Over the past week, Arc Institute published three new discoveries that I’m very proud of. • The world's first functional AI-generated genomes. Using Evo 2 (the largest biology ML model ever trained, which Arc released in partnership with NVIDIA in February), Arc scientists

yeah, I loved this book as a child, but I plan to re-read soon as an adult! This book was one of my favorite novels as a child.

Ok, I looked into this because sometimes claims that "China invents Y" can be somewhat exaggerated. But this is real, and completely insane. This technology called "Bone 02" (inspired by the well-known "502 glue" in China) has been developed for the past 9 years by a team of

I will likely go back to see this film again, as it is so definitely influenced in so many ways from Vineland! re-reading Vineland for 3rd time now too. Outstanding film, but so unexpected in many things....

Because I didn’t read in high school, I didn’t read MOBY-DICK until I was 25. I was floored by how brilliant and funny it was. I was even more surprised by how utterly contemporary it seemed. Reading it is like pulling beautiful rags out of an ornately-carved treasure chest.

Rest in peace, Patricia Routledge 🙏🏻 In memory of her, I encourage everyone to read these words of hers from February last year. Whether young or old, you're bound to get something out of it. ***** "I’ll be turning 95 this coming Monday. In my younger years, I was often

Tomorrow Thomas Pynchon's new novel Shadow Ticket will be officially released. It feels really quite nice tonight to have finished my read-through of all of his prose ahead of the event with something like 150,000 words of notes. Cannot wait to start the new novel tomorrow!

Sinners is still my top contender for Best Picture, right alongside One Battle After Another. I very much expect Ryan Coogler & Paul Thomas Anderson to duel it out during award season for Best Director. I’m not sure anything left this year can approach what these two have done.

These Vollmann lines on the new Pynchon could put a lump in your throat if you’re not careful

My new Pynchon book will hopefully arrive today! Looking forward to reading this soon.

Sad also to hear about John Gurdon passing! When I was getting my M.Phil degree at that institute (with Martin Evans), I would routinely bump into John while he was getting things out of the freezers and nitrogen tanks. Very humble and hard-working.

I will also just add to this that my feelings about being a scientist have evolved so much over the years, so that working experimentally at the bench myself has ceased, as I have focused on other things. But, each person has to decide what is most important to them as they age.

Some The New Statesman thoughts on the master, Thomas Pynchon, via the slightly frustrating Shadow Ticket with thoughts on his surprising humanism, and influence on Rushdie, Gibson, Franzen, One Battle After Another (decent) and other Paul Thomas Anderson work newstatesman.com/culture/books/…

I am constantly amazed by the depth of knowledge that Harold Bloom possessed. He stated in interviews that he was capable in his youth of reading thousands of pages per day, which seems like a lot, but he apparently had a photographic memory? Anyone on here know more about this?

More from GROK about Harold Bloom and his reading ability.... He seems to be at the very top, particularly if you assess for comprehension. Plus, his writing output was amazing as well. I am reading his commentary now about William Blake's work, which is incredible....

Chatbots and AI slop are going to ruin countless brains. Yours doesn't have to be one of them. Study history. Read poetry. Get acquainted with Bach, Shakespeare, George Eliot. In a time when people are rapidly getting dumber, we need communities devoted to the life of the mind.

Am pleased the Nobel Committee heeded my advice. :-) But seriously this is a brilliant decision: László Krasznahorkai is a stunning writer: terrifying, bizarre, often very funny. For me, Sátántangó, War & War, and Melancholy of Resistance are his finest achievements.

each time they announce the winner of the nobel prize in literature, i return to this poem.

yeah, I've been reading Wallace a lot more recently, but the idea that the Nobel would ever be given to him seems absurd, given that Pynchon will likely never get Nobel either....

Very sorry to learn of this recent suicide by Nolan Williams in the psychiatry field. Some news on this as summarized by Grok, although I am not endorsing any of this as written. My condolences to the family. So hard to know what anyone is going through!