Steve Gisselbrecht

Effete liberal Northeast urban atheist homosexual academic. He/him BUT SINGULAR THEY IS FINE. LGBwiththeT or GTFO. Profile pic is me donating platelets!

I love to explain things, and sometimes people follow me after an explain-thread and then get a torrent of pastry and gay shit. You're welcome I guess?

orcid: 0000-0001-8723-902X
Location: Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Public Key

npub1lv6k3gy8n6t3mvm20xu32d5at4cvlkwjrcvmw0p6vlytjrus4v4qca0q9p

NIP-05 Address

stevegis_ssg_at_mas.to@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqs0kdtg5zrea9cakd48nwg4x6w46ux0m8fpuxdh8sax0j9ep7g2k2spz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dsyhf5ak

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relay.damus.io

nos.lol

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npub1lv6k3gy8n6t3mvm20xu32d5at4cvlkwjrcvmw0p6vlytjrus4v4qca0q9p

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Last Notes

2026-10-27 16:52:35 UTC

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https://theonion.com/it-only-tuesday-1819569397/

2026-10-27 02:12:02 UTC

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No see I love hot dogs.

2026-10-27 01:51:02 UTC

I regret to inform you that I still hate protein work.

2026-10-26 00:34:21 UTC

Wow, Serbia and Brazil!
PLEASE DON'T MAKE ME HOPE I HATE GETTING MY HOPES UP

2026-10-24 21:40:29 UTC

Soon we’ll have frost, and sorrel is NOT hardy, so I just put on sweats to go out in the yard and pick a lot of it for soup.
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/117/498/048/288/635/308/original/1f21dddf7a343719.jpeg

2026-10-23 20:00:46 UTC

If you're interested in eukaryotic transcriptional regulation (and I mean come on, who isn't, right?), my lab has a cool new preprint out. I just kibitzed a bit on this one and am not a coauthor so I may tell you without bias that this is super-cool stuff.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.21.760833v1
My awesome then-colleague did a big experiment looking at how proteins bind to DNA when that DNA is wrapped up in nucleosomes. I posted before about the first paper to come out of that experiment, which I helped with:
https://mas.to/@stevegis_ssg/115089644980363948
What we did *not* mention in that paper is that he also included modified nucleosomes in his experiment. In the cell, various tiny chemical groups get added to floppy parts of nucleosomes to tag them for different functions, and specialized proteins called "chromatin readers" recognize these tags and make those functions happen. When Luca told me he was going to look at proteins binding DNA with those tags present, I said it wouldn't make a difference … (1/2)

2026-10-19 21:47:53 UTC

I looked at a vial of fly food under the microscope, saw that it was all chewed up and visibly crawling with maggots, and heard myself think, "Oh, beautiful." In exactly those words. (I'm an "internal monologue" person.) I may have been doing this too long.

2026-10-17 16:48:49 UTC

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I have a friend whose doctors dismissed her breathing problems as anxiety until she finally saw a pulmonologist who told her that every single one of their lung patients has "anxiety" because guess what makes a person really anxious HAVING TROUBLE BREATHING.

2026-10-13 03:30:43 UTC

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NICE! I love that the face is taking shape.
I saw it in the mid-70s when it was literally just the tunnel through the mountain for the beginning of the space under his arm.

2026-10-11 04:52:11 UTC

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One got a little scorched on one edge so we’ll keep that one and give Ernie the nice-looking one.
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/117/420/476/647/189/350/original/1ba7806ab121b161.jpeg

2026-10-11 01:34:55 UTC

I’m making pie for my friend’s birthday and because I want pie.

2026-10-09 20:46:43 UTC

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I LOVE GULAB JAMUN!!!

2026-10-09 19:40:19 UTC

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START THE WEEKEND!

2026-10-07 15:34:26 UTC

RE: https://mas.to/@stevegis_ssg/115339437103945825
Two in a row!
#note1xjy…n0fm

2026-09-30 00:01:39 UTC

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P.s.: I just went back and checked and sure enough I have posted this every year since joining mastodon.

2026-09-29 16:10:10 UTC

I've probably said this before but my problem with #NationalCoffeeDay (and it is a serious one) is the implication that there are days that are NOT #NationalCoffeeDay.

