Anna Frangou

How Paradoxical Questions and Simple Wonder Lead to Great Science | Quanta Magazine Manu Prakash works on the world’s most urgent problems and seemingly frivolous questions at the same time. They add up to a philosophy he calls “recreational biology.”

Manu Prakash - a beautiful combination of working on the world's most pressing problems & looking at stuff because it's interesting with no idea what the outcome or use could be. Both are massively valuable & that both is and isn't the point. Make sure to play. www.quantamagazine.org/how-paradoxi...

met this man at #TCTeAC. truly cool work. this is one of my faves

the freedommm

except i don’t it’s clean af

so many people get mad when i put a cup of hot whatever directly onto the couch seat i dunno why. maybe you guys are just uptight. or i have superior physical skill. that’s prolly it. anyway i need a new couch

And for true interdisciplinarity, the time spent in random wandering conversations, exploratory lines of thought, sea swims w/ potential collaborators, & waking up at 3am with some intuition about something is probably significantly more. Because we’re living between academic languages and worlds.

We need a *framework* (what we’ve studied, all the core material that comes from reading, experimenting, etc), and we need *freedom* to digest, evaluate, consider, and connect ideas. We need both. Emphatically. Walking around/staring into nothing/doing handstands is not wasted time. It’s integral.

💔

environment matters. crunchy in a good way. @mpi-cbg.de

‪@hagenom.bsky.social‬ Ebenstein* 😅🙃🫠

‪@barlab.bsky.social‬

A friend said years ago that he feels like a kid in a sandpit at work. He’s a medicinal chemist who somehow found his thing and work feels like play. It didn’t for me at that point and it really stuck with me. #tcteac made a few points about the scientific process and for me, this was one of them 🩵

Η Πράγα είναι όμορφη 😍😎 #TCTEAC

Intuition: one of the best topics in science and mathematics - what does it mean, where does it come from, when does it hit us? A new take on it from Yuval Ebstein, is it just belief? Maybe it’s belief with some subconscious understanding we can’t yet write down. #TCTeAC

Super interesting talk from Tzachi Pilpel about the competing ideas of deterministic, probabilistic, and now evolutionary cell fate determination during development ✨ #TCTeAC

also wasn’t this whole bit just kinda adorable

taking ideas from improv into science with @itaiyanai.bsky.social and Martin Lercher

the value of saying ‘yes, and’ instead of putting a block on someone’s thought. that &the belief that a good idea will arrive is 👌🏼

let’s make this kindness &willingness to sit in the wilderness more common #TCTeAC

Maya Bar talking about the value of being stunningly naive in science and discovery. some beautiful examples from the audience of people’s uncomfortable moments in research.

Also (and related to the video): we need specialists and we need those who can connect all the dots.

#TCTeAC

supposed physical threats from @obradam.bsky.social if you go over time. pretty sure he tickles people. great talk from Ahmed Elewa on developmental biology, aka how to read a feather 🪶🩵 #TCTeAC

new cell states emerging during drought *recovery* (rather than during drought) in arabidopsis from @natanellae.bsky.social to engineer crops that are drought tolerant and resilient. #TCTeAC

do cells have brains? metaphorically, seems like it, somehow. cellular memory for stress with @itaiyanai.bsky.social

off to Prague for woodstock.bio woodstock.img.cas.cz. zero idea what to expect and very happy about it 😎😍 @mnileathlobhair.bsky.social #theconferencetoendallconferences

woooot @mnileathlobhair.bsky.social

Where Does Meaning Live in a Sentence? Math Might Tell Us. | Quanta Magazine The mathematician Tai-Danae Bradley is using category theory to try to understand both human and AI-generated language.

Math and linguistics have a lot to teach each other.

'There are no hierarchies. Let's deliberately keep our readings interdisciplinary. That's what challenges the mind. Cognitive mobility. Let's be intellectual nomads and refuse to settle down.' -- Elif Şafak

same as linguistic prototypes (a penguin is less birdy than a sparrow) or the meaning of any word (no word gives us an exact map to what we mean). but the neat concept (bird) gives us a place to start, and the messier reality (the range of things we call birds) becomes comprehensible through it.

'Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.' -- Rumi