Brian Wasik

@brianrwasik

Virologist. Evolutionary biologist.

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Brian Wasik@brianrwasik· 2d

Impact scores will be stored in these shorts.

Jay Bhattacharya AI slop cutout displayed in the CDC lobby while he was absent from memorial for Officer David Rose.

Brian Wasik@brianrwasik· 5d

KALSHI

Brian Wasik@brianrwasik· 6d

rolling into 7-11 for my quench -- 2mL sodas

Brian Wasik@brianrwasik· 10d

I think this passage on the methods is one people should understand. The EVO generative model, post-training, came up with an incredible number of phage phiX-like genomes. But it was the *human researchers* that inferred which may be most fit... and made 285... and 6% of them replicated.

Once Evo got familiar with the genomes of Phi X-174 and its kin, the researchers prompted the model to write new versions of its own. Evo generated 700,000 potential versions; the scientists pursued only the ones that looked as if they had the best odds of succeeding.

They ended up making DNA molecules from 285 of Evo’s suggested sequences. When those genomes were ready to test, Mr. King and his colleagues inserted them into bacteria, which they spread across petri dishes.

Brian Wasik@brianrwasik· 16d

May we all sing our songs true. Thank you, Glen. Will miss you terribly.

Brian Wasik@brianrwasik· 16d

They sure do

SUMMER WITH MONIKA (1953) on the Criterion Channel

Brian Wasik@brianrwasik· 21d

'Always, It's a YOU! What about me, Mario? I'm smart!'

Brian Wasik@brianrwasik· Jul 15

THE CONVERSATION (1974)

Brian Wasik@brianrwasik· Jul 10

Brian Wasik@brianrwasik· Jul 5

I don't know how to say this, but... Dr. Nichols switched the samples, guys. All for DMs Provasic. Unreal.

Jeroen Krabbe as Dr Charles Nichols in THE FUGITIVE (1993).

Brian Wasik@brianrwasik· Jun 16

Oh no.

Brian Wasik@brianrwasik· Jun 11

To be a 'real New Yorker' you just have to change your Work Slack avi to this

Brian Wasik@brianrwasik· Jun 9

I reiterate my call for a CA Election Takes moratorium. 5 business days works. bsky.app/profile/bria...

LATimes calls no2 mayoral spot for Raman over Pratt, June 7, 2026.
Great subheading bullet: 'claims of election fraud in California are nonsense'

Brian Wasik@brianrwasik· May 27

Brian Wasik@brianrwasik· May 21

Absurd. The only angle that HHS could have cause to care about is direct funds being spent at extramurral institutions outside US. Intellectual collaboration, noted by joint authorship, in papers is immaterial to that... and is ADDITIVE to producrivity and ROI. www.science.org/content/arti...

One of those affected is Iain Drummond, who studies kidney development and regeneration at the MDI Biological Laboratory in Maine and directs its NIH-funded Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence. He became aware of NIH’s new requirements when the agency asked a different research center at MDI to remove papers with foreign co-authors from its annual progress report. So, when Drummond’s center was preparing its report, it omitted 16 of the 22 papers it had planned to list because they had co-authors affiliated with non-U.S. institutions. All had conducted the work in the U.S., including MDI’s president, Hermann Haller, who also holds an appointment at Hannover Medical School in Germany.

Brian Wasik@brianrwasik· May 19

Great new work on the Spike of OC43 clinical isolates (a seasonal coronavirus). In contrast to OC43-Lab strain used to define 9OAc-Sia as the canonical receptor, inserts near the RBD can significantly modulate affinity (likely to avoid decoy receptors). #virology www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Figure 1. Inserts in D1 of S1, OC43 clinical isolates. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-73186-x

Brian Wasik@brianrwasik· May 9

Only *a bit* off from initial Goldman Sachs projection.

Goldman Sachs projection of SOH oil exports recovery.

Brian Wasik@brianrwasik· May 3

Brian Wasik@brianrwasik· May 1

Is it clean?

Brian Wasik@brianrwasik· Apr 28

[ballroom]

Brian Wasik@brianrwasik· Apr 19

Polling was pretty consistent that the public supported most mitigation efforts. Even much later than a lot of us assume. You kinda have to hypothesize that people were lying or saying what they thought was the 'right' answer, behaved differently. By May of 2022, only 33% 'oppose' masks indoors.

Brian Wasik@brianrwasik· Apr 14

tl;dr is we dug into archival samples of feline parvovirus (FPV) to best compare the evolution of this virus lineage in its main reservoir (cats) vs its emerged host (dogs) and found dramatically different rates, and no evidence of pre-adaptation underlying the 1975ish pandemic emergence of CPV.

López-Astacio and Wasik 2026, Fig 4
FPV and CPV diverge in evolutionary rates in each host. (A) Divergence rates of FPV (n = 40) and CPV (n = 217) among recent natural sequences were generated from ML trees analyzed using root-to-tip regression in TempEst. (B) Substitution rates were calculated following a Coalescence Model analysis of natural FPV and CPV sequences. (C) Calculated dN/dS ratios of respective gene ORFs among natural FPV and CPV sequences (±SEM).

Brian Wasik@brianrwasik· Apr 8

Scorsese, via THE IRISHMAN: no, it was not all 'cool' and 'worth it'.

Brian Wasik@brianrwasik· Apr 8

Marking these down. Been doing a long reread of Moby Dick that I'll do in spurts probably all year. Last month I read Watership Down for first time. Lately been going through Yokomizo mystery novels from Japan from the 80s.