Author: Raghuveer Parthasarathy

Physics Professor at the University of Oregon
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Recap of a Graduate (and Undergraduate!) Biological Physics Course

Several times so far I’ve taught a graduate course on biophysics. Last term I taught it again, but with a twist: it was a combined graduate and undergraduate course. There were two motivations for this. First, biophysics is unfamiliar enough to physics graduate students that upper-division undergraduates aren’t at any significant disadvantage. In fact, I’ve … Continue reading Recap of a Graduate (and Undergraduate!) Biological Physics Course

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The Year in Books, 2023

Here’s this year’s recap of notable books I read, featuring Russians new and old, Scythians (all old), and criminals of various sorts. (Previous years: 2022, 2021, …, 2015.) 1965 vs. 2023 I wrote a few months ago about my excursion into 1965, reading seven books published in that year. I won’t revisit any of these … Continue reading The Year in Books, 2023

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How did we make reading genomes a million times cheaper? — What is biophysics? #18

Each of us has a genome of about 3 billion DNA nucleotides — a sequence of 3 billion As, Cs, Gs, and Ts. Knowing what this sequence is, whether our own sequence or that of a bacterium, a barley plant, a baboon, or anything else, tells us about the repertoire of tools its genome encodes, … Continue reading How did we make reading genomes a million times cheaper? — What is biophysics? #18

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How can one nose make so much mucus? — What is biophysics? #17

Perhaps when blowing your nose, or the nose of a sick child, you’ve wondered where all this stuff comes from. How can one nose make so much mucus? This is #17 in our series of biophysical questions (#1, #16). The answer involves electrical forces and the physical character of mucus. Mucus, the gooey liquid secreted … Continue reading How can one nose make so much mucus? — What is biophysics? #17

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Zoom Interview Questions and Other STEM Faculty Hiring Tidbits

There’s a lot of advice out there for prospective applicants for academic faculty positions [1], so you don’t really need mine. However, some advice is outdated and some is incomplete, so I thought it would be worthwhile to add a small bit of information based on experiences from my department’s search last year (Physics, University … Continue reading Zoom Interview Questions and Other STEM Faculty Hiring Tidbits

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Statistical Mechanics Has a Good Beat and You Can Dance To It

Last Spring, I taught the second term of University of Oregon’s statistical mechanics / thermodynamics for physics majors course (syllabus). I might at some point describe how the course went and what lessons might be drawn, beyond the key lesson that statistical mechanics is a wonderful subject. For now, something far less substantial: I often … Continue reading Statistical Mechanics Has a Good Beat and You Can Dance To It

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A Few Flavors of Microscopes — SAIL recap, 2023

What makes one microscope better than another? A few weeks ago I co-ran a week-long Physics and Human Physiology day camp for high school students, part of the University of Oregon’s “SAIL” program that especially targets low-income students. I’ve written about SAIL before (2019, 2017, 2014) — this was our 14th Physics + Human Physiology … Continue reading A Few Flavors of Microscopes — SAIL recap, 2023