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I should have loved biology

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Re: I should have loved biology

#131

Post by jplatzek »

hnmm23 wrote: post #117
joshuamcginnis wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go to scholar.google.com, search "autoimmune disease treatment", filter by last five years, use sci-hub to read the paper. Repeat until you learn enough to find your next step forward.

i mean i want to learn about everything before that too, like history, links, diagnoses - to be sure, as well as testing/tracking metrics and the likes, also reading is the easy part, but what about understanding? when im running into medical terms/and other things im not familiar with or equipped to understand, where do you go? bc i find myself ending down different rabbit holes and my productivty diminishes and my…

Biologist here. I would start with a textbook called Janeways Immunobiology. It is the textbook that all of us have used to learn immunology and should be accessible for anyone with a high-school understanding of biology. The book already has many explanations of autoimmune diseases, so it should be everything you need.

Re: I should have loved biology

#132

Post by teekert »

I did love Biology and I always stopped to ponder how insane it is, just on my own. And I became a biologist. I can tell you it never stops to be amazing. For example after your jaw has dropped after you realized all cells have the same DNA, imagine where your jaw goes when you learn the implication of every cell having 2 meters of DNA! And the right parts are always accessible to the right cell at the right time. It's beautiful.

Over time I learned that if you can imagine some process, it's likely you'll find it somewhere in biology (keep the laws of physics in mind though ;)).

Re: I should have loved biology

#133

Post by jmiskovic »

zelly wrote: post #73

Big problem with the field of biology, like Peter Thiel says, is it's the science field people go into to avoid math.

I was thinking similar thing while reading through the article. The school system does the selection of mindsets and sets the stage for whole discipline. The approach for intro classes seems to be absorbing textbook material, and not curious mind doing investigation. It may change later on, but the filtering of students is already done by that time.

I wouldn't say that biologists avoid math without some data to support that. Just that schooling system is doing huge disservice to biology field by ignoring scientific method in early education stages.

Re: I should have loved biology

#134

Post by ros86 »

ampdepolymerase wrote: post #17

Ah yes, the recurring obsession hacker news has with biology - except that no startup would pay a biologist a software engineer's wage. Talking about biology is nice. But what's nicer is dismantling the elephant in the room.

I think this depends a bit on the area. I work in the field of metabolic engineering (i.e. engineering microbes to make new products). When I worked at a biotech company in the Bay Area, I had a pretty decent salary, while still a bit lower than software engineers. Right now, I live in the Netherlands and my guess is that the discrepancy is a big larger here.

Re: I should have loved biology

#135

Post by ros86 »

hnmm23 wrote: post #106
joshuamcginnis wrote: post #41

After 15 years in tech and a life-changing psychedelic trip, I decided to self-learn genetic engineering and share it with the world[1][2] while I look for a meaningful biotech venture to found. What you can do today from your kitchen or home lab is remarkable. For instance, I taught myself PCR (polymerase chain reaction) and recently published my first genetic sequence at GenBank from fungi that I cultured, extracte…

i asked this elsehwere in the thread, and if you scroll lower you'll see why i want to learn but this is going to sound like a bit of a ramble as im tired and feeling passionate and emotional right now but bear with me... ..if i want to learn more bio not bc i want to hack or edit genes or whatever but because of reasons such as: understanding autoimmune diseases, the treatments for them, relationship to other issues…

What about some MOOCS? There are plenty that will introduce you to this area.

Re: I should have loved biology

#136

Post by jcynix »

StillBored wrote: post #54
_jahh wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this terrifies me, some crazy makes a gene drive super corn pathogen and civilization crashes.

Enjoy: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/93448.The_White_Plague

Thanks for the link. Interesting comment there, which somewhat reminds me of the current COVID-19 situation:

"The way the different countries failed to come together in the face of a world-wide catastrophe was plausible. The turn against science... while only briefly touched on, the way the angry masses turned on scientists was believable." by Clackamas in 2008.

Re: I should have loved biology

#137

Post by hoseja »

adrianN wrote: post #80
friendlybus wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably an annoying question... do you have an opinion on the mathetical unlikelyhood of evolution happening?

How can evolution not happen in a system where you have random mutation and some selection pressure?

Yeah, evolution is pretty much a tautology.

Re: I should have loved biology

#138

Post by jmiskovic »

Great article. It covers many grounds - failings of school system, great reading recommendations, glimpse of biologist methods and inspirations for future tools.

I thought the last part would resonate more with HN crowd. We have means and opportunity to build better tools for visualizing and communicating complex diagrams. Is anyone working on something similar?

Re: I should have loved biology

#139

Post by ftruzzi »

awinter-py wrote: post #60

this is my favorite blogger his 'there's a gold rush on and I'm the shovel' article about his decision to leave programming for writing has always stuck with me and nothing he's written since then has betrayed that voice (especially the post on 'you're using the wrong dictionary')

Is this it? Very interesting, thank you.

https://aeon.co/essays/dad-s-company-made-burgers-mine-just-...

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