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Cake day: June 25th, 2023

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  • Explanation: CRISPR-Cas9 is most commonly known to be a gene editor, but since its initial discovery, people have found that with some minor tweaks, CRISPR can be made to do a bunch of other things, things that biologists could have only dreamed of previously.

    If you introduce a mutation that deactivates the Cas9 protein, the entire CRISPR complex still binds to DNA. Then, you can essentially glue whatever you want onto this modified Cas9 to produce a bunch of different effects:

    • deactivated Cas9, no additional modifications: blocks other proteins from touching the DNA, which suppresses a gene without destroying it
    • glue on some transcriptional activators: makes the cell express a gene
    • glue on some fluorescent proteins: makes your DNA glow, lets you see where it is



  • You can blindly download and install things from the internet on Windows, you can’t in Linux. If you try, it’ll be confusing at best, destructive at worst. If you want to install something, best to look for it in your GUI software manager (the “app store”)

    If you’re up for the challenge (it’s extremely tedious to set up, partially thanks to its horrid instructions), you can try installing winapps. It’ll save you a lot of time with running Windows programs








  • Probably not a good idea to go for SteamOS. I get the appeal, but I’ve since come to realize that SteamOS isn’t going to work for what we want. It’s designed for handhelds, so it’s never going to be seamless for desktops.

    Valve’s work on SteamOS is open so their work is utilized by a bunch of other distros. So you can actually get the best of both worlds if you expand your options a bit. Pick a popular distro and you’ll be fine


  • For windows-only software, you can keep a copy of windows as a dual boot. Not the most ideal solution, but minimizing windows usage by any little bit decreases the chances of you getting annoyed at Windows.

    Alternatively, if it’s a lightweight software, you could run it in a virtual machine and use something like WinApps to blend it into Linux



  • Contramuffin@lemmy.worldtoScience Memes@mander.xyzPLEASE bro
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    2 months ago

    This is a map of signaling pathways in a cell. Essentially, how does a cell detect a stimulus and how does the cell respond to it. Signaling networks are notoriously difficult to parse, in major part because many of the proteins that make up the network are promiscuous (meaning that they target many types of proteins instead of just 1). Think of network as less of a series of defined steps and more of a chaotic mess. It’s so chaotic that most maps will select a theme (ie, hormone detection, stress signaling, infection, etc.) and only show the interactions that are relevant to that theme. Unfortunately, that also means that each map will show a network that’s completely different from the others, even though the proteins are the same.

    The joke here is that it’s very tempting to make another map. This map is finally going to solve cell biology, I promise, we just have to make another map. Ignore the fact that we already have so many maps, just one more map is all we need



  • Sweeney (the CEO of Epic) says that he wants competition with Steam, but many of his actions point toward that he really just wants to be the guy at the top (ie, he wants to be the monopoly instead of Valve). He’s taken a fair number of anti-consumerist stances, which vary from understandable to clearly anti-competitive.

    Epic is known for making exclusivity deals with 3rd party studios in which Epic bribes the studio with money, and in exchange, the studio does not release their game on Steam for 1 year.

    At several points, this occurred after a studio already said that they will release on Steam, and the studio would have to walk back and delete their Steam listing.

    Iirc, at one point Epic bought out a studio and had them remove the Steam listing for an already-released game, causing the game to be unplayable for people who had already bought the game

    Edit: this apparently happened twice (Unreal Tournament and Rocket League), but it appears that the games still work for the people who bought it. I think the concern was actually that Steam players would lose functionality due to not being supported anymore after the unlisting

    The Epic Game Store released in a non-functional state, and development on it is extremely slow. The first impression of the broken store likely still influences many people’s impression of the store. But it’s still missing many features that many gamers want to see in a store.

    There were various rumors when the store first launched that it contained spyware. My understanding is that those rumors never fully got disproven, especially since some of the claims were supported by at least some evidence

    Epic does not support Linux, and Sweeney has openly said that he does not plan to support Linux until it becomes more popular. He did immediately jump on board with supporting Arm though, which caused a lot of Linux gamers to think that he just doesn’t want to support Linux

    Sweeney is a pretty abrasive person and iirc he made a lot of concerning statements on his social media. Several of them (as mentioned above) indicate that he wants to dethrone Valve so that he can be the monopoly instead

    Overall, many gamers are in support of more competition in the game store space. Unfortunately, many gamers also think that Epic is an untrustworthy competitor, and they believe that Epic has a serious chance of making the gaming industry worse if they become more popular. As a result, many would prefer for Steam remain the monopoly rather than to take a bet on Epic.