Oops - DMs now open!
Oops - DMs now open!
Any bio artists out here? Iβm interested in commissioning 1-2 pieces, leaning more towards the art side but love stuff that is science-inspired... DM me if you're interested!
I've heard biologists complain that AI isn't useful because new bio data doesn't make the models better... but what if AI is a mirror showing us that a lot of data isn't as insightful as we think it is? How do we identify experiments that are maximally informative to a model?
Original Apple I in wooden case designed and built by Steve Wozniak
When I close my eyes and dream about bioproducts this is what I see if you even care
Not to upset anyone but I'm coming down on the side of microplastics in the human body being mostly an experimental artifact until someone puts out stronger data: www.science.org/content/blog...
X is cooked I hope people I like are still here instead. Please don't make me go to LinkedIn
This wasnβt an easy decision for me - Iβm both excited and confident in the direction that Ginkgo is headed. While I wonβt be part of Ginkgo moving forward, I will continue to be Ginkgoβs biggest supporter and a proud alum. As for me personally, Iβm looking forward to taking a quick break to recharge before I start building the next thing. This is a pivotal time for the scientific community, and I donβt plan to stay on the sidelines. If youβre interested in chatting about the future of designing biology, Iβm looking forward to catching up!
(2/2)
Last week I wrapped up at Ginkgo after 13 amazing years. It was, without a doubt, the best postdoc I could have asked for. I knew there was something special about Ginkgoβs founding team when I joined back in 2012, and Iβm forever grateful that Jason, Reshma, Barry, Austin, and Tom took a chance on me back then. Itβs been an incredible honor to be part of growing Ginkgo, going from a tiny pre-seed company, to seeing our work in fermentation tanks, field trials, and clinical trials. If youβve been here, youβll know that some of the most talented, creative people in the Boston area and beyond have made it a special place.
π Some personal newsβ¦ π
(1/2)
evolution really went off with brassica oleracea
Inglorious bastards three fingers meme
βKomagataella phaffiiβ
Few papers perfectly intersect my interests better than this paper on advanced baseball bat designs via genetic algorithms from the Centre for Advanced Wood Processing mdpi-res.com/d_attachment...
Text excerpt: In 2004, Blue Heron Biotechnology (http://www.blueheronbio.com/), a leading gene synthesis company, organized the Big DNA Contest. They offered to synthesize, free of charge, the most interesting genetic construct longer than 40 kb that people would send them. One of the stated goals of this initiative was to encourage scientists to consider the potential impact of large synthetic DNA fragments on their research strategies. The company did not receive a single submission even though the estimated value of the grand prize exceeded US$250 000.
I think about this a lot
Props to the guy playing a clearly AI-generated TikTok on loop in a public bathroom, will file that in my βdystopian vignettesβ folder
A new report I worked on for NAS on AI and biosecurity is out today - we looked at risks posed by SOTA AI and opportunities to use AI to improve biosecurity. It builds on a report we wrote back in 2018, which feels like a million years ago in AIxBio!
nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/28868
Today, everything's computer, but tomorrow, everything's crabputer arxiv.org/abs/1204.1749
Iβm doing my part bsky.app/profile/patr...
I'll be with the Ginkgo team at Nvidia GTC next week! Sign up here to for a demo: automation.ginkgo.bio/nvidia-gtc-2...
Yeah, I think the custom feed stuff also fragments the userbase - would be nice to have one main algorithmic feed (in addition to the non-algo following feed) so that all users are in one place. I was hoping "Discover" would be that feed but it needs a little bit more juice
Oh weird I had no idea
Yeah same - just give us a little bit of an algo, as a treat
Engage with my post, I'm starting to lose consciousness
Since twitter is down I'll mention that I'd spend more time here if engagement was higher (with real people not the bot slop X has). Feels like tuning the algo to boost replies a bit more would be useful - my feed is mostly people shouting facts into the void
Support for the Ribosome Panspermia Hypothesis grows unabated
It's that AI-generated figure of a rat with giant balls. You know the one
It's been just over a year, and either no new papers have been published with AI-generated rat balls, or the newer models are just that good at generating anatomically correct rat balls
Itβs been a tough few weeks. My 10yo daughter was diagnosed with a very rare, aggressive cancer called interdigitating dendritic cell sarcoma (IDCS). Iβm reaching out to identify clinicians/patients who have encountered pediatric IDCS or other (non-LCH) dendritic or histiocytic sarcomas cases.
We're excited to announce our 2025 Ferment Series, an evolution of our flagship annual conference dedicated to advancing our mission of making biology easier to engineer! We can't wait to see you in Boston
Read more: www.ginkgo.bio/resources/bl...
Sign up for updates: www.ginkgo.bio/ferment-2025...
Iβm gonna be straight with you, the only animal I know of is the raccoon. Final answer
Closeup of an airplane seat with USB-A and Ethernet on the back
It must be hard for designers to keep up with rapid tech changes for long-lasting stuff like airplane seats, but I wish I couldβve been a fly on the wall for the meeting where they locked in the seatback Ethernet jack
Chief Miles OβBrien
Was this him
Me in 2005: it would be fun to connect with my fellow students on the facebook
Me in 2025: the new meta is getting your message out via tradwife accounts on xiaohongshu before either government sees it