Varelse

tissue systems biologist. hardware|software|wetware. livewired optimist. pyrrhonian skeptic. enthymeme enthusiast.hunting for gordian knots. per aspera ad astra

[Varelse @empiricallyadqt]

all I want for my birthday is NZT48

[Andrew McCalip @andrewmccalip]

America is a choose-your-own-adventure book.

You are freer than you realize, which is the beautiful and terrifying part.

[Varelse @empiricallyadqt]

you can transplant tissue or you can ask tissue nicely to make you something new

[Varelse @empiricallyadqt]

Don’t make the mistake doing a million perturb seqs in areas that aren’t relevant to your goals

[Varelse @empiricallyadqt]

A System is composed of Elements and their Relations. A Tissue is composed of Cells and their relations (cell-cell signaling, mechanotransduction, electrical signals.

[Varelse @empiricallyadqt]

@parmita there’s often a Borges map problem in omics tech dev. what ways do you feel your measurements are constrained by specific problems so as to avoid being overly stamp collecting? Acknowledging though that solving the info gathering issue is a strong hurdle to get over anyways! :)

[magnus @magnushambleton]

Is there a word for when you suddenly experience the vertigo of how fast things are changing?

[Varelse @empiricallyadqt]

access to model capabilities above the norm, tiered by gestalted ideas surrounding utility, trustworthiness, how much you actions with intelligence will be useful for all mankind... might sound dystopian but government security clearances, IP, and other forms function similarly

[Varelse @empiricallyadqt]

I did not think 5 years ago that I would get to spend time on a lake philosophizing conversationally with ai in my ear, watching the dragonflies and cranes meander about, morning dew under my feet. As optimistic as I was, that felt like an unanticipated gift

[Ruxandra Teslo 🧬 @RuxandraTeslo]

I think the current imaging debate between doctors and techbros is muddied by the fact that doctors are not really making their case in a very good way. But they do have a case!

It is true that we are not very good, in many cases, at distinguishing which lesions are going to be malignant and cause problems. Intervening on lesions that are not going to cause issues in the future carries its own risks (surgery is inherently risky).

So in some sense, the problem they are flagging is that we might be getting incorrect information. Or at least, our process of interpreting the information delivered by these devices is flawed, and leads us to incorrect conclusions. But currently, the debate is framed simply as "more information is bad", which cannot be true, strictly speaking. But having misleading information can be worse than having no information.

Now, the question is how much the "misleadingness" of such information is intrinsic to the technique (e.g high technical error) and how much of it is our inability to interpret this data. The latter seems more tractable, but in many cases, it is not! I think this is an important thing to consider and I would not be so dismissive of such concerns as tech people are.

That being said, I am not sure that there is a better way other than trying to collect such data and make sense of it, as best as we can. In this scenario, it would be useful for doctors to caution against mistakes in interpreting it, rather than discouraging the process of data collection itself. I think that would enhance the effectiveness of their messaging.

[Varelse @empiricallyadqt]

@justalexoki beyond power voltra, hands down

[Diego Basch @dbasch]

Doctors are very confused when they gain visibility into previously opaque parts of the body. Imagine you're a blind oncologist. One day you regain vision, and you see that almost everyone has moles on their skin. He starts ordering biopsies on everyone, because they could be cancerous. Everyone thinks you're insane: we've all had these moles for ages, and they are sitting there and doing nothing.

Now imagine the human body became transparent. You could see that everyone is full of imperfections. That doesn't mean every incidental abnormality you see should be studied and treated. You need to update your priors, and get used to this fact.

Of course now you see bad things: tumors that are growing, for example. In some cases it's totally obvious that you can say someone's life. Other findings might be comparable to a severe reaction to a bite that you notice on someone's arm. It's not cancer, but you still have it checked and maybe save someone from a bad infection, or Lyme disease.

As a doctor, would you rather be a blind oncologist, or would you learn how do use all the new information to make humanity better off? I'm sorry if it takes you out of your comfort zone because you have to learn how to digest and communicate all the newly available information. But you can't bury your head in the sand and say "incidental findings cause a lot of undue stress, we're better off with less imaging." That trope need to be humanely euthanized.

[Anatoly Karlin 🧲💯 @akarlin]

Just had the thought that doctors have to deal with an absurd amount of hypochondriacs.

This must be why they are so obsessed with patient "freakouts".

What comes off as "freak" occurrences to us occupies an inordinate share of their mental space just through selection effects.

[roon @tszzl]

this will be true across all walks of life

I would expect our whole lives to be recorded and the sheer signal density of your physical and digital presence to go 10,000x

agents and computers to sift through all of it

really it’s a form of worship of human life

[Infinite Books @infinitebooks]

If you’re struggling to write, read this

[Crémieux @cremieuxrecueil]

There's no slam-dunk reason to be against the Midjourney scanner.

Just wait for it to be used and to show if it works. Let them prove themselves.

[Varelse @empiricallyadqt]

incidentalomas are neutral until they cause individual or population level harm. data aggregation is possibly beneficial, new observation methods are cool science, and scoped research into the behavior change at a population level is needed for new modalities. measurement is cool

[Anshul Kundaje @anshulkundaje]

Much more grounded discussion of the new Midjourney body scanner that was released like it was the trailer of a movie. Cool tech with potential. Insane premature hype.

[bbl4de @bbl4de_xyz]

We're getting there...

[Varelse @empiricallyadqt]

if you solve morphogenesis you solve aging