@FakhriLab

Professor @MIT_Physics @MIT

 Cambridge, MA
FakhriLab.com
Joined November 2015
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  • Following648
  • Followers5.3K
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A new framework maps the collective movement of starfish embryos as topological “flowscapes,” revealing circulating flows, irreversible pathways, and structural transitions that emerge as they self-organize. Read more in @physrevx: go.aps.org/4r3NH71
Microscopy video of starfish embryos moving in coordinated, swirling patterns, with red and blue arrows overlaid to show the direction of movement.

ALT Microscopy video of starfish embryos moving in coordinated, swirling patterns, with red and blue arrows overlaid to show the direction of movement.

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Nikta Fakhri retweeted
Physical Review X@PhysRevXSep 8
By applying dynamic topological landscapes to a mixture of starfish embryos, scientists developed a flowstate framework that quantifies how nonreciprocal transitions sculpt the architecture of active and living matter. Read more: go.aps.org/4r3NH71
A video showing a binary mixture of starfish embryos moving about under a microscope, with overlaid arrows denoting their two-minute trajectories. E1 embryos are colored blue and E2 embryos are colored red.

ALT A video showing a binary mixture of starfish embryos moving about under a microscope, with overlaid arrows denoting their two-minute trajectories. E1 embryos are colored blue and E2 embryos are colored red.

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A coordinated flock doesn't always stay coordinated. When two groups follow conflicting rules — one aligning, the other antialigning — the flock can spontaneously rotate. But beyond a certain size, that coherent motion breaks down into chaos. Read more: go.aps.org/4hf71Lc
Two-panel figure. The first is a swirling red-and-blue pattern showing chaotic motion in a simulated two-species flocking model. The second, a microscope image of starfish embryos with blue and red arrows indicating the differing movement directions of young versus old embryos.

ALT Two-panel figure. The first is a swirling red-and-blue pattern showing chaotic motion in a simulated two-species flocking model. The second, a microscope image of starfish embryos with blue and red arrows indicating the differing movement directions of young versus old embryos.

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Science is Curiosity on a Mission: It includes all of us who ask "why" and make it our mission to find out. These are the discoveries that move the country forward. The pursuit of ideas that seemed impossible until they weren’t. #CuriosityOnAMission
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“Curiosity is the force that transforms deadly cancers into treatable conditions… that turns fusion energy from a dream to a reality…that uncovers new ways to grow more food using less of every resource,” says MIT President Sally Kornbluth. #CuriosityOnAMission
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What happens when marine embryos are crowded instead of isolated? They become materials. Honored to write a @NaturePhysics News & Views on excitable living solids discovered by @FakhriLab and colleagues at @MIT 😀 N&V: rdcu.be/e5gLm Paper: nature.com/articles/s41567-0…
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BREAKING NEWS The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2025 #NobelPrize in Physics to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis “for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit.”
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Today (5-29-25) marks the last in a string of palindrome dates that began on May 20 (5-20-25) in the US. To mark the occasion, and in honor of the OneMIT Commencement ceremony, the Institute’s own Barry Duncan, a renowned palindrome poet and bookseller at the MIT Press Bookstore, penned for our collective enjoyment this entirely reversible ode to the Class of 2025 and our Commencement speaker.
Poem titled “OneMIT Hank Green, Commencement Speaker:” 5-29-25. Nod, as MIT eyes order, adieus. New one, file: Wonder. (Ahs, now ohs.) H.G. is a hero. Jam? SciShow! (Ohs.) I: CS major, eh? A sigh show on. Shared, no? We: ‘Life, now ensue.’ I dared, rose – yet I'm sad – on 5-29-25.

ALT Poem titled “OneMIT Hank Green, Commencement Speaker:” 5-29-25. Nod, as MIT eyes order, adieus. New one, file: Wonder. (Ahs, now ohs.) H.G. is a hero. Jam? SciShow! (Ohs.) I: CS major, eh? A sigh show on. Shared, no? We: ‘Life, now ensue.’ I dared, rose – yet I'm sad – on 5-29-25.

