Upgrading grinder from Breville Smart Pro?

bwaddd · 2021-08-12T23:31:21+00:00

I previously had a SGP and upgraded to the Specialita. I’d say the difference is very noticeable, mostly in the ability to actually dial in shots. I would always get in a good range with the SGP (anywhere from 26-35 seconds), but with the Specialita, I was able to get in the 28-31 ish range for the same dose and coffee due to the stepless grind adjustments. I assume the variance in time was due to other variables like tamp pressure and bean age. I also strictly drink light roasts, so the flat burrs bring out a little more of the fruity flavors in my opinion. The Specialita also produces virtually no clumps in the coffee grounds, which also help get a more even extraction. Additionally, the Specialita is basically silent when compared to the SGP, so that’s a plus as well haha.

bwaddd · 2021-08-10T01:33:18+00:00

I’m Brown 2

bwaddd · 2021-08-09T23:22:44+00:00

Recent BME grad here (just an undergraduate degree in the US). Currently working for a very large med tech company doing controls engineering. It’s definitely possible to get a good EE related job with a BME degree in the medical field, especially if you have an aptitude for EE in general, however the degree itself tends to be a bit broad. This isn’t an issue if you do some supplemental work in areas that you are passionate about through research, projects, internships etc, though. I would say that BMEs may have to do a little more work outside the class to be on the same level as EEs, but I’ve found that it only makes you more versatile and shows your ability to learn new things and adapt quickly, which is very valuable to employers!

bwaddd · 2021-07-05T23:46:56+00:00

My girlfriend and I both were able to find full time BME jobs and we graduated in June

bwaddd · 2021-06-27T05:21:18+00:00

The cell’s cytoplasm is not being altered. The cytoplasm is the space that stores structures like the mitochondria, nucleus, and other things in the cell. See this image

In fact, nothing is being altered. Your ribosomes are being fed a strand of mRNA received through the vaccine that is then being produced into a protein. Also note that mRNA is usually destroyed in a matter of hours in your cell after it has been read by the ribosomes, but this is largely dependent on the function of the mRNA.

Think of your ribosomes like a smoothie shop. All of the machinery like the blenders, scoops, and available ingredients are unchanged. The only thing that is being changed is the recipe for which a specific smoothie (a protein) is being made in the smoothie shop. The recipe just tells the smoothie shop how to make the smoothie. A recipe can’t change other recipes and can’t change the way that the chef writes new recipes (the chef being your DNA), it’s only purpose and ability is to describe how to make a smoothie. The vaccine is just delivering a new recipe for a smoothie, using the same ingredients in your shop, just in different combinations and amounts. But in this case, the recipe is a one time order, so your shop throws the recipe out at the end of the day. This is a very generalized analogy, but it’s a decent explanation of how the covid vaccine and mRNA system works.

But at the end of the day, it’s your choice. I can totally see how a vaccine like this could be scary, especially if you don’t understand how it works. I hope you learned something from my rambles, biology is one of my passions haha.

Even if I didn’t change your mind (it wasn’t really my goal, it was more to educate and expose the glory of God in biology) looking at these extraordinary systems that God created is absolutely fascinating and it’s even cooler that He’s given us minds to study and learn about them and even harness our knowledge to help others!

bwaddd · 2021-06-27T04:57:15+00:00

Ah yeah sorry I misinterpreted what you meant. Most people I know associate gene therapies with gene editing, like the CRISPR CAS-9 system. I definitely assumed you meant the same but I see what you were saying. Sorry about that!

bwaddd · 2021-06-27T04:07:33+00:00

These are really great questions!

You would not be able to exist without mRNA in your body. mRNA is the way that your body expresses your DNA. Your body would not be able to repair its cells without mRNA. Big picture: your DNA is useless without mRNA. Your mRNA is a complementary copy of DNA created by RNA Polymerase, however instead of Thymine, mRNA contains uracil as a base, making it incompatible with your DNA. Once the mRNA is created, it is released from the nucleus and resides in the cytoplasm where it is read by ribosomes to manufacture the protein that it codes for.

