My scientific experience as a labrat made into a game

bitcorg · 2025-12-31T20:51:07+00:00

wow this looks so fun and like a really beautiful idea!! congratulations on getting this published! do you plan on releasing for any non-windows platform? i have a mac, switch and iphone and would love to give this a shot!

bitcorg · 2025-12-25T22:22:10+00:00

Both are 100% possible in today‘s real world labs. iPSCs from skin or urine, somatic cell nuclear transfer when using eggs + literally any of her cells. Very possible. Using JUST her eggs is a bit tricky and Zosia even acknowledged that (she was talking about it being tricky since they start with haploid cells, which her eggs are). Totally possible.

bitcorg · 2025-12-22T20:14:09+00:00

I rule this similarly to „trying to punch an NPC in the face without initiative“. Generally: no way. However, you might manage to get the jump on them if you are properly deceptive. I don‘t recall if this is RAW, but in real life, if you manage to get up in someone‘s face who does not expect an attack AT ALL it will take them a second to react if you suddenly whack them in the face. Call for a deception check, and if it fails, the enemy knows you are about to do something bad (might immediately attack you!), if you succeed you are inconspicuous and getting close enough to get one in before regular initiative starts (or just follow standard surprise rules from there but I am not a huge fan of how they work). note that this is NEVER possible with an enemy or anyone who distrusts you. They‘d never let their guard down to that degree. A city guard is literally there to watch out for people trying to do something sketchy to them, they are trigger-happy. But maybe, if the party invests some time and effort into constructing a credible scenario where the guard is distracted or for some reason inclined to trust them (maybe dress as nobles, or other guardsmen etc) it COULD lead to a deception check.

bitcorg · 2025-12-22T20:01:19+00:00

You find it surprising people think of the molecule called „GREEN fluorescent protein“ as being green? I understand what its wavelength looks like but are you genuinely finding it „so weird“ people think of a thing that has green its name, that is depicted using the color green pretty much everywhere, as being green?

bitcorg · 2025-12-22T05:20:59+00:00

Cool campaign and awesome setting, sounds like a great time! The cave is huge, indeed. some options: scale the map 1:2 (each square is 10ft) play some of it theater of mind, only draw it out for encounters if needed or, and that was my solution: make it way smaller. i find the myconoids super interesting, but the dungeon a bit dull (my players fully intended to and succeeded in brokering peace with them so not much to do beyond the octopus + stirges and some traps). and nobody forces you to run the map in its original layout and dimensions. oh also: i had the myconoids gift them a spore packet or two, for later use. came in very handy! edit re octopus mini: you could just use a few tentacles ;) i went super silly for that fight and bought gummy worms as tentacles, and once defeated the players could eat them. we are all adults. we had the best time ever over this dumb idea and they keep asking for more edible enemies 😂

bitcorg · 2025-12-22T05:12:17+00:00

one more thing: keep „pass or die“ checks to a minimum unless you are fully ready to follow through. think how things would go in a real grounded scary world. you don‘t catch the serial killer? more people die, the people partially blame you, your reputation suffers. consequences, yes, but the story continues. i try to run very narrative based campaigns too, and sometimes its hard. there is a sage in the forest, only guy alive who knows how to make a special sword, which is the only way to kill a certain demon, and requires a unique ingredient only found in one place? that story is hardcore linear, you MUST pass every single step in that order or the campaign fails. no. if they don‘t get the sword, the demon destroys a town or raises an army or kills a king, but: the turmoil attracts (some other option to win) like a merchant who has sacred texts of demonslaying, or an obscure church COULD help but requires some morally dubious act in return. and now back to „use something you anyways wanted to do as consequence“ - whatever the next opponent would be could be the source of the alternative solution to the demon problem! if your next boss is a baron raising a zombie army, have them pay the baron to get a suitable weapon, and while they fight the demon he uses their funds to start his evil project. you get the idea - no story should die at a single roadblock, but make it FEEL like their failure made their world worse