2026-09-26 21:06:58 UTC

Hot damn I am still thinking about that sub.
Mortadella Head in Davis Square. They are very vocally proud of their meatballs and they really were all that, tender and beautifully seasoned and delicious. Their sauce is really good. I asked for mushrooms on mine and the mushrooms were both excellent—fresh, sliced, seasoned, grilled—and generous. I fucking love mushrooms and they gave me a lot of them. Did I want it on regular, sesame roll, or garlic bread? Come on of course I want it on garlic bread I mean come on.
I had donated platelets and basically anything with red meat in it was gonna be awesome but then this was AWESOME I am in love I want this sandwich all the time now.

2026-09-22 17:14:48 UTC

Ma #MardiPatisserie est deux sablés (qui j’ai trop cuisiné) avec pecanes.
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/117/315/810/324/915/933/original/dfa8ccb9f8453e1b.jpeg

2026-09-20 20:45:53 UTC

So since we are stunned to find ourselves with some funding to do research, we are now looking to actually hire postdocs! If you're looking for a postdoc in transcriptional regulation and you want to work in a VERY wetlab/computation hybrid environment, check us out!
https://thebrain.bwh.harvard.edu/positions.html

2026-09-19 19:26:33 UTC

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The good news is that there is NO ONE else here so I can crank the pipetting music.

2026-09-19 18:42:36 UTC

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I’m *so* glad I bought this shirt.
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/117/299/167/701/019/618/original/c1a3c0eb5f23b702.jpeg

2026-09-19 18:02:35 UTC

All right, I resentfully left my alarm on because I have to do ALL THE PIPETTING today and now I have had lunch and it's really really time to go shower and dress and get to work EVEN THOUGH IT'S SATURDAY AND THIS OBVIOUSLY SUCKS but I'm taking Friday off for a 3-day weekend next weekend because at some point you just have to stop, y'know?

2026-09-17 14:49:36 UTC

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Biologically it's very cool because when a flower successfully forms, it releases a chemical signal that says "I got this, no need to flower." You can see the limits of diffusion in the plant by how far away other flowers manage to form.
A gene necessary for sending or receiving (I don't actually know that level of detail) a version of that signal broke in the ancestor of broccoli and cauliflower, and that's why they form those delicious dense clusters of immature flowers!

2026-09-16 15:13:15 UTC

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When they made the movie "Heathers," they knew that any youth slang they used in the film would make it sound dated within a few years, so they made up completely new (but entirely, even *weirdly* plausible) youth slang just for the movie. But they did such a good job that we all started saying those things, and then in a few years it sounded dated.

2026-09-15 03:38:36 UTC

Every year, for about two weeks, they have these Italian prune plums in the supermarket, and I make this plum pie with honey, walnuts, and streusel.
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/117/272/962/356/301/416/original/ac9aafd9b6237643.jpeg
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/117/272/963/466/478/786/original/9b7dc349cc0c3fd3.jpeg

2026-09-14 23:41:32 UTC

You know, I don't need to reply-guy at her about it, but the woman complaining that Gen Z thinks Millennials should retire (which I mean yes that's absurd but …) ended her rant of frustration, "Stop blaming Millennials."
And the reply I typed but decided not to send to her was to point out that young people see anyone over 29 as decrepit, and this is hardly a new phenomenon.

2026-09-14 00:11:52 UTC

I know I've posted this before but it happened again today and I think it bears repeating. If you're out and about and you see what looks like a group with one person taking a picture of the other members of the group in front of some landmark or pretty view, stop and say, "Do you want one all together?" They can just say no if they don't want to or if you've misread the situation (at least once I've offerred and it turned out the person taking the picture had done the same thing!) but it costs basically nothing and you can give people something they really want to have with practically no time or effort.

2026-09-06 19:43:57 UTC

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When the advertising industry was born, people wanted and arguably needed a way to find out what products were available to subserve the various functions they wanted solutions for.
There was a kind of golden moment of the early internet when search had become functional and there was no reason for advertising to continue at all.
So the advertising industry had to buy search and destroy it. We are all suffering in the aftermath of their cynical self-serving.
Madison Avenue delenda est.

