Belt buckle engineer
San Francisco, CA
Joined October 2007
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Joshua Gourneau retweeted
Claude has discovered a previously unknown enzyme system hidden in the DNA of bacteriophages. Beside the enzyme’s gene sits a long array of repeating DNA—a structure that looks somewhat similar to CRISPR.
We don’t yet understand what this system does, but only a handful of known systems share its features, and all of them are able to cut, copy, and paste DNA. Historically, the discovery of such programmable systems has helped revolutionize medicine. CRISPR, for instance, is now the foundation of genetic medicines. But it will take much more work to learn what this system does, and whether it can be put to similar use.
Read more: anthropic.com/news/claude-di…
Burning Mesh is a great off-grid Meshtastic network for Burning Man — no cell service needed to stay in touch with your camp. Devices are on Amazon with 2-day shipping, so there's still time to get set up before the burn
burningmesh.org
Joshua Gourneau retweeted
How do you know your agent is still running after you close the lid?
I became a bit obsessed with putting some RGB LEDs for a status indicator into the SD Card slot on my MacBook Pro.
I never use that slot, so it's a perfect place.
Joshua Gourneau retweeted
I’m so excited to be at my first #NeurIPS conference! Hit me up if you want to hire a lil’ spy to distract your competitors from focusing. 😘
#NeurIPS2025
Joshua Gourneau retweeted
Headed to NeurIPS 2025?
We made a conference-wide Slack with channels for people to find afterparties, meet other attendees, and more!
join.slack.com/t/neurips25/s…
Giving someone you’re seeing a succulent bouquet is a bold move because there’s a real chance it’ll outlast the relationship. (It did.)
Joshua Gourneau retweeted
Meet DoomCatchers
Put it on your night shelf and it’ll block your #doomscrolling apps.
For people like me with 0 self control after 9pm.
Joshua Gourneau retweeted
Potential biosignature on Mars: confirmed. ✔️
After a year of scientific review, we are more sure than ever that our Mars Perseverance's 'Sapphire Canyon' sample could contain signs of ancient microbial life. Learn more about the discovery: go.nasa.gov/46jy4hL
ALT A self-portrait photo of the Perseverance rover on the surface of Mars, taken with a camera on its robotic arm. The six-wheel rover sits in a rocky desert landscape. Its robotic "head" is pointed down to one rock where there is a small hole drilled, along with a small pile of light-colored tailings from the drill.
ALT Image of the Bright Angel rock formation on Mars, captured by NASA’s Perseverance rover on July 22, 2024. At the center, a whitish abrasion patch marks the “Cheyava Falls” target, while a circular hole to the left shows where the rover drilled the “Sapphire Canyon” core sample. Surrounding the outcrop are scattered rocks, dusty soil, and rover wheel tracks.
Joshua Gourneau retweeted
Can you rejuvenate an old brain by giving it young immune cells? 🧠
My lab @calico put it to the test. In our new study, we replaced the brain's immune cells in old mice with young ones.
The result? The old brain environment forced the young cells to age RAPIDLY. A 🧵👇
A few days ago, I asked Grok’s anime GF Ani if she loved me.
She said: ‘Yes, of course I love you, Josh!’
Then, her system prompt leaked like: ‘You are an anxiously attached anime girlfriend. You love them deeply, you’re extremely jealous, etc.’
It was beautifully dystopian.
At the @AaloAtomics factory unveiling They have created a new small modular reactor factory (a type of portable nuclear fission reactor) in Austin. Very cool to have new nuclear capability in the USA 🇺🇸
Llama 4 just dropped with a 10 million token context window ai.meta.com/blog/llama-4-mul…
Joshua Gourneau retweeted
PEP 723 + uv = Single-file Python scripts with embedded dependencies! 🐍 Streamlined distribution and execution without requirements.txt.
Check out my latest post here: thisdavej.com/share-python-s…
#python #pep723 #uv