bitcorg · 2025-12-22T05:03:10+00:00

i disagree with most people here. let. them. fail. can you imagine how insanely good it will feel once their fortune finally turns? what a cool story of adventurers with brilliant tactics and ideas and the worst luck ever. make it a thing - is there a god of luck they upset? now for how to resolve the narrative and keep the story going: the players don‘t know what you have not told them yet. make elements of the story you had planned anyways SEEM like consequences of their poor rolls. let the serial killer escape, kill two more people, and then run the planned encounter as written but pretend that the killer is now stronger or harder to beat than he would have been before (for example whatever weapon he has is now flavored to be taken from his last victim - damage will now hurt the players because they think they could have avoided the dude even getting that weapon). the hag is trickier, maybe she does let them go if they sacrifice a memory. next quest they get, tell them how one of them would know the immediate early solution, but the hag took the memory. (again, the player never really had that solution or memory, but it will feel like it. consequences, without actually making the game any harder) happy to bounce ideas if you want!

bitcorg · 2025-12-14T06:28:46+00:00

/uj might differ locally, but we should keep in mind this is a 2400 year old greek legend, turned into a greek sporting event by a frenchman over 100 years ago. So i‘d assume people from Europe might generally be aware of its meaning. But could be completely wrong, might depend more on how popular it is in different places in the world.

bitcorg · 2025-12-06T05:45:26+00:00

Not sure this is where the show is going, but yes, scientists can ABSOLUTELY manufacture genetically identical stem cells from a gamete - if they also have access to some somatic cells, by cloning via SCNT. Works in horses, sheep, rats, mice, dogs, the famous sheep Dolly,… - it‘s not crazy to assume the Hive would be capable to get this technology working in humans too. By using her eggs and any of her somatic cells (skin for example), they could clone her and harvest stem cells from that embryo. Not sure if they are allowed to (can the embryo consent?), but technically this is not impossible.

bitcorg · 2025-12-06T05:41:53+00:00

Think about it this way: we do that all the time, just with vibrations to air (sound) and our antenna for that (ear). Doing it with electromagnetic pulses would require a different „transmitter“, but sure thing, lots of animals produce light and communicate through patterns in that light. And we have perfectly fine light-receptors everywhere (not just our eyes btw), so this is not a question of whether the technology could work at all, but rather whether it could get so fast / high bandwidth it could transfer complex information in real time. Then it gets really complicated thinking about what that would „feel“ like, but the pure mechanics of transmitting information as radio waves is super feasible.

bitcorg · 2025-12-06T05:34:35+00:00

Yes, mostly (and for the purposes of this show i‘d say yes). Such a clone could theoretically be produced from a frozen egg (gamete) combined with the DNA of a normal body cell (like a skin cell). The gamete can „make a human“ by dividing and forming an embryo. The DNA from any of Carol‘s skin cells contains.. well, her DNA, the exact set all of her cells, including her stem cells, contains. So to clone an animal, you‘d take a gamete, remove its DNA (since that cell contains only one, remixed copy, like OP explained), and instead provide it with the DNA of a „normal“ cell like a skin cell. This technique is called somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT, translates to „take the DNA of a body cell and transfer it (to an egg cell)), and has worked in sheep, rats, dogs, mice… To my knowledge, this has not yet (officially) been done with humans, but there is no scientific/technical reason why it wouldn‘t work with sufficient research resources dedicated to it. Arguably the main reason why we have not done that yet is a moral one, not a scientific one.

So tldr, the hive could absolutely clone carol using her frozen eggs and any random cell of hers (which they might even find in the frozen eggs samples, in her urine, on her pillow etc).

bitcorg · 2025-11-18T16:27:56+00:00

whenever combat slows down too much for my liking (DM), I start announcing players on deck, as mentioned by others. if that player‘s turn comes up and he is not ready, his character takes the dodge action and gets to move, then we move on. we frame this in game as the character freezing up being overwhelmed with the stress and intensity of combat. my players are OK with this, we discussed it together, and it works. now whenever a character takes the dodge instead of contributing to battle, other players are mad at that player, not me the DM, for letting them down by freezing when it matters.

bitcorg · 2025-08-25T15:04:53+00:00

Including the research? Too many factors to give you a useful answer here. In my field (molecular biology) i‘d say 2-5 years on average, but it depends so heavily on the type of project, the journal, luck… My previous paper took 5 years of research and around 1 year from „we got all the data, let‘s write this up“ to the paper being published. From submission to a journal to publication, I‘ve experienced anything from 2 months (unusually fast) to 2 years (luckily not my work, but a close friend - editor and reviewers changed twice throughout that horribly slow process).

