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Michael G. Lerner

@mglerner.bsky.social
946 followers 1.3K following 220 posts

Comp. biophysicist at Smith: Biomembranes, comp oncology. Reducing distracted hyperbusyness. Decolonizing my sylabus. mglerner@pm.me @mglerner@mastodon.cloud @mglerner at bird site ORCID: 0000-0003-1222-3212

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Michael G. Lerner @mglerner.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Deep cut: Brent Weeks wrote a fantasy series called Lightbringer. One character is named Dazen Guile. I 100% assume DAZN is this dude, every time I see it.
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Michael G. Lerner @mglerner.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I am quite late to the party, but I'm on Ch. 13 of Project Hail Mary and ... it's pretty good!!
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Michael G. Lerner @mglerner.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
my kid is trying to understand "To the Fig Tree on 9th and Christian" and ... hard stuff, y'all.
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Michael G. Lerner @mglerner.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Awesome! I'll get settled a bit first, then I'd love to take you up on this!
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Michael G. Lerner @mglerner.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
So far it’s awesome! Classes start this week and I’m so excited
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Michael G. Lerner @mglerner.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Wiring up my house today. I've never run Ethernet before. My brilliant self spent so much effort getting my technique right before reading the words "pass-thru" on the crimper and plugs, watching one more video, and ... so much faster 🤦‍♂️
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Michael G. Lerner @mglerner.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
We thank you for your service
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Michael G. Lerner @mglerner.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Helping my kids with geometry. I had forgotten how cool perpendicular bisectors are
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Michael G. Lerner @mglerner.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
This is a really weird article in that it doesn't actually try to identify specific problems until the very end. Then, the closest it comes is the quote below, and ... I bet the union doesn't want to do what you think it wants to do. Also maybe don't lionize Watson so much?
Unions are about treating everyone, every problem and every circumstance exactly the same according to union rules. But the mentor-mentee relationship is the ultimate bespoke and personal relationship. What is passed from the mentor to the mentee is not something that can be codified or regulated—especially not by groups focused on hours of sick leave or retirement benefits.
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Michael G. Lerner @mglerner.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Just introduced my children to “What would Brian Boitano do” Top 10 all time song
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Michael G. Lerner @mglerner.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
I am getting a puppy. I want to name her after an unproblematic, powerful female icon. Looking for suggestions. Dolly Bark-ton? Rosa Barks?
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Michael G. Lerner @mglerner.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
OK, but why doesn't my CGU provide PoE?
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Michael G. Lerner @mglerner.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
this is my life now
Message from paymytuition.com saying I've paid a kids tuition.
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Michael G. Lerner @mglerner.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Huh! I haven’t heard this, but I’ll look into it. Thanks.
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Michael G. Lerner @mglerner.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
To follow up on this, you can often find a little ultrasonic bath on sale somewhere. Sold for cleaning retainers or whatever. They’re great for cleaning pens where you put a shimmer ink in a pen and clogged it all up.
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Michael G. Lerner @mglerner.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
so jealous! maybe next year!
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Reposted by Michael G. Lerner
Sam Foley @samuelfoley.com · 06/07/2026
Is there a nice (standardized) way to indicate or hint at the integration measure of the functional when writing down a functional derivative? I find it annoying that I can't deduce the units of a functional derivative at a glance the same way I can for ordinary derivative expressions
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Michael G. Lerner @mglerner.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
I do like Matter and Interactions
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Reposted by Michael G. Lerner
Titus Brown @titus.idyll.org · 16/06/2026
Does anyone have any recommendations physics and chemistry intro materials in Jupyter Notebook form? Simulations, dynamics, modeling, etc? Reliant only the core Python scientific computing ecosystem would be best (so it can work in JupyterLite). scipy, numpy, matplotlib, etc.
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Michael G. Lerner @mglerner.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
Ever since I turned 50, I've been receiving (no exaggeration) 5-13 spam calls a day about medicare. How do I make them stop?
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Michael G. Lerner @mglerner.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
I’ve been loving the thread! But maybe you meant @lernerphysics.bsky.social? So many of us Michael Lerners in physics…
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Michael G. Lerner @mglerner.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
The sky in rural New Zealand 🤩
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Reposted by Michael G. Lerner
Markus Deserno @markusdeserno.bsky.social · 16/03/2026
📣 To celebrate Biophysics Week, the Membrane Structure and Function Subgroup (MSAF) of @biophysicalsoc.bsky.social will host a webinar on March 24 at 11am EDT. Our speakers are @mejohnson81.bsky.social, @ibudin.bsky.social, and Cecília Leal (not on 🦋). 🧪 👀 More info in the alt text! Please share! 🔄
Curve Appeal: The Architecture and Engineering of Membrane Bending

This webinar, hosted by the Membrane Structure & Function Subgroup of the Biophysical Society, and organized by Adam Smith, will highlight how lipid composition, protein assemblies, and membrane mechanics work together to generate and regulate membrane curvature in cells. Three invited speakers will present on membrane bending in a way that's accessible to undergraduate students interested in biochemistry and biophysics, with sufficiently many fun new things sprinkled in to also be interesting to specialists in the field.

Invited speakers are:
   Itay Budin (UC San Diego)
   Margaret E. Johnson (Johns Hopkins University)
   Cecília Leal (University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign).

Sign-up link for the webinar:

https://my.biophysics.org/Events/Calendar-Of-Events/Meeting-Home-Page?meetingid=95b51c20-8219-f111-8342-7ced8d22117d

We hope to have as lively an event as we had a year ago, when we also hosted a biophysics membrane webinar! Log in—it'll be fun!

