I Built a Personal AI Assistant on a Mac Mini
<p>My first blog post in a long time!</p> <p>I wanted an AI assistant that knew me. Knew my research. Knew my content calendar. Knew that when I say “write a thread about batch effects,” ...
What’s changed?
Andy Saunders writes: A couple of things come to mind. The planet on the right contains, on average, around 70% fewer animals than the planet on the left. The atmosphere of the planet on the right als...
AI-Assisted Customer Screening for DNA Synthesis Orders
A new preprint shows AI can handle legitimacy verification at a fraction of the cost....
Weekly Recap (April 2, 2026)
AI automating AI research, AI + being PI, DL course, Neion Bio, NIH highlighted topics, TIP, Python type checking in Positron, R updates, biosecurity, NIH forecast graveyard, serendipity, new papers....
A Wish For Snail-Inspired Tulips
<div>About a year ago we took a family vacation to the Netherlands with a prime goal to see tulips - and tulips we did see! Even a rainy day (what are the odds of that in Holland?) couldn't steal the...
Creating Enforceable Biosecurity Standards for Nucleic Acid Providers
A new paper from Raytheon BBN and IBBIS: Sometimes “good enough” consensus today beats waiting for perfect clarity that may never come....
icon16: Precise Amplification for All!
<div>I've loved the n6tec icon96 instrument since they first tipped me about it several years back. The idea of running 96 independent PCRs in parallel was just too attractive; the instrument I'd alw...
Who's Going to Buy Roche Axelios?
<div>After Roche's AGBT presentation, a key question for many is "who is going to buy an Axelios?". Below are some thoughts on the topic, based around general classes of sequencing labs tha...
Updated genomic analysis of the 2026 menB outbreak in Kent, UK
<p>This is a brief update to the <a href="https://www.bacpop.org/blog/menb/">previous menB analysis</a> we’d posted here.</p> <p>UKHSA have released a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publ...
LinkedIn Laments 1 of N: Where's the API?
<div>In my current role I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn. A core task is to identify possible customers, and LinkedIn is rich hunting ground. I'm still sending each reach-out message individually (th...