Biotech may be in trouble post-COVID–see WSJ here. Whether the glut of biotech real estate is a leading or trailing indicator is not answered, but I think it’s essential to understand what these data mean.

At my own institution, I watched as high-quality biotech space was repurposed as office modules–a massive waste of resources. If this trend is a leading indicator, it’s even more troubling because we still have a ton of public health challenges out there that remain without cures of even viable treatment.

Yes, it’s that time of year again: our GMU academic year is about to begin a week from tomorrow. For my online students, we’ll be meeting on Zoom; the link will be on Canvas. For my in-person students, I’m looking forward to greeting you all in person a week starting a week from this Tuesday.

As always these days, we’ll be making extensive use of padlet boards which are included on Canvas and then can be bookmarked.

Just back from the same to this news.

That’s my image, from Hamilton Island…

Each summer, we welcome a group of very talented high schoolers from across the US to learn about bioinformatics, AI, and data sciences in the context of biomedical research. Above is this year’s very successful group: you’ll see them as tomorrow’s biomedical superstars.

I find that I am constantly introducing new and old friends to my favorite living fiction author and then myself jumping back into Stan’s books at random points and picking up new insights. Today, I did that with Green Mars–the section on the Long Run Out is about a character with intense senior memory issues, political views, and scientific curiosity all at the same time. It’s about humans on Mars in the late 21st century. Still, it might as well be about Stan’s own state of California in the early 21st: huge on geology, climate, political change, and the world’s sixth-largest economy.

Interesting blogpost here. It is intriguing to think that scientific enterprise, city construction, and military campaigns are all in the same category. In science, he devalues replication and emphasizes the “decisive experiment.” I think that’s wrong and explains much of what has gotten us into trouble. But I see where he’s coming from: it’s the ‘ah ha’ moment he’s talking about. That’s real. But then you must do many replications and get the statistical power to support the insight.

It’s here. Great piece in the Atlantic–which my sister just gifted me a subscription for my birthday. Thanks sis!

I’m pretty optimistic about what Labor might accomplish with its big majority. The UK is still a critical player in the international science ecosystem.

• Might geoengineering work?
• What is the neurobiological basis of consciousness
• How did life originate on Earth (and elsewhere?)
• Creating a practical fusion reactor
• Building a working nitrogenase system into our primary cereal crops
• Increasing the efficiency of photosynthesis
• Understanding how AI transformer models actually produce specific results
• What is the singularity at the center of a black hole
• How to integrate quantum mechanics with general relativity
• Building a complete digital twin to a eukaryotic organism
• Fixing inconsistencies in the standard model
• Increasing human lifespans significantly
• Getting the right understanding of Alzheimer’s disease so that we can progress toward a cure

Note, I left out all the social science questions–they’re too complicated.

For all the chaos and partisanship, this is still a fantastic country, replete with dynamism and natural beauty. And when I think back to growing up as a kid, a lot has improved!

My nephew, an expert in education policy, emailed me about this topic. It’s a big deal, I guess. My philosophy is that students can use AI in preparing their deliverables, but they must declare their use of it and reveal their prompts. Obviously, they are responsible for fact-checking anything written in their name. This requirement can be pretty embarrassing for students. So, the choice comes down to prevarication or disclosing that they needed ChatGTP to finish the assignment. Students have always had the option to lie about their work–sometimes, they get caught. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

But doesn’t this detract from learning how to write? Yes, indeed, it does. That’s on them, though. My job doesn’t entail teaching the skill of writing; my course learning outcomes are outside that particular domain.

My view of generative AI in writing is the logical follow-on to my view of word processors back in the 1980s: nice to have, but not required for becoming a successful scientist. The latter involves a kind of creativity that is still far off from the current large language models.