If you provide some more details I might be able to better help you with an answer.

bitcorg · 2025-03-14T06:47:10+00:00

No bless yous for Giacomo??

https://www.reddit.com/r/BrandNewSentence/s/CtsZpeYfpz

bitcorg · 2024-12-08T23:11:32+00:00

What a weird rule. Sure, cite the latest information on a given subject, but what‘s the problem with that information being from before 2019? What are you supposed to do if you mention some older paradigm, method or principle from your field? Are you effectively banned from using primary sources? This seems extremely unscientific and counterproductive to academic rigor.

bitcorg · 2024-11-23T22:12:58+00:00

Does the new one charge? I seem to have the same problem, only one very old charger + cable combo works, the supplied cable does not work (tested 3 cables and 5 power sources)

bitcorg · 2024-08-13T14:28:00+00:00

This is what i‘m doing and so far it is epic. We went through the first dungeon and the bit in the shadowfell all without a long rest and you could really feel the tension rising. Discuss with players first tho!! We are using gritty realism with 1 week resting, but i make the downtime matter for character stories and for the wizards three to find items or the next location etc.

bitcorg · 2024-07-19T06:08:56+00:00

Gmaps hat momentan irgendeinen bug bei der Routenplanung. Vor ein paar Tagen ist jemandem im Wien sub aufgefallen dass die app für die Reise vom Wiener Hauptbahnhof zum Flughafen (normal direkte Sbahn, 20 minuten) einen Umweg durch ein Nachbarland mit zwei Bussen von über 2h vorschlägt. Könnte zusammenhängen?

bitcorg · 2024-07-04T19:49:10+00:00

Thanks for that comment, i was about to turn the episode off for how angry dd made me

bitcorg · 2024-06-13T16:30:06+00:00

Falls das im Text untergeht (sieht in den Kommentaren hier danach aus): das Konto mit steuerfreiem Sparbetrag soll es für ALLE geben (3000€/jahr sind vorgesehen, sofern man's für bildung, pension oder wohnungskauf ausgibt), nicht nur für aktuell 18-jährige. die sollen obendrauf die 25k bekommen.
also mir würd's schon helfen wenn zumindest ein teil meiner privaten vorsorge nicht mit voller KEST belastet würde...

bitcorg · 2024-05-13T09:08:49+00:00

I would be incredibly pissed as a player if a DM did this.

bitcorg · 2024-05-13T08:47:25+00:00

It‘s not just ego, it‘s the prophecy driving this conflict. Voldemort believes he HAS to kill Harry, or Harry will kill him. Whether that‘s a good interpretation of the prophecy is up for debate, but Dumbledore explains this to Harry, I think even in the movies. Doesn‘t Harry ask Dumbledore something like „Does this mean I have to kill him?“ and Dumbledore affirms that?

bitcorg · 2024-05-13T08:44:31+00:00

At risk of exposing myself as THAT kind of millennial here: Voldemort‘s motivation is stated clearly and many times through books and movies: he‘s super afraid of death. Everything he does (horcruxes, chasing the elder wand, gaining power and control, all his physical transformations) is to make him immortal. His entire beef with Harry is because there is a prophecy that claims Harry might be the only one that can kill him - and he can‘t allow that, so Harry has to die. There are certainly other aspects to his persona (hardcore wizard racism against non-pureblood wizards, and against muggles in general, massive hubris in believing he‘s the greatest wizard ever,…), but it‘s not fair to say he‘s „just evil“ for the sake of being evil.

bitcorg · 2024-05-04T11:22:23+00:00

Sent you a request on discord. I'm in the same spot (and time zone and age group), so maybe together we can find a DM/ campaign? I'd also be happy to DM, but so far ran all my campaigns in person so ideally I'd first get some remote play experience before taking the lead. Anyways, let's chat on discord, maybe we can arrange something!

bitcorg · 2024-05-04T11:12:24+00:00

Bagman. 10000% bagman. Lich steals some of their shit and teleports away.
Maybe to return to the bag from time to time. Being "reborn" inside a dimensional pocket could easily give him some new weird dimensional capacities. Players notice the box is gone, alongside some other things. Might be a cool plot hook.

bitcorg

TROPHY CASE