2026-09-04 22:55:45 UTC

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Oh I bet. The French classic for blood sausage is fried onions and apples.
I am not generally an organ meats guy and no one was more surprised than me to learn that I LOVE blood sausage.

2026-09-04 22:30:37 UTC

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Okay I want that.

2026-09-01 22:37:36 UTC

The problem, of course, with spending a year wishing I had funding to do experiments and then getting funding is that now I have to do experiments.

2026-09-01 07:07:20 UTC

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September 1 also means a new painting!
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/117/194/502/886/046/447/original/d794db7ceeee2656.jpeg

2026-08-30 06:58:14 UTC

A VERY LARGE MATRIX WITH A RANDOM NUMBER GENERATOR IN FRONT OF IT IS NOT "ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE" YOU ABSOLUTE BALLBAGS

2026-08-27 17:34:52 UTC

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Exactly. And the non-existence of basically any of the "words" in that sentence in the utterance.

2026-08-27 16:41:50 UTC

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I have a friend who taught English in Japan and she said she once told her students how a native speaker would actually say the sentence "What are you going to do?" and they cried.

2026-08-18 16:47:43 UTC

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BALL PIT TRAIN CAR?!?!?

2026-08-17 02:59:34 UTC

Fresh pasta, farmers' market tomato, fresh mozzarella, pesto with basil from the garden.
I like to fuck around and riff in the kitchen considerably more than the next guy but the classics are classic for a reason and some things you're not going to improve.

2026-08-15 03:44:20 UTC

Man, conditioning. I often have occasion, at work, to send a sample of a kind of DNA I have made for sequencing to check that it's correct. Often I'll pick multiple clones in the hope that at least one is correct, so I'll have data files on my computer for good ones and bad ones.
And for DECADES, I tagged the good ones in green and the bad ones in red. Because green means go and red means stop.
EVEN THOUGH I AM COLORBLIND AND IT'S VERY HARD TO DISTINGUISH THE TAGS.
It was literally just a couple years ago that I realized I could use blue tags for good clones.

2026-08-13 04:01:35 UTC

High summer means farmers’ market meals. Corn, beans, and squash with cherry peppers, onions, tomatoes, and bacon.
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/117/086/198/643/532/564/original/b545067c670b4127.jpeg

2026-08-12 14:59:43 UTC

Oh fuck yes. I fucking WIN.
"Your last saved meme is now your moral philosophy."
It won't let me both add the image and quote-boost in the same post so I'm getting this from @npub1kyd…jltj
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/117/083/120/118/321/992/original/1ef8d9efd4a78c51.jpg

2026-08-02 20:52:55 UTC

Someone that I follow, with whom I've had a few interactions but who does not follow me (which, to be clear, is fine; I don't automatically follow back and don't expect others to) has used the lovely line, "The hands long for knobs and pumps." In the context of tactile machinery.
Which is great and a really well-built sentence but the thing is I'm gay. And … um … yeah. But I am NOT going to be creepy in this woman's replies. That would be inappropriate. So I'm putting it here instead. Happy Sunday. The hands long for knobs and pumps.

2026-08-01 21:07:17 UTC

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So the penultimate step is called "conching." The chocolate mixture is put in a machine that fundamentally reproduces the action of a mortar and pestle, and continuously ground for hours or, in some of the finest high-end chocolates, days.
Industrial conchers (or "melangeurs") are typically the size of a small bus, but for home use it's possible to buy a machine originally designed for making dosa batter that works as a concher. A bowl with a stone base has a central spindle with stone rollers. The bowl turns, the rollers roll IN a pool of chocolate, continuously crushing the chocolate in front of them until the entire mixture reaches the texture you want.
During this process, the whole thing outgasses. It gives up moisture, especially at the beginning, and also there are various smells that come off that really aren't lovely. (Remember, fermented food. Some notes are, I'm sorry, reminiscent of urine.) These are nice things NOT to have in the finished chocolate.
(7/9)