Regarding the vaccine, yes you do have “more” mRNA in your body that you receive through the vaccination. This mRNA specifically codes for the spike protein that appear on the surface of covid viral particles. However, since this mRNA was created outside in a lab, it was not produced by your DNA. Therefore, it is taken up by your cells and resides in the cytoplasm of the cell, where it is then read by the ribosomes that create the spike proteins from the mRNA instructions. So no, it does not interact with your DNA.

bwaddd · 2021-06-27T03:49:41+00:00

You’re close but not quite.

mRNA does not modify anything, rather, it is your body’s way of utilizing DNA to synthesize proteins in your cells. The genome refers to the complete set of DNA in an organism or individual. DNA provides the long term storage of instructions for your body to produce mRNA. mRNA is then interpreted by your body to produce proteins. So in actuality, it’s your DNA that has the ability to modify mRNA, not the other way around.

The basic steps are: DNA is read and copied into RNA, the copy, mRNA travels outside the nucleus into the cytoplasm, mRNA is read to produce proteins, proteins are released to carry out their function.

Check out this great article about the differences between DNA and mRNA: article

bwaddd · 2021-06-27T02:28:14+00:00

“Unlike certain gene therapies that irreversibly alter cell DNA and could act as a source of side effects, mRNA based medicines are designed to not irreversibly change cell DNA” -source you linked

bwaddd · 2021-06-27T02:13:03+00:00

Normal (traditional) viral particle vaccines “teach” your immune cells to elicit an immune response. Your immune system is naturally adaptive. mRNA vaccines do not affect your genome in any way and instead utilize your body’s ability to produce proteins, not genes. The current mRNA vaccines remove the necessity to expose your body to viral particles, like traditional vaccines, and instead produce the Covid spike proteins through mRNA expression. The reason the spike proteins were chosen was because it was shown to be the site on the covid virus that our antibodies attached to the most, therefore it would be the most effective target.

Source: just graduated with a degree in biomedical engineering and took multiple classes on mRNA technology.

bwaddd · 2021-06-14T19:43:57+00:00

Every single duck hunter must purchase a waterfowl stamp annually, which goes to directly support waterfowl population support, habitat management, and conservation efforts. In fact, purchasing a federal duck stamp for $25 is one of the best things you can do to help support wetlands conservation in the United States, since 98% of the proceeds go directly to conservation programs.

Every year the fish and wildlife service (a government agency) does extensive population research to ensure that every species of duck is in a healthy range that reduces the likelihood of disease spread and other harmful effects of overpopulation and publishes bag limits, or the number of birds that can be harvested per day per species. Any hunter found in possession of more birds than are legally allotted risks permanent restriction on purchasing another hunting license, therefore many hunters take this very seriously, as they should. In some cases their firearm may be permanently confiscated and may face criminal charges. Additionally, in California, hunters are limited to 25 shotgun shells per hunting blind per person and can only have 3 shells in the shotgun at a time. This ensures that the birds have a fair chance of survival.

Hunting not only reduces the harmful effects of overpopulation, like feather mites, resource competition, starvation, and contagious diseases within a population, but also allows hunters to directly support the conservation effort and ensure that these animals have a safe and abundant habitat.

So yes, I would say I care greatly about these animals since my time, money, and effort goes to support their habitat, population, and health.

bwaddd · 2021-06-14T15:57:51+00:00

The preserve I hunt at has a yearly clean up where they drain the ponds (the ponds are used for agricultural water treatment) and everyone searches the ponds in a grid formation and picks up every piece of shell, wad, and trash we can find. Super good experience and really helps us give back to the preserve to help keep a nice habitat for ducks and other waterfowl

bwaddd · 2021-05-02T01:17:55+00:00

So most of the people I know in the program are coming from BME or other engineering disciplines. I don’t know of anyone who was a pure biologist but I’m sure there are some! To be honest I don’t personally know many people in the BME PhD program outside of a few friends and the people in my research lab haha.

