Ary Shalizi
@unsequenced.bsky.social
Biologist, book nerd, parent, hype skeptic in no particular order.
Phenotypic screening for cell and chemical biology.
Also, random book reviews at link.
unsequenced.life
Phenotypic screening for cell and chemical biology.
Also, random book reviews at link.
unsequenced.life
Pinned
Ary Shalizi
@unsequenced.bsky.social
· May 23
My notes on this book ran a little long, so I turned it into a little essay. Taking a cue from "The Future, Now and Then" series by @davekarpf.bsky.social, what did biotechnologists of the 1980s think the future had in store?
(sadly, an Italian biotech with a racy name never materialized)
💙📚
🧪
(sadly, an Italian biotech with a racy name never materialized)
💙📚
🧪
From endorsement to UNdorsement, eh?
November 15, 2025 at 2:03 AM
From endorsement to UNdorsement, eh?
“Jeffrey Epstein invited Deepak Chopra to lunch with George Church” is a sentence too wild to contemplate. Would they split one of those mammoth meatballs?
(Chopra had other plans that day.)
HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_029203.txt.pdf
(Chopra had other plans that day.)
HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_029203.txt.pdf
November 14, 2025 at 12:54 PM
“Jeffrey Epstein invited Deepak Chopra to lunch with George Church” is a sentence too wild to contemplate. Would they split one of those mammoth meatballs?
(Chopra had other plans that day.)
HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_029203.txt.pdf
(Chopra had other plans that day.)
HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_029203.txt.pdf
Going to try this approach next time I coach my daughter’s team.
"Everyone put down their objects, your infernal orange slices. Everyone come and look into my eyes — one by one, look into my eyes. After I make you cry we will scrub these cow bones and we will weep and sing. This is all I can offer you."
Marina Abramović is Your Kid’s New Soccer Coach and the Team is Down by Nine Goals at the Half
I face so much jealousy as Marina Abramović. Why are you jealous? Ask. Use your voices to ask and sing it as a question. Now get up. Really? Now si...
buff.ly
November 14, 2025 at 5:00 AM
Going to try this approach next time I coach my daughter’s team.
Tell me you’re too lazy to read, and think very little of your colleagues, without saying “I’m too lazy to read, and think very little of my colleagues.”
What do you do after you’re done jumping the shark?
Whatever it is, Nature Careers is all in.
Whatever it is, Nature Careers is all in.
November 12, 2025 at 12:50 AM
Tell me you’re too lazy to read, and think very little of your colleagues, without saying “I’m too lazy to read, and think very little of my colleagues.”
It's truly an evergreen idea...
This proposal is short and manages to get biology so, so wrong.
Keeping some cells and biometric data isn't "backing up" a person, any more than keeping a recipe, some tasting notes, and a slice in the freezer, is "backing up" a cake.
This proposal is short and manages to get biology so, so wrong.
Keeping some cells and biometric data isn't "backing up" a person, any more than keeping a recipe, some tasting notes, and a slice in the freezer, is "backing up" a cake.
November 10, 2025 at 6:37 PM
It's truly an evergreen idea...
This proposal is short and manages to get biology so, so wrong.
Keeping some cells and biometric data isn't "backing up" a person, any more than keeping a recipe, some tasting notes, and a slice in the freezer, is "backing up" a cake.
This proposal is short and manages to get biology so, so wrong.
Keeping some cells and biometric data isn't "backing up" a person, any more than keeping a recipe, some tasting notes, and a slice in the freezer, is "backing up" a cake.
Curious about how scientists at Bay Area universities and biotech companies are using high-content imaging to better understand health and disease? Join me at the @revvity.bsky.social High-Content Imaging Symposium on 11/12 at The Hangar in South San Francisco.
Details at the link!
Details at the link!