2026-08-01 21:01:54 UTC

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The nibs can now be processed a couple of different ways. One option is to heat them and press them for oil, like olives or sunflower seeds. The oil solidifies at room temperature and that's cocoa butter, which has a lot of desirable properties for cosmetics, or can be added back to the chocolate-making process. Finely grinding the remaining "cake" of pressed out solids yields cocoa powder.
Alternatively, you can simply grind up the nibs whole, and then you have "cocoa liquor," aka unsweetened chocolate.
To make chocolate bars, this is mixed with sugar, optionally milk powder (for milk chocolate), usually vanilla, and usually some lecithin. Lecithin is a fraction purified from different oily foods that acts like a biological detergent and helps emulsify mixtures of fats with things (like sugar) that prefer to dissolve in water. It helps with the texture and stability of the finished product.
Even with finely ground sugar and cacao, this mixture is grittier than "chocolate."
(6/9)

2026-08-01 20:55:52 UTC

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When I get a new variety, I will do test-roasts, taking samples at defined timepoints, to see if they have a sweet spot, when it is, and what it's like. I grind them with sugar to a coarse powder and then I can do blending experiments to decide on a recipe.
Once you have your beans roasted, it's time to separate them from their shells. The shell is fibrous and has relatively little chocolate flavor, so it will weaken the finished product unless removed.
The large-scale way to do that is to crack the beans into a mixture of bean pieces (if you buy "cacao nibs" that's what these are) and shell pieces. Then they are separated by density using moving air, an ancient agricultural practice called "winnowing," although now performed with complicated fan-driven machinery. The shell pieces can be composted or used for mulch. They also, since they have a faint chocolate flavor/scent and no fat content, get used to flavor things like chocolate beer or chocolate tea.
(5/n)

2026-08-01 20:50:15 UTC

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In the broadest of generalities, forastero beans have more of the bass-heavy, "chocolatey" notes and take a longer, hotter roast, but they tend to be somewhat "flat" or uncomplicated, with very little finish or development of the flavor on the palate. The vast plantations of west Africa that produce most of the world's cocoa beans (even though the species are native to central America) are planted in forastero monoculture and that's what most of the mass-market commercial chocolate you've ever had uses.
Criollo are lighter, fruity beans with all kinds of top notes and complexity, but typically too tangy for my tastes on their own, and lack the deep richness that we associate with chocolate. These are the beans that will burn to gross if you look at them funny.
Some trinitarios manage to achieve a desirable balance of these characteristics, but much of the art of chocolate-making is in blending different beans to balance each other's weaknesses.
(4/n)

2026-08-01 20:45:14 UTC

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The next step is to roast the beans. On a large scale, this is typically done in a drum roaster, heating and agitating, similar to those used for coffee, although the temperature profile is quite different. I myself roast them in the oven, on an insulated pan, stirring every five minutes.
Also like coffee, there are many different varieties of cocoa bean. There are two major species, which produce beans called "criollo" and "forastero," but they hybridize freely, so there is a vast range of "trinitario" beans with more or less character from one parent or the other. Then of course there's terroire, and the same strain will produce different beans in different soils or different years. The roast has to be sensitive to these differences; the same conditions that will leave one bean variety underroasted and tasting, well, *bean-y* will leave a different variety badly burnt, acrid and nasty.
(3/9)

2026-08-01 20:40:22 UTC

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Which is just as well because the typical processing involves splitting the pods open and spreading the mixture of pulp and seeds out in the sun. Within the aforementioned 10° of the equator, the pulp rots almost instantly, which is actually a crucial part of the process. Chocolate is a fermented food, and this step develops chemicals that contribute to the taste of the final product.
After fermentation, the seeds (which of course are cocoa beans), in their shells, are washed and dried and bagged up for shipping. This is the state in which they are distributed to chocolate-makers around the world.
The international unit of cocoa bean sales is apparently the 50-kilo sack. That is how companies that make chocolate buy them. For home chocolate-makers (yes, it's a thing), there is at least one company that buys them and breaks them up and sells them on by the pound. They are chocolatealchemy.com and if you get to the end and think "I wanna do that!" they are your source.
(2/9)

2026-08-01 20:35:14 UTC

How chocolate is made, in case you're curious (a thread):
Cacao grows within about 10° of the equator. The trees are WEIRD-looking small trees and the fruit kind of grows straight out of the trunk and large branches. Fruit growing out of a trunk looks very wrong to me but I have no complaints about the result.
The fruit is a pod, shaped like and slightly smaller than an American football or rugby ball. Like so many other fruits, it contains a number of seeds, each with a thin shell of its own, embedded in pulp. (Does this make it technically a berry? I find I'm curious without actually caring.) The pulp is edible and can be pressed for juice, but spoils very quickly, so it's not typically eaten outside chocolate-growing areas. I've had the juice once (from a carton, far from the equator) and it was … okay. Kind of fruity/musky, a little sweet and a little tangy and with a pronounced "damp basement" note. I'll pass.
(1/9)