Please share widely!
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Michael G. Lerner @mglerner.bsky.social · 22/02/2026
Oh this is very exciting! Thank you, and I’d love to get together. Best contact is mglerner@proton.me.
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Michael G. Lerner @mglerner.bsky.social · 22/02/2026
And this is one of the many reasons you are the best, Dr. Deserno!
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Michael G. Lerner @mglerner.bsky.social · 22/02/2026
Next year!
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Michael G. Lerner @mglerner.bsky.social · 21/02/2026
killed it! Worked for NASA on the Apollo project, became an amazing painter, taught me to love poetry. But without that one supportive professor, how different would her life have been? (3/3)
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Michael G. Lerner @mglerner.bsky.social · 21/02/2026
structural misogyny, she was literally in whole buildings without a single women's restroom! Turns out that's only half of the story. She just told me about a professor who taught her engineering math who was so nice to her and so supportive. Without him, she never would have done it. And she (2/3)
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Michael G. Lerner @mglerner.bsky.social · 21/02/2026
My mom is so goddamn impressive. Grew up literally dirt poor. First woman to major in Engineering at the University of Colorado. Story I always heard was that she was an art major and one of her girlfriends dared her to take an engineering class, and she did it out of orneriness. Talk about (1/3)
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Reposted by Michael G. Lerner
Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 13/02/2026
NSF Update Funding curve overall. A little bit of progress in the past week, but only a little bit. Now by Directorate... 1/11
A line curve showing number of awards for fiscal year 2026 compared to fiscal years 2021-2025 across NSF. The fiscal year 2026 curve lies well below curves for other fiscal years.
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Michael G. Lerner @mglerner.bsky.social · 15/02/2026
I have now figured out how to make this in R with ggplot2. I feel very proud.
Plot of global temperature anomaly, using R, Hector, and ggplot2 with 5 different SSPs.
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Michael G. Lerner @mglerner.bsky.social · 14/02/2026
Tongariro Alpine Crossing. All the students made it in under 10 hours. Absolutely amazing.
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Michael G. Lerner @mglerner.bsky.social · 10/02/2026
Thanks!
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Michael G. Lerner @mglerner.bsky.social · 10/02/2026
Biophysics people like @markusdeserno.bsky.social @samuelfoley.com and @diffusiveblob.bsky.social come to mind as folks who might have an example or two ...
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Michael G. Lerner @mglerner.bsky.social · 10/02/2026
Hey #Physics / #ITeachPhysics / #Biophysics / #Math friends: a math colleague has a student who took complex analysis last semester and who wants to practice using the residue theorem to compute *real things* instead of random toy problems. Do you have good examples? Surprisingly, I don't ...
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Michael G. Lerner @mglerner.bsky.social · 09/02/2026
I grew up with the In Living Color alt halftime show but ... dissertations are going to be written about NFL halftime shows now, right? 😻😻😻
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Michael G. Lerner @mglerner.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
Big news time! After 15 wonderful years at Earlham, I'll be starting in July in the Smith College physics department!
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Michael G. Lerner @mglerner.bsky.social · 07/01/2026
Well this looks really interesting
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Michael G. Lerner @mglerner.bsky.social · 06/01/2026
I love this method too. One practical suggestion: make them upload unlisted videos to YouTube. Otherwise you’re likely to get a weirdo video format/huge file.
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Michael G. Lerner @mglerner.bsky.social · 29/12/2025
My favorite kind of sale. The 3rd bottle costs more than the first two.
Sale: 2 for FJ$99. 3 for FJ$149
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Michael G. Lerner @mglerner.bsky.social · 18/12/2025
Who doesn’t love a good diffusion paper
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Michael G. Lerner @mglerner.bsky.social · 30/11/2025
I don't know that NIH was any more draconian in its IT policies than my other employers, but it was THE GOVERNMENT ... and it's where I finally internalized this.
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Michael G. Lerner @mglerner.bsky.social · 30/11/2025
It's letter of recommendation season, but ... my goodness, do notes like this make it worth it!
Hi Michael!
I appreciate you dealing with the 15 grad school LORs. To think that me dreading to sign up for physics junior year because of my awful experience with it in high school, would end up leading to one of the most fascinating research experiences I've had and a great mentor along the way. I cannot express how much of an impact you've made in the last half of my college career. Thank you once again and I will keep you updated.
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Michael G. Lerner @mglerner.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
Here is a solid, thought-provoking post.
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Michael G. Lerner @mglerner.bsky.social · 23/11/2025
Lunchtime tart for the wife’s birthday! Quite pleased with how it came out.
Zucchini tart with scallions, eggs, crème fresh, fresh herbs
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Michael G. Lerner @mglerner.bsky.social · 21/11/2025
I just signed up, but perhaps that was too late to get the Zoom invite? Any chance you could DM it to me (or mail it to mglerner@proton.me)?
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Michael G. Lerner @mglerner.bsky.social · 21/11/2025
Definitely wanted this to lead to some biophysical version of the Coriolis force.
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Reposted by Michael G. Lerner
Markus Deserno @markusdeserno.bsky.social · 19/11/2025
I am honored and excited to present our recent work on mixed AND asymmetric membranes at @bppbseminar.bsky.social! 🧪 My online talk will be this Friday, 11/21/25, 11am US Eastern time. Many thanks to the organizers for putting this together! More details here: sites.google.com/view/bppb-se...
sites.google.com
BPPB Seminar
Seminar Information
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Michael G. Lerner @mglerner.bsky.social · 19/11/2025
But now I think it's going to become a standard tool for me. It really leveled up the conversation.
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Michael G. Lerner @mglerner.bsky.social · 19/11/2025
Thanks! It came up naturally: they made up sample problems as part of the review for this exam. In looking over their problems, I was like "y'all won't be happy, because the exam is going to have some problems that are noticeably harder than your examples," so I tacked this on as another review day.
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