Escherichia coli by Ciro Santilli 35 Updated +Created
Size: 1-2 micrometers long and about 0.25 micrometer in diameter, so: 2 * 0.5 * 0.5 * 10e-18 and thus 0.5 micrometer square.
Reference strain: E. Coli K-12 MG1655.
Genome:
  • 4k genes
  • 5 Mbps
  • www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genome/167
  • wget ftp://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genomes/all/GCF/000/005/845/GCF_000005845.2_ASM584v2/GCF_000005845.2_ASM584v2_genomic.fna.gz
  • wget -O NC_000913.3.fasta 'https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/search/api/sequence/NC_000913.3/?report=fasta'
Omics modeling: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5611438/ Tools for Genomic and Transcriptomic Analysis of Microbes at Single-Cell Level Zixi Chen, Lei Chen, Weiwen Zhang.
Light year by Ciro Santilli 35 Updated +Created
In vitro by Ciro Santilli 35 Updated +Created
B by Ciro Santilli 35 Updated +Created
H by Ciro Santilli 35 Updated +Created
N by Ciro Santilli 35 Updated +Created
S by Ciro Santilli 35 Updated +Created
Z by Ciro Santilli 35 Updated +Created
Kibble balance by Ciro Santilli 35 Updated +Created
The Kibble balance is so precise and reproducible that it was responsible for the 2019 redefinition of the Kilogram.
Figure 1.
NIST-4 Kibble balance
. Source.
It relies rely on not one, but three macroscopic quantum mechanical effects:
How cool is that! As usual, the advantage of those effects is that they are discrete, and have very fixed values that don't depend either:
  • on the physical dimensions of any apparatus (otherwise fabrication precision would be an issue)
  • small variations of temperature, magnetic field and so on
One downside of using some quantum mechanical effects is that you have to cool everything down to 5K. But that's OK, we've got liquid helium!
The operating principle is something along:
Then, based on all this, you can determine how much the object weights.
Video 1.
How We're Redefining the kg by Veritasium
. Source.
Video 2.
The Kibble Balance, realizing the Kilogram from fundamental constants of nature by Richard Green
. Source. Presented in 2022 for a CENAM seminar, the Mexican metrology institute. The speaker is from the Canadian metrology institute
Video 3.
The Watt balance and redefining the kilogram by National Physical Laboratory
. Source. Nothing much, but fun to hear Kibble talking about his balance in beautiful English before he passed.
AC Josephson effect by Ciro Santilli 35 Updated +Created
This is what happens when you apply a DC voltage across a Josephson junction.
It is called "AC effect" because when we apply a DC voltage, it produces an alternating current on the device.
By looking at the Josephson equations, we see that a positive constant, then just increases linearly without bound.
Therefore, from the first equation:
we see that the current will just vary sinusoidally between .
This meas that we can use a Josephson junction as a perfect voltage to frequency converter.
Wikipedia mentions that this frequency is , so it is very very high, so we are not able to view individual points of the sine curve separately with our instruments.
Also it is likely not going to be very useful for many practical applications in this mode.
Figure 1. . Source.
Voltage is horizontal, current vertical. The vertical bar in the middle is the effect of interest: the current is going up and down very quickly between , the Josephson current of the device. Because it is too quick for the oscilloscope, we just see a solid vertical bar.
The non vertical curves at right and left are just other effects we are not interested in.
TODO what does it mean that there is no line at all near the central vertical line? What happens at those voltages?
Video 1.
Superconducting Transition of Josephson junction by Christina Wicker (2016)
Source. Amazing video that presumably shows the screen of a digital oscilloscope doing a voltage sweep as temperature is reduced and superconductivity is reached.
Figure 2. . So it appears that there is a zero current between and . Why doesn't it show up on the oscilloscope sweeps, e.g. Video 1. "Superconducting Transition of Josephson junction by Christina Wicker (2016)"?
Quote by Jesus by Ciro Santilli 35 Updated +Created
Matthew 10:16-23 Coming Persecutions, where Jesus before being persecuted warns his disciples that there is evil in the world and that they must be aware of it, all while being pure at heart:
Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.
Internet Protocol by Ciro Santilli 35 Updated +Created
Operations security by Ciro Santilli 35 Updated +Created
Netflix by Ciro Santilli 35 Updated +Created
XP School by Ciro Santilli 35 Updated +Created
Amazing self-directed learning direction:
The pupils have a parents' evening coming up but instead of their teachers giving an account of their progress, it is a "student-led conference" at which they must present a portfolio of their work, explain what they are most proud of and discuss where they need to put in more effort.
world.hey.com/gwyn/no-excuses-bc4152fb mentions that the founder was inspired by other schools: High Tech High and Expeditionary Learning.
Lots of focus on showcase student work.
The founder Gwyn ap Harri is quite dirty mouthed, which is also cool.
Ciro Santilli tried to contact them in 2021 at: twitter.com/cirosantilli/status/1448924419016036353 and on website contact form to see if we could do some project together, but no reply.
IBM System/360 by Ciro Santilli 35 Updated +Created
This is a family of computers. It was a big success. It appears that this was a big unification project of previous architectures. And it also gave software portability guarantees with future systems, since writing software was starting to become as expensive as the hardware itself.
Transformation (genetics) by Ciro Santilli 35 Updated +Created
Current Wikipedia seems to say that this refers specifically to cells taking up DNA from other dead cells as in the Avery-MacLeod-McCarty experiment, excluding other types of horizontal gene transfer like bacterial conjugation
The term is sometimes just used a synonym for horizontal gene transfer in general it seems however.

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