All life on Earth evolved from single cells. But, how did those cells come to work together by the trillions to make you and me? To a single cell, being part of a body is thankless work that flies in the face of billions of years of evolution for independent existence. It doesn't make sense, and there's plenty of reason to think it would never work! And yet somehow, it does. In my latest blog post, I share my favorite theory about how life makes bodies, and maintains them from generation to generation.

https://thinkingwithnate.wordpress.com/2025/07/01/building-bodies/
#life #science #biology #development

WHAT DO YOU MEAAAANNNN

Should a graduate student write their (scientific) thesis/dissertation using "I" or "we"? Importantly, if it was a journal manuscript, it would be multi-authored and "we" would be used. 👈This part here is critical to my question!

I know passive voice solves the problem, but I'm specifically asking about when it's written in active voice (first person).

#academia #AcademicChatter

Got into the bus to go to tokyo. The driver came to tell us something. We could only understand that the bus would take longer to get to tokyo. We (me+wife): "daijobudesu". We arrived at tokyo the time I actually had to be in the consulate to renew my passport. 🤡 Everything on us there. Japanese sensei will be disappointed at us. xP

Thankfully I was able to reschedule the appointment to tomorrow. To which I will go by train... and alone. 💸

This one!

Valian, V. (1977). Learning to work. In S. Ruddick & P. Daniels (Eds.), Working it out: 23 women writers, artists, scientists, and scholars talk about their lives and work (pp. 162-178). New York, NY: Pantheon Books.

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5b3a3c2596e76feeba40905e/t/5b46366570a6add65490e050/1531328102222/1977workingItOut.pdf

Found this
@thesiswhisperer 's post from 15 years ago and it got me to read the most relatable thing ever. Thank you, I'm following the blog forever now.

https://thesiswhisperer.com/2010/11/23/phd-paralysis/

Of course. Tons of setbacks and moments where you're stuck.

PhD is like playing Elden Ring and trying to understand the lore without looking up in the internet: The world is huge, lot's of lore, sidequests and secrets around. No clear direction on where to go. And in the end you probably won't be so sure of what you have, but will have tons of things to talk with other people that played the game.

How could I live in a world without reading Discworld? Started reading "The color of magic" and it's just what I had always been looking for!
#Discworld #Reading

I know bear-san... there are no shortcuts. :(

I think I shouldn't be there...
#nightreign

https://www.tomsguide.com/computing/vpns/these-popular-browsers-are-hungry-for-your-data-heres-how-to-avoid-them

A guide to which browsers collect the most data, some of the results may surprise you.

Chrome is by far the worst, with safari close behind.

The Tor Browser shares zero info of any kind, with anyone period, With Brave being one of the most Private on the list.

The TYPE of data shared is relevant, for example Firefox, although sharing a moderate amount of Data, mostly shares diagnostic data, but not user content.

#Browsers #Privacy

[Tokyo] #picotachi is back on Friday (June 6th) with vol.74 at Pico Pico Cafe!

Starts 7pm / talks from 8pm / free entry / cafe is open from 5pm. DM me if you'd like to show something you're working on or thinking about. More info: https://www.picopicocafe.com/index_en.html#picotachi

When I talk to my spanish-speaking friend I often say the word "mucho"
It means a lot to him.

"New study reveals that when used to summarize scientific research, generative AI is nearly five times LESS accurate than humans. Many haven't realized, but Gen AI's accuracy problem is worse than initially thought."

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/epdf/10.1098/rsos.241776

#ALife

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:kbon33dkvzr7kjfibz6n27vq/post/3lodhowae4c2z

I've got an obscure Computer Science question, so if you know CS folks, boosts appreciated. :boost_requested:

I'm experimenting with weird algorithms inspired by cell biology, and looking for related works in the CS literature.

In particular, I'm looking for attempts to frame computation and program generation in terms of ordinary differential equations, or stochastic processes. So, like, you describe your input as initial conditions for some system, simulate that system for some time, and whatever the final state is, that's your output. Problem solved.

Intuitively, this should be equivalent to other much more common programming models, but if anyone's already put work into how to do it, that would be helpful :)

Or, more literally, if you know of anyone trying to do useful computation using gene regulatory or chemical reaction networks, I'd love to find those examples.

#compsci #computerscience