Weekly Links #2
Chinese talent. Boycott journals. A medieval murder map.
Engineering serendipity. The first point—to list out every possible way to solve a problem—is genuinely useful. When most people think about how to “manipulate” or “control” a living cell, for example, they immediately think of chemicals and small molecules. But cells respond to all kinds of physical forces, including light and magnetism and vibrations, and so on. Ed Boyden & Karl Deisseroth apparently invented optogenetics by writing out all the ways they could imagine to control living cells. So the key here is to think more broadly; more systematically.
Michael Nielsen’s textbook on neural networks. This has been valuable in my ongoing journey to more deeply understand bio+ML.
De novo-designed proteins that clear FDA-approved drugs in mice.
Programmable acetylation of RNA transcripts with an engineered Cas13.
Deep learning-based design of human enhancer sequences for cell-type-specific expression
Scientists put birds in a wind tunnel to figure out the energy efficiency of flight.
Now is a bad time to do a PhD.
How to make Egyptian Blue, a recipe lost to time.
Paradromics has tested their BCI, called Connexus, in a human patient.
Long-ish article on epigenome editor drugs.
“…effortful, goal-directed tasks use only 5% more energy than restful brain activity.”
Origins of the research university.
A non barrel-shaped nanopore protein (wut?)
The Medical Evidence Project will round “up flawed and fake medical-research papers” and then neutralize “their impact on health guidelines.” It’s being run by the indomitable James Heathers, so I actually have high hopes for this.
A better A-to-G base editor for mitochondrial DNA. And related.
June 10 in Prague, “A Scientific Conference to End All Conferences,” like a music festival for nerds.
Roche is moving a new antibiotic to Phase III clinical trials. Momentous. This almost never happens.
A medieval murder map of Cambridge, UK unveils “a murder commissioned by a leading figure of the English aristocracy” in 1337.
Using insects to make oxygen-doped molecular nanocarbons.
“Before the 1970s, fewer than 10% of children diagnosed with [leukemia] survived five years after diagnosis. But since then, this outlook has improved dramatically. In North America and Europe, around 85% now survive that long.” Excellent from Saloni Dattani.
Single-cell characterization of bacterial optogenetic Cre recombinases.
“Hunan province” in China “will provide a sum of up to 1 million yuan to doctoral students who move there from abroad.” How Chinese universities are trying to attract international talent. (People tell me that 1 million yuan is not so much. Point taken.)