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Nikta Fakhri retweeted
David Sivak@DavidASivak17 Apr 2025
Check out the @GC_CUNY/@phybiofunc symposium tomorrow on Information and Irreversibility itsatcuny.org/calendar/2025/… featuring @FakhriLab, my colleague John Bechhoefer, and yours truly!
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Nikta Fakhri retweeted
Complexity Digest@cxdig3 Apr 2025
The Hidden Order of Life: How Nature Breaks Symmetry with Nikta Fakhri @FakhriLab sco.lt/56SGJc youtube.com/watch?v=Tndh_Hb6…
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We may not have really squared the circle — but came close! 😉 In our @NaturePhysics paper with @FakhriLab light-triggered membrane excitability enables programmable shapes — a step toward engineering living matter. nature.com/articles/s41567-0… #biophysics #syntheticcell #softmatter
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⭐🐟 When you think of #ModelOrganisms, do you think of starfish? They're a classic model to understand #CellGrowth used by the @FakhriLab at @MIT! The lab used light to control how a single cell jiggles and moves during its earliest stage of development: bit.ly/3DYtpYu
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Nikta Fakhri retweeted
SynBioBeta
@SynBioBeta27 Mar 2025
Researchers led by Erwin Frey (@LMU_Muenchen) and Nikta Fakhri (@MIT) discovered how to reshape living cells with light, revealing key mechanisms behind cell morphogenesis. read article: synbiobeta.com/read/lighten-… #SyntheticBiology #Optogenetics #ScienceNews
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Nikta Fakhri retweeted
Tom Burkart@t_burkart26 Mar 2025
Fresh from the press with @NaturePhysics: How do we leverage a cell's self-organization to make it change its shape into a square? Check it out here: nature.com/articles/s41567-0… @PhysOfLifeLMU @FakhriLab

Light-induced cortical excitability reveals programmable shape dynamics in starfish oocytes

Nature Physics - Optogenetically induced chemo-mechanical excitations are used to drive and study shape deformations in starfish oocytes. Understanding and eventually controlling such waves is...

nature.com
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Emmy Noether showed that fundamental physical laws are really just a consequence of simple symmetries. A century later, her insights continue to shape physics. @shalmawegs reports: quantamagazine.org/how-noeth…

How Noether’s Theorem Revolutionized Physics | Quanta Magazine

Emmy Noether showed that fundamental physical laws are just a consequence of simple symmetries. A century later, her insights continue to shape physics.

quantamagazine.org
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Welcome to The Many Faces of Active Mechanics (#activesolids-c24) conference at #KITP! Learn more at: kitp.ucsb.edu/activities/act… Stay tuned for recorded talks at: online.kitp.ucsb.edu/online/…
The Many Faces of Active Mechanics www.kitp.ucsb.edu/activities/activesolids-c24 Dates: Oct 15 - 18, 2024 Recordings: online.kitp.ucsb.edu/online/activesolids-c24 Coordinators: Daphne Klotsa, M. Cristina Marchetti, Daniel Sussman, Anton Souslov

ALT The Many Faces of Active Mechanics www.kitp.ucsb.edu/activities/activesolids-c24 Dates: Oct 15 - 18, 2024 Recordings: online.kitp.ucsb.edu/online/activesolids-c24 Coordinators: Daphne Klotsa, M. Cristina Marchetti, Daniel Sussman, Anton Souslov

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BREAKING NEWS The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2024 #NobelPrize in Physics to John J. Hopfield and Geoffrey E. Hinton “for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks.”
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In his address, @NoubarAfeyan PhD ’87 gives new MIT graduates a special assignment: The inventor, entrepreneur, and philanthropist encourages the Class of 2024 to “accept impossible missions” and “lead with imagination” in uncertain times. mitsha.re/EBWS50S43TF
Noubar Afeyan speaks at a podium with the MIT seal on the front. Faculty and administrators in academic regalia are seated next to him.

ALT Noubar Afeyan speaks at a podium with the MIT seal on the front. Faculty and administrators in academic regalia are seated next to him.

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Congratulations, Class of 2024!
“The Institute you are graduating from is – thanks in part to you – always reflecting and always changing… And I take that as your charge to us.”

ALT “The Institute you are graduating from is – thanks in part to you – always reflecting and always changing… And I take that as your charge to us.”

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Today begins MIT’s Commencement, a three-day celebration including an address by @NoubarAfeyan PhD ’87. The Class of 2024 “is truly a special group of self-starters and trailblazers that can accomplish anything they put their minds to,” Andre Hamelberg says. #MIT2024
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