Figuring out how to make science better @radialscience

San Francisco
Joined May 2016
“AI can’t possibly know everything about biotech because some of it is tacit knowledge you can only experience first hand.” The tacit knowledge:
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We need new ways to understand disease & design drugs. Protein motion holds the answer.
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Are you a creative science writer? Come join our team and work side-by-side with our scientists to shape how their work gets shared, reused and built upon! Details below 👇 @radialscience @AsteraInstitute
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If you have first-hand experience as a research scientist, care deeply about how science is communicated to other scientists, and love to experiment with creative formats (interactive figures! beautiful illustrations! executable code!), then I strongly urge you to apply.
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I generally agree that AI will precipitate a crisis of meaning. The most important work of our lives will be to rebuild a sense of purpose not tied to work. But the discourse is missing something. Americans, with our puritanical cultural heritage, are slow to appreciate the role of pleasure in a meaningful life. Pleasure, to Americans, is a dirty sin for which you are punished with obesity and professional failure. This belief system is particularly strong among Silicon Valley VCs, tech entrepreneurs and other winners in American capitalism. They didn’t get to be winners because they stopped to smell the roses. But outside the Calvinist bubble, many cultures have elevated pleasure to an art form and found deep meaning in it. The Epicureans, Edo period Japan, the royal court at Versailles. I believe that pleasure can provide meaning in a post-AI world and that the most meaningful pleasures are inherently biological. Biotechnology can make our bodies beautiful, our fruit sweet, and our planet lush and green. Is that not a life worth living? Is there any other future worth living in?
A bunch of people have written me back saying this was the best newsletter I have ever sent (flattering) ... so here it is for those who don't subscribe: AI Is Not a Labor Crisis. It Is a Meaning Crisis.
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If you're a scientist, how different would your work look like if publishing requirements were abolished? If grant cycles were gone? If you were paid to train in a different field? I’m mapping the growing ecosystem of orgs experimenting with different models for doing science
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Read more here: structuresforresearch.com/in… Feedback encouraged!
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The structure of your research institute shapes how you think. New research institutions are being designed so that scientists can think more creatively and take bigger bets, with the goal of producing more breakthroughs. I'm mapping these orgs here: structuresforresearch.com/in…
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If you really love America and care about Making America Healthy Again, you should love cultivated meat (or at very least, get out of the way while we try to build it...) 🤠🚀
NEW: America loves tech again. The Trump admin has been generally pro-innovation. Yet when it comes to food... even the loudest techno-optimists sound more like the Amish. PSA from @cclwnchng: stop demonizing lab-grown meat. Let the scientists cook 👇 piratewires.com/p/lab-grown-…
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"I’ve been struggling to describe the experience, because cultivated meat short-circuits my brain — my mouth thinks I’m eating a real pork meatball, but my brain knows that it’s fundamentally different and that Dawn didn’t have to die for it." - @grist grist.org/climate-energy/thi…
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An op-ed spicier than MB's meatballs.
NEW: America loves tech again. The Trump admin has been generally pro-innovation. Yet when it comes to food... even the loudest techno-optimists sound more like the Amish. PSA from @cclwnchng: stop demonizing lab-grown meat. Let the scientists cook 👇 piratewires.com/p/lab-grown-…
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🛒 CULTIVATED MEAT WAS SOLD IN US RETAIL FOR THE FIRST TIME 💫 On Saturday afternoon, shoppers at Berkeley Bowl West lined up to be the first to put cultivated pork in their grocery baskets. (a thread)
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Run, don’t walk, to aisle 16 at Berkeley Bowl on Nov 1 🛒 🏃‍♀️ We’re kicking off Bites from the Barn, a new series bringing our cultivated pork directly to you — starting with our first-ever grocery sale. Who’s having cultivated meatballs for dinner? 🍝✨ bit.ly/47ralwM
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Congrats to @MissionBarns for making the first ever sale of cultivated pork. They are the 6th company to have sold cultivated meat around the world. Here's the current breakdown:
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✨ The guests for our first sale pop-up have been chosen! ✨ This is only the beginning! Stay tuned for upcoming events and more chances to taste Mission Barns with us. 🍴 Thank you for all the excitements!
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ICYMI, @MissionBarns is hosting a restaurant pop up series this month. We'll be picking winners soon so get in quick! I may be biased, but the meatballs & bacon are legit v delicious (I eat conventional meat). Menu is vegan, except for the cultivated pork. luma.com/n3rrv5bm
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Cultivated meatballs, bacon, and salami made without animal slaughter will soon be sold in U.S. grocery stores for the first time (one Sprouts market in Oakland). The pig that donated the cells is still alive, living happily in upstate NY: sf.gazetteer.co/some-pig
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Congrats to @MissionBarns, which has received a safety greenlight from FDA & now a USDA grant of inspection, clearing the way to sell cultivated meatball/bacon products. They will be on the menu at a restaurant in San Francisco & in local Sprouts markets shortly thereafter.
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