2025 High-Content Imaging Symposium
Join our 2025 High-Content Imaging Symposium, showcasing our latest innovations in high-content imaging and analysis!
www.eventbrite.com
November 10, 2025 at 3:18 PM
Curious about how scientists at Bay Area universities and biotech companies are using high-content imaging to better understand health and disease? Join me at the @revvity.bsky.social High-Content Imaging Symposium on 11/12 at The Hangar in South San Francisco.
Details at the link!
Details at the link!
Reposted by Ary Shalizi
It really feels like there were obvious, relatable ways to drum up support for continuing the shutdown.
Once they were in the shutdown though they could have made it about anything. Put clips of ICE abducting children on endless loop and say “do we keep funding a govt that does *that*?” Then you might get federal workers clamoring not for concessions but a strike.
Again, requires believing in things.
Again, requires believing in things.
This was a doomed exercise from the outset. They picked a fight to give the GOP something they thought they would want anyway, and have now been embarrassed into capitulating on even that. Beyond pathetic.
November 10, 2025 at 3:28 AM
It really feels like there were obvious, relatable ways to drum up support for continuing the shutdown.
I remember seeing Watson talk as a postbac at the NIH. I’ll never forget him saying how “stupid” the triplet code was, compared to the hypothetical codes other people proposed, and that it was deciphered by l “inelegant, brute-force methods.”
Marshall Nirenberg was sitting in the front row.
Marshall Nirenberg was sitting in the front row.
Text I received from a former labmate last night. Roughly sums up the vibe among molecular biologists I know.
November 8, 2025 at 4:08 PM
I remember seeing Watson talk as a postbac at the NIH. I’ll never forget him saying how “stupid” the triplet code was, compared to the hypothetical codes other people proposed, and that it was deciphered by l “inelegant, brute-force methods.”
Marshall Nirenberg was sitting in the front row.
Marshall Nirenberg was sitting in the front row.
Text I received from a former labmate last night. Roughly sums up the vibe among molecular biologists I know.
November 8, 2025 at 4:02 PM
Text I received from a former labmate last night. Roughly sums up the vibe among molecular biologists I know.
Wife once asked our 10yo if she would be interested in taking an improv class:
Daughter: “No thanks.”
Mom: “Well, do you know what improv is?”
Daughter, narrowing her eyes for emphasis: “Yes AND, I don’t want to take the class.”
Daughter: “No thanks.”
Mom: “Well, do you know what improv is?”
Daughter, narrowing her eyes for emphasis: “Yes AND, I don’t want to take the class.”
Asked my 2 year old if she’d be interested in taking soccer or a dance class or maybe an art class. She thought about it and said “No. Maybe a stuffie class? Or a chocolate chip class?”
November 2, 2025 at 8:06 PM
Wife once asked our 10yo if she would be interested in taking an improv class:
Daughter: “No thanks.”
Mom: “Well, do you know what improv is?”
Daughter, narrowing her eyes for emphasis: “Yes AND, I don’t want to take the class.”
Daughter: “No thanks.”
Mom: “Well, do you know what improv is?”
Daughter, narrowing her eyes for emphasis: “Yes AND, I don’t want to take the class.”
I initially read the title as “Don of the Dead”, and mentally swapped in a cadaverous Richard Dawkins in the thumbnail…
"We're forty strong, the last holdfast of humanity against the gathering administrative flood. Forty full-timers and adjuncts combined, music professors, theater professors, dance professors."
Dean of the Dead
The wind howls outside the arts building, drowning out the sound of the approaching deans. We don’t know exactly where they are. The Porcupine and ...
buff.ly
October 31, 2025 at 5:01 AM
I initially read the title as “Don of the Dead”, and mentally swapped in a cadaverous Richard Dawkins in the thumbnail…
As a scientist, I am immensely pleased that my 8yo says “dad, I have a hypothesis about the next Kpop Demon Hunters movie”, and not “dad, I have a theory about the next Kpop Demon Hunters movie.”
October 31, 2025 at 3:39 AM
As a scientist, I am immensely pleased that my 8yo says “dad, I have a hypothesis about the next Kpop Demon Hunters movie”, and not “dad, I have a theory about the next Kpop Demon Hunters movie.”
