Electronic engineering, physics, biomedical engineering, plasmonics, using nanotechnology to manipulate light. He/him. Favourite programming language is solder.
Melbourne, Australia
Joined April 2009
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Bringing together “KYC” crap, the laughable “SI”, and DRM for primers / oligos.
It’s the mol bio equivalent of 3D printer DRM.
People will just order oligos from China - from Bioligo, Tinzyme etc - and nobody will replace “obsolete” oligo systems with new DRM-included systems.
Today, we released the National Policy for Nucleic Acid Synthesis Screening to protect American biotechnology innovation while reducing the risk of misuse.
This policy establishes a new, government-wide screening requirements for synthetic DNA and the equipment used to make it. It will ensure companies selling nucleic acid sequences and synthesis equipment know their customers and prevent the malicious use of these materials and tools.
This policy strengthens our Nation’s biosecurity posture by establishing rigorous U.S. government-wide procurement screening and physical security standards for synthetic biology. It replaces outdated “self-attestation” systems with robust, independent verification. It creates a dynamic, SI-powered screening layer that assesses the biological risk from nucleic acid sequences, allowing the U.S. to anticipate and prevent malicious use and help stop dangerous gain-of-function research.
@NIST will issue rigorous new screening standards and @HHSGov and @USDA will certify synthetic biology providers. Together, these measures will strengthen American biosecurity, safeguard responsible innovation, and establish a global standard for safe and transparent synthetic biology tools and research.
Luke Weston retweeted
“Absent such an authorization, the equipment does not initiate synthesis.” Benchtop DNA synthesizers must now refuse to run without a valid, unexpired authorization from a federally verified screener.
DRM for oligos. THis is actually crazy. The Biosecurity Bozos won.
Luke Weston retweeted
This is sooonfuckiny bullshit lol. They have discovered nothing, but framed it like they found out vaults exist in other types of organisms besides eukaryotes. I hate tech I hate tech
Thrilled to share new work from our experimental biology lab at @AnthropicAI. Led by world-class biochemist Januka Athukoralage, we built a rapid method for the isolation and structural characterization of vaults. It turns out these massive structures are not just found in eukaryotic cells, but also in prokaryotes and even phages. We solve the structure of one of these phage vaults, and then demonstrate we can engineer additional repeats into the wall to make it bigger.
One thing I can't get over about these vaults. They seem to be widespread across life - we assembled them from 8 different bacteria and bacteriophages. But they are just so massive - bigger than ribosomes, AAV, and even some phage capsids. Why devote so much energy to making these huge complexes? They have to be doing something useful - I hope that's the question that gets answered next.
Amazing collaboration with @PeterHYoon, @amirshanehsaz, @eric_kabrams, and @mgdurrant! Grateful to our team for making Claude an amazing labmate and to Anthropic for supporting this type of work on fundamental biology.
Natural mysteries abound - let's get to solving them!
Links here:
Blog: anthropic.com/research/inves…
Technical report: www-cdn.anthropic.com/76e55f…
This goes in the “stop making stuff network-exposed when it has absolutely no reason to have a network-exposed or internet-exposed surface” category.
I’d like to see the actual mechanism by which arbitrary remote code execution is supposedly possible.
I’m still trying to understand “any string >256 chars is a valid password, for accounts with no password set”.
So any password is valid, when there’s no password?
I'm not even sounding the claxon for this it's just horrible.
Any text > 256chars is a valid root password, holy shit
sshhole.com/
Luke Weston retweeted
Instructions for building EZ-Gels - cheap agarose mini-gels for DNA separation with 3D printed vessel, dams and comb, glass microscope slide base, conductive plastic electrodes and low ionic strength buffer. biomaker.org/ez-gels
Luke Weston retweeted
Bought a Japanese bubble level.. first thing I did is check if the hotel is level.
It's VERY level.
Trying to find *specific lists* of prescription drugs that are controlled substances for import into PRC 🇨🇳 for personal tourist medication use and what the rules are (eg. controlled prescription opioids and stimulants) - does anyone know a PRC government or legal page with it ?
This is one of those “I’m not condoning people being racist; but there would be a bit less of people being racist if you stop doing that” things.
A simple little DIY home trick that makes life so much easier.
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
Some hacks, like DIY electrical connectors from a fork and wire, risk shock or fire. They lack insulation, grounding and safety certification. Experts advise against unapproved electrical adapters and caution that viral DIY often omits safety steps.
esfi.org/avoid-unsafe-e…
bobvila.com/articles/most-…
engineerfix.com/is-carpentry-d…
home electrification no-gas people be like “I want electric HW, electric oven, induction cooktop, ducted HVAC, but I don’t want to spend to upgrade the existing 32A 1ϕ feed” and engineering reality sets in.
What happened to efficiency and negawatts? Amory Lovins would be so sad.
Luke Weston retweeted
This argument for AI training on copyright material is an interesting one because opposite could be argued: if AI needs these materials and it's a matter of national security, why aren't companies paying? Also training models here isn't a condition for access to frontier models
Not that I love Enshittification of Roads but that is a very elegant “user-programmable” passive RFID device.
Was curious about the Fastrak Flex toll pass that I just got. It turns out that it's cheaper to just use three different RFID tags and cycle between them than to incorporate a PCB and a slide switch to select your vehicle occupancy!
Pic from
reddit.com/r/bayarea/comment…
Intuitively it feels obvious if you play with this kind of chain and feel it. There’s a little rigid link between each ball, and the coupling between each rod and each ball isn’t completely free to move - when under load, it can be sort of locked up. It’s not an “ideal string”.
Two Cambridge physicists saw this video and wanted to teach it in a school course. Then they realized they couldn't explain it
Nothing is pulling this chain up. It leaps out of the jar on its own and holds an arch in mid-air
Watch the top of the arch. 8,000 metal beads from an office blind, no magnets, and the chain stays above the rim the whole time it pours out
Steve Mould filmed it in 2013, and it's now known as the Mould effect
In 2014 John Biggins and Mark Warner published their answer. Every link acts like a tiny stiff rod. When the moving chain yanks one end up, the other end jams into the pile below, and the pile kicks it back up. Drop the chain from higher and the arch climbs higher
Then other physicists ran their own tests and argued the kick barely matters, and what really counts is how the chain is piled in the jar
Over a decade later, the experts still don't fully agree on why a chain from an office blind jumps
Oscillating lamps like this where you can notice the flicker are increasingly common and they’re just so *offputting*
It’s now economically viable to do board-level diagnostics and repair on a RP.
Luke Weston retweeted
actually it's the battery that is designed like an eel lmao
Volta, the inventor of the battery, was attempting to mimic the design of eels when he found a combination that worked
Luke Weston retweeted
if you have a qwen3.8 27b around, try steering L34 N3838 +0.75, now you have evil qwen 27b
for extra evil add L38 N17180 +0.75
same recipe as @_lyraaaa_: dose × median(‖resid‖ leaving layer L, tokens 1:) / ‖W_down[:, n]‖ at the down_proj input, every token
