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Back in February, biomechanics researcher Eva-Maria Collins brought her husband, three-year-old son, and infant daughter to the Biophysical Society’s annual meeting in New Orleans. Collins, whose lab is based at the University of California, San Diego, was being honored for the 2016 paper of the year in Biophysical Journal—a study describing how Hydra open their mouths (apparently, it involves ripping through epithelial tissue).
The night before, no one in the Collins family had slept much. “The kids had a very rough night,” she recalls. Given the subsequent crankiness, Collins and her husband decided to divide and conquer; he would take their son and she would handle the baby. Later that day, Collins took the stage, daughter strapped to her torso in a baby carrier, and ...
