited stem cells for large-scale #TissueEngineering (among other applications)?!?!? Our lab’s collaboration with @robbybowles.bsky.social is out now! You’ll have to read on to learn more ⬇️ 🧬 ✂️ 🧫 ✨ @sgullbrand.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
Targeted CRISPR regulation of ZNF865 enhances stem cell cartilage deposition, tissue maturation rates, and mechanical properties in engineered intervertebral discs
Cell and tissue engineering based approaches have garnered significant interest for treating intervertebral disc degeneration and associated low back …
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The Sheyn Lab @sheynlab.bsky.social · 22/11/2024
Let's see if we can make @bsky.app the home of the spine research community go.bsky.app/DBKUvJq
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Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 11/11/2024
Seeing lots of folks navigating over here in last few days (welcome!). Aggregating folks in the biomaterials & tissue eng. (+ adjacent) spaces that I see. Apologies if replicative. Let me know of others to add to this curated list (self-nom too!). Here's to a new community! 🧪 go.bsky.app/AeG8FWr
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Matthew Fainor @handle.invalid · 20/11/2024
To everyone I just ravenously followed as I transition from the other place, I promise I’ll make a follow back worth your while. Simultaneously trying to be more serious and more silly here. Here’s me in lab and me in my homemade Halloween little brown bat suit as a first taste.
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Matthew Fainor @handle.invalid · 01/03/2024
Can we #TissueEngineer the 21st century? I asked James Henstock how we might use #mechanobiology to break from the conventions of biomanufacturing. He is one of the most fascinating people I’ve ever met. Check it out ⬇️ (And yes, those swirls are Piezo1 😁) fleshyfutures.substack.com/p/the-future...
fleshyfutures.substack.com
The future is fleshy...if we can actually grow it
A Q&A with Dr. James Henstock about bringing tissue-engineered products to market using mechanobiology
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Matthew Fainor @handle.invalid · 14/02/2024
Did you know 820,000 animals are used in U.S. research each year. And 128 million pigs are sacrificed as part of our food system. In my latest article, I talk to Kyra Smith and Dr. John Yuen Jr. about how they’re using bioreactors to reduce those numbers. fleshyfutures.substack.com/p/can-biorea...
fleshyfutures.substack.com
Can bioreactors replace animals?
Three case studies on how to use bioreactors to test, grow, and scale tissue-engineered therapies
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Matthew Fainor @handle.invalid · 30/01/2024
“Excuse me, do you have the time?” “Let me ask my slime mold. They say it’s 7:30.” You read that right. Slime mold. Embedded into a smartwatch that can tell you the time and your heart rate—but only if you take care of it. fleshyfutures.substack.com/p/care-is-an...
fleshyfutures.substack.com
Care is an unlimited resource
A conversation with Jasmine Lu about slime mold, large systems problems, and partnership
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Matthew Fainor @handle.invalid · 16/01/2024
I finally got my bluesky invite code! And just in time to tell all you strangers I am writing something new! If you are interested in how tissue engineering is shaping the 21st century from the mouth of a working tissue engineer, check out Fleshy Futures ⬇️ fleshyfutures.substack.com/p/reimaginin...
fleshyfutures.substack.com
Reimagining Fleshy Futures
Tissue Engineering the 21st Century
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