2026-08-01 20:20:03 UTC

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For August we return to a more abstract vibe. The thing up top could be a mountain but this one’s titled in German, which I do not speak.
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/117/022/092/674/733/748/original/378e52e75e16c5c0.jpeg

2026-07-29 03:35:35 UTC

We grilled on Sunday (brats and asparagus) so we did an eggplant and some onion and garlic while the grill was going so that tonight we could make baba ganoush with air fryer falafel and flatbread.
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/117/001/158/280/314/210/original/28eb8a95c4e3fb35.jpeg

2026-07-21 21:27:44 UTC

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I have said before, many and many a time, that the Purchasing Department exists to fight purchasing the way the Fire Department exists to fight fires.

2026-07-21 16:48:50 UTC

J'ai mangé une pièce de mon gateau aux cassis avec frangipane après minuit et donc c'etait ça ma #MardiPatisserie

2026-07-19 04:30:55 UTC

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Okay, it looks weird (and not a little carbuncular) but I have fairly high hopes for the eating experience, which I unfortunately won’t get to find out about until tomorrow.
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/116/944/751/731/666/395/original/7839463adc009323.jpeg

2026-07-19 03:45:51 UTC

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Okay so I made something between a cake batter and a cookie dough, sort of brown sugar cinnamon allspice treatment, and spread it in the pan. Then I spread the blackcurrant compote on top.
Then I spread the frangipane on top of that, only the compote was runny and the frangipane was thick and they kind of mixed somewhat. Which turned out to turn it into a kind of pink-purpley swirl situation and it really looked very nice, even if it was a pain in the ass to get evenly spread. So of course I forgot to take a picture of that step before I put it in the oven. You’ll have to settle for one of the finished product.
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/116/944/575/380/306/343/original/2c66b604cf42eeb0.jpeg
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/116/944/577/489/395/526/original/8f95542b88962e22.jpeg

2026-07-18 03:27:51 UTC

They had fresh blackcurrants at the farmers' market this week, which we rarely see here, so I bought some with no particular plan for them. But now we're having people over this weekend, so I'll make a kind of simple, dense cake batter, drizzle it with blackcurrant compote, and top it with frangipane before I bake it.
I am excited.
I love dessert so much.

2026-07-12 19:22:04 UTC

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Hot DAMN. Same DAY? You absolute BEAST!

2026-07-06 04:42:52 UTC

Look, if they didn't want me to buy a kilo of gulab jamun, they wouldn't have sold kilos of gulab jamun at the store.
Don't worry. I'm not gonna eat it all at once. The can has a plastic lid for after you open it.

2026-07-05 23:10:05 UTC

The heat has broken, this is a perfectly reasonable temperature for a July day in Boston to be, we went kayaking on the Charles and it was absurdly lovely, we saw a swan couple with 3 cygnets, there were very few people out on the water, just overall an A+ day. Gonna grill some hot dogs and asparagus.

2026-07-04 21:57:02 UTC

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It is awfully hot to be running around in the sun.

2026-07-04 18:56:45 UTC

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Mushrooms are all-important. Other things (pepper&onion, sausage) are fine, but what I really want is mushrooms and lots of them. Also I do not care for white pizza; I get that it's a thing and can be good but somehow without tomato sauce and mozzarella it doesn't count as pizza for me.

2026-07-02 14:36:00 UTC

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Oh hey it is July.
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/116/850/874/331/974/005/original/1e3bc4b744120f57.jpeg

2026-06-30 04:46:14 UTC

I’m making a huge pitcher of iced tea, as we’re heading into a multi day heat advisory. I like to add a little something tangy and a tiny bit of something sweet, and my brain has just suggested …
Pomegranate molasses?

