abcc8 (u/abcc8) - Readit News

abcc8 commented on The unreasonable effectiveness of plasmid sequencing as a service owlposting.com/p/the-unre... · Posted by u/abhishaike

divbzero · a year ago

My experience was similar when I was doing a lot of cloning 15 years ago: We would routinely send tubes to a commercial sequencing service. How Plasmidsaurus competes against those other services is indeed the more interesting question.

abcc8 · a year ago

When I did the same, also 15 years ago, the lab on campus would only Sanger sequence my insert - and for targets larger than ~600bp I also had to include internal sequencing primers (that had to be ordered separately, shipped, etc). Plasmidsaurus will return the entire plasmid sequence so you can verify it is intact, you don't have to provide any internal sequencing primers, simple repeats will be more accurately sequenced, and you can just pop some tubes in a padded mailer in the post at room temperature.

I'm no longer doing wet bench work but Plasmidsaurus seems like a service I'd happily use.

abcc8 commented on Report on the role of standardized test scores in undergraduate admissions [pdf] home.dartmouth.edu/sites/... · Posted by u/msravi

SnooSux · 2 years ago

To measure academic achievement they use First Year GPA. It makes sense they're correlated, both require studying known material for a test. But is GPA the best measure, especially first year? I would be interested in other metrics like 3rd-4th year GPA or placements into jobs and such.

abcc8 · 2 years ago

I didn't read the entire document in depth, but perhaps it has been shown elsewhere that first year GPA is a good quality predictor of GPA in subsequent years.

abcc8 commented on Scientists report asymmetry between heating and cooling phys.org/news/2024-01-eff... · Posted by u/wglb

ijhuygft776 · 2 years ago

I used to live in Florida and it costs me a lot more to heat the house than cooling it even though the outside temperature rarely went below 32F (and I kept the home at 74F in the winter and 78F in the summer)...

abcc8 · 2 years ago

Were your heater and cooler equally efficient?

abcc8 commented on Plus-size travelers hit out at ‘discriminatory’ airline seat policies edition.cnn.com/travel/ar... · Posted by u/Tomte

josephcsible · 3 years ago

Why should people who make good dietary choices have to subsidize ones who make poor dietary choices? If you take up two seats and weigh as much as (and so cause as much fuel burn as) two people, why shouldn't you have to pay for two tickets?

abcc8 · 3 years ago

The article is less about that but more about the need for clear policies and consistent adherence to said policies regarding plus sized passengers.

abcc8 commented on Exploding Whale 50th Anniversary, Remastered [video] youtube.com/watch?v=V6CLu... · Posted by u/KolmogorovComp

abcc8 · 3 years ago

Thank you for sharing. This was one of the first funny videos I downloaded from the internet.

abcc8 commented on Early morning university classes linked to poor sleep and academic performance nature.com/articles/s4156... · Posted by u/xgstation

derefr · 3 years ago

But you don’t spend those hours before work with the inevitability of what you’ll have to deal with at work in just a few hours weighing on your mind?

Personally I find evenings a bit different, in that I’m sufficiently worn out mentally from the day that I no longer can think (productively) about work — and so the worries of the upcoming day are temporarily shelved for lack of practical progress to be made on them. Through no particular mental effort on my part, it is easy to relax in the evenings.

But in the mornings, I’m fresh enough that that doesn’t work. I can, through an act of willpower and mindfulness, intentionally forget that work is a thing I’ll have to be doing in a few hours, and so just enjoy my mornings like you do — but this was a skill I learned, and I didn’t always have it; and moreover, I suspect it’s a skill many people never develop.

abcc8 · 3 years ago

Yes and no. I enjoy getting personal tasks done in the morning before work, especially those that require a sharp mind. Like you mentioned, I feel worn out mentally and the end of the day, though I find I'm happier and more productive overall if I save a few sharp-minded hours in the early morning for myself.

abcc8 commented on SOBA: Potential blood test for Alzheimer's disease pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas... · Posted by u/WaitWaitWha

dzink · 3 years ago

The big question is would you want to know of you have Alzheimer’s early at this point? Is there reliable treatment or cure? Those would be easier to develop if a reliable test is invented, but without them, would an adult likely only gain the loss of agency of their life? What would you do to prepare you and loved ones for losing yourself? What would your remaining life change into, by knowing? What would your loved and not so loved ones do if they knew?

abcc8 · 3 years ago

People choose to be tested for Huntington disease, including many young adults who have recently turned 18 (in the USA). While, like yourself, I don't know what I would personally chose to do if faced with this situation, the availability of a specific test with a high NPV and low FP rate would be beneficial to have.

abcc8 commented on American drivers have a blinding headlight problem businessinsider.com/ameri... · Posted by u/pseudolus

vanilla_nut · 3 years ago

I haven't found a solution yet. But I find this especially crippling when our country also forces us to drive to do literally anything, even go for a walk. Particularly during the wintertime, it's crippling my ability to go anywhere or do anything.

abcc8 · 3 years ago

The only solution I can think of is for myself to buy a lifted truck or other similar unnecessarily large vehicle. I haven't done this, of course, but if I did I'd then be part of the problem but at least my eye line would be above that of the majority of other drivers. We have a sedan and a small SUV - I don't drive the sedan at night ever because of the headlight problem. My eyes hurt just thinking about this.

abcc8 commented on A cell cultured startup working in exotic meats (2022) foodnavigator.com/Article... · Posted by u/nsoonhui

abcc8 · 3 years ago

Mammalian cells in research labs are grown in media that is composed of 1) multiple powdered components that are readily obtainable through isolation from bacteria/yeast or synthesis and, 2) 10% FBS (fetal bovine serum). Until these cultured meat companies can come up with a suitable replacement for FBS, due to environmental, moral, cost, etc concerns, none of these solutions are terribly viable. I personally wouldn't want to eat (or pay for) a tiger streak that required liters of FBS to grow.