briandilkes.bsky.social
Takes things apart to figure out what's inside.
718 posts
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382 following
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Congratulations!
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The programs slated for closure were published for Purdue in a couple of news venues a couple of weeks ago. The law applies to all public unis. People have been scrambling for solutions.
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A flagship university of the USA, absolutely. But IU is not the flagship campus of the state. I am pretty sure Purdue has the Old Oaken Bookcase, currently.
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Congrats!
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Ler ANNND Col!
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The Onion has sent the following letter to all 535 members of Congress. This special edition will be in their physical mailboxes as they return from recess tomorrow.
We hope it inspires them to continue to cower as our essential liberties are systematically dismantled.
theonion.com/letter-to-co...
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No powerpoint or aluminum tubes necessary.
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whisker to midnight
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Widely admired. Widely.
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Vaccine tourism for US residents is just around the corner.
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Fake sequel trailer in the end credits for Rogue Bum?
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I'm loofah my ass off over here.
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Americans by choice are the greatest.
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Fabrication does more than produce bad papers. It diverts precious effort to both the bad idea and the Herculean effort required to overcome a bad idea.
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Flaky trilogy?
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As did widespread ecological and human health consequences and massive radiological contamination. It's how we learned some fundamental things about plants, but a legacy that don't often consider when thinking about plant cell differentiation. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear...
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The nuclear bomb tests at the Bikini Atoll had seeds stashed away in boats at different distances from the blast (thanks to Lewis Statler). Some fundamental insights into plant growth control, and some mutants, came out of that!
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But the ways in which fundamental insights and technology (and its uses good and bad) intertwine with people and culture is always complicated. Some very nice reviews on the subject are out there, including by Helen Curry who just happened to give a talk at the maize meeting this year. 8/8
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One of them, that I had not appreciated, is that EMS came out of chemical weapons research and medical research into the causes of cancer in chemical weapons victims in WWI. It's stupid of me, in hindsight, to be surprised since I have worked with mutants generated at the bikini atoll test. 7/n
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Hilariously, or predictably considering how detailed and amazing Gerry was, after tens of thousands of M1 plants we arrived at his original dose as our preferred "optimal" dose. We found some other historical bits that I have been chewing on. 6/n
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While working on the protocol we found maize genetics newsletters about a typo that resulted in everyone's mutagenesis failing (too much EMS killed the pollen). The community, at the recommendation of Gerry Neuffer, by dropped the dose to half what had been originally recommended (by Gerry). 5/n
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Pollen mutagenesis in mineral oil has been THE protocol for maize for a long time. We provide some additional tips and tricks (art supply store for the right bottles to dribble pollen/oil out of) but also update the EMS dosage to 2x what had been floating around the community. DOSAGE!!! 4/n
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It also can REALLY fuck up plant growth. So dosage dosage dosage. But paired with sequencing, you can make and recover lots of new alleles this way. We also find the mutation density is awesome. Makes sense...diploids should tolerate more mutations than haploids. EMS treat your seeds! Its fun! 3/n
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Ethyl methanesulfonate is an alkylating agent and potent mutagen. Seed mutagenesis has not been favored in part because the cell lineages that give rise to male and female lineages are already separated in the seed. This means an extra generation of work to recover recessives in maize. 2/n
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Best one of these I've seen in a bit...
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Pino Palladino and Mills did a record together called “notes with attachments” that is amazing. The set of accompanying videos showing how it was made are also delightful. youtu.be/1fd9U-MT1z4?...