2026-06-27 19:21:25 UTC

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It was necessary to select a shirt.
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/116/823/679/327/941/719/original/994988145965c98a.jpeg

2026-06-27 18:38:53 UTC

I do NOT want to go to work.
I do not want to go to work anyway, and I do not want to go to work on SATURDAY, and a bitch is TIRED, I do not want to go to work, but I especially do not want to go to work because today is (if I am even successful today) Get The Data Day for this experiment, and it's one of those no-data-til-all-the-data experiments, and it's preliminary data for a grant due Monday morning, and for grantsmanship reasons my boss REALLY wants this experiment in there, and for deadline reasons I have done it in the absolute quickest and dirtiest way of all possibly quick and dirty ways, there is just zero chance I see a reportable result, and I do not want to go sit in lab and pipet again just to find out and meticulously document that I have failed. I don't want to.
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/116/823/516/961/534/802/original/8b113ccc2f180e12.jpg

2026-06-20 17:02:19 UTC

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We spent some time in this at MassMOCA and even though I am colorblind the effect was VERY strong and very striking. To the extent that, when a bird flew over (as in your pic) we were shocked, because we had just assumed that the hole showed an upper roof lit in contrasting colors. (There is a retractable room for when it rains.)

2026-06-19 00:21:26 UTC

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My vision has been saved at least once or twice by my high school chemistry teacher's "DO AS YOU OUGHTA, ADD ACID TO WATTA!" poster.

2026-06-15 20:09:57 UTC

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I have explained to my doctor, enough times that she gets it, that I'm not going to make certain changes to my diet.
I don't drink alcohol or smoke anything. I walk to work. Sometimes I run. And yet, like everyone else ever, I am absolutely going to die.
Something is going to kill me and I have chosen cheesecake.

2026-06-09 20:34:47 UTC

If, like me, you find yourself thinking, Hmmm, I don't really care about football, and FIFA is obviously garbage, but the World Cup appears to be a big deal to a lot of people and there are a LOT of hot guys playing, I wonder if there's somewhere I can see pictures of them all so I can root for the hottest ones / creep on their instas / whatever, The Guardian has got you. #MiscellaneousCuteGuy
https://www.theguardian.com/football/ng-interactive/2026/jun/04/world-cup-2026-complete-player-guide

2026-06-08 18:28:44 UTC

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MORE IS MORE

2026-06-06 03:48:38 UTC

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I'm joining the chorus of "REALLY? THAT SEEMS LIKE A SUPER-COOL JOB THAT I'D WANNA HEAR ALL ABOUT!"

2026-06-04 15:04:29 UTC

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OMG so jealous that you get to read Cat's Cradle for the first time!!!

2026-06-02 20:42:58 UTC

I don't know, folks. The assholes who have captured the government of my country are resolutely anti-science (in addition to anti- a whole lot of other humanistic pursuits) and on a purely practical level it is making it very difficult for me to do my work as a scientist. And they keep proposing new ways to make it even harder and even worse.
And one of the things that people correctly point out is that we have to stay and fight. They're trying to wear us down. They're trying to discourage us.
And the thing is it's working. I don't wanna do this any more. This sucks.
And don't worry, I have decades of experience doing science even when I don't want to do science. But this was already hard. It's confusing and frustrating and sometimes you just wanna run away from it even with support. This? This is really hard.
Wah wah wah I know shut up and pipet something. I'm just whining a bit. Sorry. It happens.

2026-06-01 05:17:07 UTC

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New month new page.
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/116/673/145/267/699/471/original/ea74c1c972c6db9f.jpeg

2026-06-01 04:05:00 UTC

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… but now I'm GAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!

2026-06-01 03:56:43 UTC

It's like 4 minutes to Pride Month and I mean I'm already gay …

2026-05-30 01:19:19 UTC

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I have chosen a restaurant purely on the basis of the font on their sign.

2026-05-26 15:37:37 UTC

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Um …
What's up with the phenylacetylene structure? Did they use a generative tool to make the figure for their paper about the limits of generative tools???

2026-05-17 21:15:53 UTC

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This one was my one genuinely viral moment on Old Twitter.
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/116/591/981/079/716/747/original/3760ea9e6be70f31.jpg

2026-05-17 04:28:49 UTC

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I didn't *know* about Serious Wedding Dancing til I went to my first Indian wedding.