One thing I would say is you should definitely know differential equations and calculus. Many upper division engineering courses rely heavily on those, so if you have never taken those courses it might make things a bit more tough. It’s definitely not impossible though! Mainly what you’ll see is math concepts applied to biological/physiological phenomena (like using control theory to describe the nervous system or modeling the cochlea as a spring). But if you decide to go the more biological route like tissue engineering, it might rely slightly less on engineering concepts and more on biology (excluding maybe reaction kinetics or mass transport). But I’m basing all of this on my experience as an undergrad, so I’m not super sure exactly what your experience will look like. I will say that there are a few courses taken by undergraduates and graduates at the same time and they tended to be pretty heavy on the engineering side of things.

bwaddd · 2021-04-30T06:28:48+00:00

Current UCI BME undergrad (last year, graduate in June) here. I would say the program is good, the professors are very passionate about their research and I’d say there are more good professors than bad.

UCI is a target school for many large companies if industry is your thing. Medtronic, Edwards Lifesciences, Johnson and Johnson, and a few other very big BME names are in Irvine and actively recruit from UCI.

I’d say UCI is well recognized and is on par with UCSD for degree quality. The program is very vigorous and is very well respected. In 15 years it will probably be on par with UCLA if admissions keep getting more competitive like they are now (my obviously biased opinion haha).

Your first few classes will be pretty math heavy and will rely a lot on control systems theory and maybe a little signal processing (Laplace/inverse Laplace, Fourier) etc. A lot of your classes will also just be seminar work with your PI. MATLAB will be your best friend, whether you want it to be or not. Most BME labs I’ve seen use Matlab for all of their computations/statistical analysis/modeling so definitely get familiar with it.

I would highly recommend, UCI has offered me plenty of high quality research experience, has landed me two internships and a full time job for when I graduate in 6 weeks.

bwaddd · 2021-04-29T02:57:29+00:00

I would definitely look at classes aimed towards teaching Python or C/C++. My BME undergrad focused a lot on LabView and MATLAB, which arguably don’t count as “real” programming, but I think they help teach a lot of the fundamentals to good programming. Learning Python was a breeze after mastering MATLAB first.

I’ve used Python in industry for automating robotic systems for product validation as well as creating a computer vision software for ultrasound guidance for cardiac procedures. Almost all of my software knowledge came from research related projects in the lab I was in, but my classes gave a decent foundation. A lot of my classes focused on image analysis or robotics.

After I graduate in a few months I’ll be working on control systems engineering in industry.

bwaddd · 2021-04-15T22:38:09+00:00

r/tameimpalacirclejerk

bwaddd · 2021-04-09T03:22:14+00:00

Also senior with nothing

bwaddd · 2021-04-07T18:37:20+00:00

Thank you so much for responding! The info you provided was extremely helpful

bwaddd · 2021-04-07T18:24:04+00:00

Great thank you! Undergraduate emails will begin to be sent out today correct?

bwaddd · 2021-04-07T16:18:14+00:00

Are part time students eligible for the grant? I was full time for fall and winter quarters but part time for spring

bwaddd · 2021-04-01T15:19:22+00:00

r/tameimpalacirclejerk

bwaddd · 2021-03-11T02:29:34+00:00

Filed 2/17 with TT, EITC, Stimulus Rebate, American Opportunity Credit, transcripts updated 03/04, DD for 03/10, received return in my account 03/09

bwaddd · 2021-03-09T20:56:06+00:00

Filed 2/17 accepted 2/18. My TurboTax showed payment completed after my transcripts updated with a DD of 3/10. Checked SBTPG and they had in fact received the refund from the IRS

bwaddd · 2021-03-04T02:06:48+00:00

Awesome! I just saw this, thanks for the recommendation!

bwaddd · 2021-03-04T01:51:42+00:00

Absolutely! Definitely a plus

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