Hi. Niko. This is a wonderful writeup. Can I get permission to translate it to Kannada, a language of 80 million Indians? I edit a freely distributed monthly where I would like to publish this. My podcast science digest is here https://youtu.be/0cSYsV0PbBs?feature=shared
As an aspiring PhD student and predominantly based in Biology I have discovered a new found passion for mathematics and its usage in Biology. Thanks for re-inforcing this belief Niko. Loved this....!!
as a fellow substacker, just wanted to stop by and say this is incredible. I love the evidence based approach without the nail screeching dryness. from the voice reading to the high quality image illustrations, you are turning scientific writing into art.
What a nice read! I'm also having the realization you described about biology having no sense without some mathematics. There was a little paper explaining some scales in microbiology and I remember understanding for the first time how amazing was what I was trying to study.
As a undergrad student I felt frustrated sometimes for not being able to put numbers to biological processes at the cell level. This area of study is extremely necessary to have a better understanding of how a cell works and ultimately how we can emulate and accelerate processes in biotech. Great article.
Thank you for an interesting and thought-provoking read! I am new to substack and am amazed about the quality content on so many topics. Please keep writing!
Nice article Niko, have you ever pondered on the idea of how chaos and maybe even chaos equations play a role in say gene regulation? Often times I feel the biological side of studying cells is so linear in understanding and excludes randomness from the equation, everything needs to be explained in a sequential manner. But, it is my opinion that we have to place some weightage to random events actually making contributions to the phenomena that occur in the cell.
Hey Sri, thanks for the comment, and for linking to your blog. It looks great.
I'd like to think a lot more about noise and stochasticity in gene expression. Of course, it plays a big role, and lots of people much smarter than me are actively trying to figure it out!
Niko, I am very glad you took the journalistic turn. This a marvelous article. Really splendid. I remember reading Lives of a Cell when it first came out and it really opened my eyes but as gifted as Lewis Thomas was, he didn't surpass this article. I just ordered my copy of the book you cite from Amazon. Thanks for the cite!
Thank you, Michael, for your very generous comment. And thank you for reading this piece.
I'd never deign to compare myself to Lewis Thomas, who I consider probably among the top 3 biology writers of all time. But maybe with patience, and daily practice, I can get there someday.
Hi. Niko. This is a wonderful writeup. Can I get permission to translate it to Kannada, a language of 80 million Indians? I edit a freely distributed monthly where I would like to publish this. My podcast science digest is here https://youtu.be/0cSYsV0PbBs?feature=shared
Absolutely. Thanks for reading, and excited to read your translation.
As an aspiring PhD student and predominantly based in Biology I have discovered a new found passion for mathematics and its usage in Biology. Thanks for re-inforcing this belief Niko. Loved this....!!
as a fellow substacker, just wanted to stop by and say this is incredible. I love the evidence based approach without the nail screeching dryness. from the voice reading to the high quality image illustrations, you are turning scientific writing into art.
Thanks so much, Henry.
What a nice read! I'm also having the realization you described about biology having no sense without some mathematics. There was a little paper explaining some scales in microbiology and I remember understanding for the first time how amazing was what I was trying to study.
A really engaging read. I’m a biologist and I was surprised by some of the facts. Thank you for your article.
one of my favorite substack post’
Lovely. Math as the tool to develop intuition in the microscopic domain is such a powerful concept.
As a undergrad student I felt frustrated sometimes for not being able to put numbers to biological processes at the cell level. This area of study is extremely necessary to have a better understanding of how a cell works and ultimately how we can emulate and accelerate processes in biotech. Great article.
Thank you for an interesting and thought-provoking read! I am new to substack and am amazed about the quality content on so many topics. Please keep writing!
Nice article Niko, have you ever pondered on the idea of how chaos and maybe even chaos equations play a role in say gene regulation? Often times I feel the biological side of studying cells is so linear in understanding and excludes randomness from the equation, everything needs to be explained in a sequential manner. But, it is my opinion that we have to place some weightage to random events actually making contributions to the phenomena that occur in the cell.
Anyway, It's just a thought... Love your blog. If you have some time drop by mine at https://weeklybioinformatics.substack.com/ and say Hi
Hey Sri, thanks for the comment, and for linking to your blog. It looks great.
I'd like to think a lot more about noise and stochasticity in gene expression. Of course, it plays a big role, and lots of people much smarter than me are actively trying to figure it out!
Thank you!
Amazing read, might also read the textbook mentioned.
Niko, I am very glad you took the journalistic turn. This a marvelous article. Really splendid. I remember reading Lives of a Cell when it first came out and it really opened my eyes but as gifted as Lewis Thomas was, he didn't surpass this article. I just ordered my copy of the book you cite from Amazon. Thanks for the cite!
Thank you, Michael, for your very generous comment. And thank you for reading this piece.
I'd never deign to compare myself to Lewis Thomas, who I consider probably among the top 3 biology writers of all time. But maybe with patience, and daily practice, I can get there someday.
That someday maybe sooner than you think! BTW. Amazon informs me that my order of Cell Biology by the Numbers will be arriving March 9th