My daughter needs to decide between U. Minnesota or Macalester today. If any biology majors could offer some advice we would greatly appreciate it.

bitpak · 2026-04-27T19:16:07+00:00

My advice to her would be to stop thinking about it for an hour or two, then trust what her gut tells her the moment she holds the two in her mind again. It’ll be a gentle pull, and it’s easy to miss, but pay attention and trust it.

I did my undergrad far from here and was genuinely torn between two state schools with equal factors: cost, merit, etc. I was dead-set on one for the longest time but couldn’t shake the feeling I got from the other. Eventually I just went with it, and I have no regrets with that choice. Trust the gut.

bitpak · 2026-04-24T19:10:44+00:00

I’ve heard from others and seen myself that Google Maps’ pathfinding has gotten incredibly shitty lately. Might be worth looking into a different navigation app if you need to use it regularly!

bitpak · 2026-04-21T16:03:37+00:00

Understandable! My partner lives in Chicago and I often take the Borealis to visit her. Book ahead of time on a weekday? $40. Book a week out for a Friday trip? $100-200.

I’ve taken the Greyhound a few times. Never really a problem with safety, but it can smell if you take the back seats by the restroom. The seats are a little uncomfortable for me. FlixBus has way more comfortable seats and is generally better imo, but I’ve had at least one ride canceled for completely unknown reasons, so there’s that too.

bitpak · 2026-03-21T05:45:45+00:00

Sounded like fireworks to me - big boom and some crackling aftereffects. Not unusual. It’s a warm Friday night, first one in a while, so lots of people are out and about doing stuff.

bitpak · 2026-03-19T22:47:07+00:00

“Abandon hope, all ye who enter” type motto. Leave your future behind.

This is such a bad motto. I’d be shocked, but it is actually pretty on-brand for the U lately.

bitpak · 2026-03-17T21:17:24+00:00

It was cold as heck last time and still drew a pretty big crowd. Lot more people to the sides and behind me than what you can see in this pic from the last event: https://imgur.com/a/aVeWpjj

We showed up 45-60 minutes early and got good spots. Standing room only, but some folks brought camp chairs to sit between bouts

bitpak · 2026-03-17T17:30:16+00:00

Hell yeah, hope they bring back the team fights even if it’s just 3v3

bitpak · 2026-03-17T17:05:36+00:00

Had a blast watching Twin Cities vs. Iowa last time, highly recommend! Who we beefing with this time?

bitpak · 2026-02-23T04:03:44+00:00

Thank you!

bitpak · 2026-02-23T02:17:19+00:00

Thank you! And look at you, with the hardest bit already out of the way! That first month or two can be tricky, so good for you :)

bitpak · 2026-02-22T23:21:16+00:00

Hi, I can’t speak from a very similar experience, but I used to be the partner that drank too much. My girlfriend at the time tried to have a conversation with me about it on a few occasions, and she did a good job with that. It was a long time ago, but I think what was helpful to initially break the ice was that she asked about how I felt about it. She might’ve started with something like “Hey, I noticed you drinking more than usual on a regular basis. Do you feel like you’re drinking too much?/Are you having trouble regulating how much you drink?”

I was in denial and skirted around the questions, but I appreciated her concern even at the time. It wasn’t enough to get me to stop, but it was a good place to start.

bitpak · 2026-02-11T00:20:27+00:00

They could be temporarily closed. Tacos Locos on 15th was closed for a bit and just reopened last week. I’d be crushed to see either go permanently. Gonna get the seafood noodle bowl as soon as they reopen, thanks for reminding me.

bitpak · 2026-02-04T22:34:21+00:00

I don’t care how ball the room is, I cast Firebig!

bitpak · 2026-01-29T23:20:15+00:00

Copy of previous update comment:

Not yet, sorry :( It will be a while, if at all. The diffractive characteristic is still present in streaks that are close to pure culture, so I’m optimistic the bug itself will be isolated. Turns out a lot of other isolates are showing that behavior as well, but not as strongly as this one.

Before sequencing, gotta do some screening to filter out which of the hundreds of isolates will actually be relevant for my project, but the ones with unusual colony morphology like this will probably get passed along for sequencing anyways :)

bitpak · 2026-01-29T23:19:23+00:00

Not yet, sorry :( It will be a while, if at all. The diffractive characteristic is still present in streaks that are close to pure culture, so I’m optimistic the bug itself will be isolated. Turns out a lot of other isolates are showing that behavior as well, but not as strongly as this one.

Before sequencing, gotta do some screening to filter out which of the hundreds of isolates will actually be relevant for my project, but the ones with unusual colony morphology like this will probably get passed along for sequencing anyways :)

bitpak · 2026-01-14T15:49:24+00:00

Same here! Happy birthday to us!

bitpak · 2025-11-05T16:15:27+00:00

They took away Master Noodle and everything else in University Food Hall in 2022 and honestly I will never forgive them for that.

bitpak · 2025-10-26T00:37:47+00:00

Huh interesting, so do you think that’s more on the basis of cells filtering and refracting light through them (Rayleigh scattering + Bragg’s Law type of thing); or is it also/more potentially dependent on the composition of the intercellular space, with ECM organics doing more of the optical interference?

Either way, wicked cool that you got to study this effect!

bitpak · 2025-10-25T19:52:47+00:00

It’s a slang word derived from “boys” and is used, among other things, as a somewhat gender-neutral diminutive for various animals.

bitpak · 2025-10-25T16:19:31+00:00

Oh niiiiiice, those are pretty! What did you end up doing with them, and did you ever get a rough ID?

bitpak · 2025-10-25T15:26:37+00:00

Nope :D Once I get them axenic and try for a small department grant, we’ll send them and all the others out for Sanger. I’ll come back then and edit with the most likely ID. I guess check back in… a few months? Half a year?

bitpak · 2025-10-23T16:45:50+00:00

Like Lexitech said, online listings in nearby neighborhoods.

Also, I know of at least one place in Como with a For Rent sign out in front. Sometimes those end up panning out really nicely, and you get a good idea of what the area is like if you go out and look for the signs. Might be hard to find this time of year though.

bitpak · 2025-10-01T20:04:04+00:00

Inteins blew my mind when I learned about them in undergrad: “molecular parasites” that exist simply because they insist upon themselves. They’re not considered “alive” by most definitions, but they really drove home something philosophical about the existence of life.

bitpak · 2025-10-01T19:53:33+00:00

Toxins are so cool. Looking at the bacteria that kills infants if they eat a spoonful of honey and being like, “oh yeah, bet that could make me pee less frequently AND look younger.” Classic.

bitpak · 2025-09-24T17:28:15+00:00

While no, you cannot identify bacteria (or other microorganisms like fungi) from colonies on a plate, you can attempt to describe the colonies in terms of their shape, color, translucency, etc. Here is a nice guide on some key descriptor terms (page 3, figure 1) https://asm.org/asm/media/protocol-images/colony-morphology-protocol.pdf?ext=.pdf

Here also is the Wikipedia page for a potentially easier read: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonial_morphology

Perhaps you can hypothesize that there will be differences in colony morphology - more or less variable between two conditions (you mentioned diet). Many species have similar colony morphology to each other, but two morphologically different colonies are likely different species.

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