I feel like Dinesh missed an opportunity to clap back with, “you’re right, Indians did make nothing. You’re welcome.”
October 23, 2025 at 12:59 AM
I feel like Dinesh missed an opportunity to clap back with, “you’re right, Indians did make nothing. You’re welcome.”
Is she 35 yet?
AOC: And they are able to radicalize a generation of young boys in particular, away from healthy masculinity and into an insecure masculinity that requires the domination of others who are poorer, browner, darker, or a different gender than them.
October 16, 2025 at 2:21 AM
Is she 35 yet?
So, this Overton Window I keep hearing about, is it on a ratcheting track or something?
Because for my entire adult life, it only seems to have moved in one direction.
Because for my entire adult life, it only seems to have moved in one direction.
Q: Politico reported on a group chat of young Republicans. Does this just reflect some bad apples?
HOCHUL: Some bad apples? These are the future of the GOP. This is so vile it's hard to find the words to put into context ... there's gotta be consequences ... this bullshit has to stop.
HOCHUL: Some bad apples? These are the future of the GOP. This is so vile it's hard to find the words to put into context ... there's gotta be consequences ... this bullshit has to stop.
October 15, 2025 at 7:16 PM
So, this Overton Window I keep hearing about, is it on a ratcheting track or something?
Because for my entire adult life, it only seems to have moved in one direction.
Because for my entire adult life, it only seems to have moved in one direction.
Reposted by Ary Shalizi
Dear funding agencies,
I know we all want to discover the wonder drug that will cure the horrible diseases, but to do that, we need to invest in basic, unsexy, foundational research on how the systems work. Funding can’t all be drug development.
Sincerely,
Looking for basic research grants.
I know we all want to discover the wonder drug that will cure the horrible diseases, but to do that, we need to invest in basic, unsexy, foundational research on how the systems work. Funding can’t all be drug development.
Sincerely,
Looking for basic research grants.
October 14, 2025 at 7:24 PM
Dear funding agencies,
I know we all want to discover the wonder drug that will cure the horrible diseases, but to do that, we need to invest in basic, unsexy, foundational research on how the systems work. Funding can’t all be drug development.
Sincerely,
Looking for basic research grants.
I know we all want to discover the wonder drug that will cure the horrible diseases, but to do that, we need to invest in basic, unsexy, foundational research on how the systems work. Funding can’t all be drug development.
Sincerely,
Looking for basic research grants.
I hope this is a soft reveal that IBCK is finally going to do a Yuval Harari episode.
Homo Deus is one of the worst books I’ve ever read. I can’t believe someone could pack so many misunderstandings about biology into a single chapter (antibiotic resistance, drug discovery, etc)
Homo Deus is one of the worst books I’ve ever read. I can’t believe someone could pack so many misunderstandings about biology into a single chapter (antibiotic resistance, drug discovery, etc)
"Sapiens" is so normal for the first 70,000 years of human history but then goes absolutely buckwild as soon as it gets to colonialism
October 14, 2025 at 3:01 PM
I hope this is a soft reveal that IBCK is finally going to do a Yuval Harari episode.
Homo Deus is one of the worst books I’ve ever read. I can’t believe someone could pack so many misunderstandings about biology into a single chapter (antibiotic resistance, drug discovery, etc)
Homo Deus is one of the worst books I’ve ever read. I can’t believe someone could pack so many misunderstandings about biology into a single chapter (antibiotic resistance, drug discovery, etc)
What’s the connection between the Cuban revolution, the obesity epidemic, and GLP-1 agonists like Ozempic?