2026-05-07 18:22:53 UTC

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY YOU ARE AWESOME!
I hope the cookies are also awesome.

2026-05-06 03:31:46 UTC

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If there's less of you to love, and they (and we!) still love you the same amount, then the density of love increases.
That's just science.

2026-05-04 15:51:52 UTC

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I love mamey! I've used it in place of pumpkin (which I do not care for) in a delicious pie.
When you are back home and missing tropical fruit, remind me to send you the link for Robert Is Here, which is a really tremendously great tropical fruit stand in south Florida that does mail order. Fresh, high-quality stuff delivered to the frozen north!

2026-05-01 14:20:07 UTC

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I usually do these at midnight but I forgot. Happy May!
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/116/499/741/457/325/568/original/db09d37cb7dc0006.jpeg

2026-04-29 01:34:33 UTC

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Surely there are *other* big numbers?

2026-04-26 18:47:46 UTC

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Okay look I’m sorry to be the one to say it, I know that I could be more modest and it would be more becoming, but I rule.
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/116/472/486/598/114/702/original/e3fc9f6f93e9c127.jpeg

2026-04-26 06:47:20 UTC

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… and after.
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/116/469/660/163/618/235/original/bae9db3ec7b19d3a.jpeg

2026-04-26 05:36:38 UTC

Before …
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/116/469/381/787/987/432/original/3e23f2bbdf0df268.jpeg

2026-04-21 15:16:19 UTC

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Oh no!
I hope it's nothing too terrible.

2026-04-20 17:02:00 UTC

If you supervise someone, and ESPECIALLY if you supervise someone really good, take this opportunity to ask yourself, "Have I told them lately that they're really good, or pointed out something that they did really well?"
Maybe you do not need this reminder but I sure do, and I've had awesome people that I co-supervised express doubts that made clear that I had just *forgotten* to let them know they were awesome. (There's an understandable default to not worry about what's working well. But.)

2026-04-04 20:17:11 UTC

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The two week desk reject maybe pisses me off more than anything else.

2026-04-01 21:51:16 UTC

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At a party at our house once, a friend's daughter remarked to him how cool it was that our stereo had a thing on top that made it look like it was playing a vinyl record, and he blew her mind by explaining to her that in fact it was playing a vinyl record and that's where the music they were hearing was coming from.

2026-04-01 04:40:31 UTC

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April has less busy detail and a much more straightforward interpretation.
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/116/327/593/125/124/996/original/3f32aede033c3ad7.jpeg

2026-03-31 22:14:22 UTC

If you feel somehow tempted to participate in April Fool's Day this year, you may subtly work a fish, or a fish reference, into a post. That's it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools%27_Day#Italy,_France,_Belgium,_and_French-speaking_areas

2026-03-28 19:36:12 UTC

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The Culture novels are so, so, SO good. Seeing someone say "Oh yeah I've been meaning to read those" makes me wanna scream RUN TO THE BOOKSTORE they are amazing and wonderful.

2026-03-11 16:03:51 UTC

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Japanese Kitkats go HARD.

2026-03-02 00:11:53 UTC

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WE ARE LOVING THIS

2026-03-01 05:23:14 UTC

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For March, I consulted Tom about the colors. (I had guessed wrong on some.)
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/116/152/228/379/337/659/original/4aa01f2970458cee.jpeg

2026-02-26 18:28:23 UTC

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As long as there were sport peppers.

2026-02-21 06:57:09 UTC

RE: https://social.vivaldi.net/@xtaldave/116104608789438895
Aw. This was the cell bio professor who was lecturing and told us about some protein XYZ1, also called DEF5, also known as UVW3, etc., then turned from the board and deadpan said, "Scientists would rather use each other's toothbrushes than use each other's nomenclature."
#note18kc…e3df

2026-02-17 20:17:54 UTC

My Jesse Jackson memory:
Back in the 1900s, I would occasionally actually watch the Democratic Convention on TV. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, Jesse Jackson was a featured speaker.
It was a barnburner. The bit I clearly remember is that he contrasted the amount spent per student in Compton schools with the amount spent per prisoner in LA County jails, concluding with, "For these kids, JAIL is a STEP UP! JAIL is a STEP UP!"
The speech went on and on and left the audience enraptured. (…)