The history of #biotechnology is wild! Currently reading Robert Bud’s fascinating “The Uses of Life,” and came across the following passage:
1/n
The history of #biotechnology is wild! Currently reading Robert Bud’s fascinating “The Uses of Life,” and came across the following passage:
1/n
![Passage from “The Uses of Life”, by Robert Bud. Key section states
“With high sugar prices in the United States during the early 1960s, [Japanese] work [on glucose metabolic enzymes] came to the notice of the Clinton Corn Processing Company, which in 1967 launched a complex enzyme system. It was commercially viable, but it was only in 1974 that Novo, and Gist Brocades in the Netherlands, developed cheap and effective methods. In the United States, this led to the widespread replacement of sunrise in the soft drinks industry. The 1975 glucose isomerase sales of $15m had increased to $40m by 1977 and $50m in 1980.”](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:qvcmzr3ttriadi27yamf6k5v/bafkreigfuu5utq2s7levjktfvujhvg2dtvzisnkwmy6vdonfxt3v6bbv44@jpeg)
October 6, 2025 at 5:27 AM
What’s the connection between the Cuban revolution, the obesity epidemic, and GLP-1 agonists like Ozempic?
The history of #biotechnology is wild! Currently reading Robert Bud’s fascinating “The Uses of Life,” and came across the following passage:
1/n
The history of #biotechnology is wild! Currently reading Robert Bud’s fascinating “The Uses of Life,” and came across the following passage:
1/n
Today I realized that I’ve been asking myself “Is ‘Tyler Cowen’ real, or just an elaborate piece of performance art intended for shock value?” for 17 years.
Unfortunately, trusted sources suggest it’s not the latter.
Unfortunately, trusted sources suggest it’s not the latter.
October 3, 2025 at 12:20 AM
Today I realized that I’ve been asking myself “Is ‘Tyler Cowen’ real, or just an elaborate piece of performance art intended for shock value?” for 17 years.
Unfortunately, trusted sources suggest it’s not the latter.
Unfortunately, trusted sources suggest it’s not the latter.
“When you feel like you’re getting mad at me, think of all the fun we’re going to have.”
-7y.o. to her 10 y.o. sister
-7y.o. to her 10 y.o. sister
October 2, 2025 at 3:54 AM
“When you feel like you’re getting mad at me, think of all the fun we’re going to have.”
-7y.o. to her 10 y.o. sister
-7y.o. to her 10 y.o. sister
Better late than never, August reviews and the conclusion of Critical AI Summer. 9 books, mostly “fiction that influenced Silicon Valley,” including an imagined alternate history where Tolkien serves on another front of the Great War, leading to a very different legendarium…
💙📚 #books #booksky
💙📚 #books #booksky
September 26, 2025 at 7:23 PM
“Opinions on shape of Earth differ.”
The science on Tylenol and autism isn't clear, despite President Trump's claims. Here's what parents need to know to make their own decisions about acetaminophen.
When it comes to Tylenol, what are parents to do?
The science on Tylenol and autism isn't clear, despite President Trump's claims. Here's what parents need to know to make their own decisions about acetaminophen.
n.pr
September 24, 2025 at 4:24 PM
“Opinions on shape of Earth differ.”
Reposted by Ary Shalizi
A free and democratic society cannot silence comedians because the President doesn’t like what they say.
This is an attack on free speech and cannot be allowed to stand.
All elected officials need to speak up and push back on this undemocratic act.
This is an attack on free speech and cannot be allowed to stand.
All elected officials need to speak up and push back on this undemocratic act.
September 17, 2025 at 11:22 PM
A free and democratic society cannot silence comedians because the President doesn’t like what they say.
This is an attack on free speech and cannot be allowed to stand.
All elected officials need to speak up and push back on this undemocratic act.
This is an attack on free speech and cannot be allowed to stand.
All elected officials need to speak up and push back on this undemocratic act.
At this point, at least half my attention to a new episode is dedicated to listening for Michael to dunk on Oberlin. This episode was a twofer, with both a direct dunk, and an oblique reference to Oberlin alum and Cimexophile Dave Karpf
September 13, 2025 at 2:04 AM
At this point, at least half my attention to a new episode is dedicated to listening for Michael to dunk on Oberlin. This episode was a twofer, with both a direct dunk, and an oblique reference to Oberlin alum and Cimexophile Dave Karpf