the number one hater in big data

final year mbiol student at the university of oxford, dragging you kicking and screaming through my master's journey! 22, any pronouns

[bacteriorage]

pinned post 👀

Hi! My name's Blue, and I'm studying for an integrated master's degree in biology at the University of Oxford. As my degree becomes less of a bachelor's and more of a master's, I wanted to share my experiences and use this blog as a record of my time here! Feel free to ask me anything about studying biology at Oxford or otherwise.

Interests:

Virology

Genomics

Epidemiology

Bioinformatics

Cell biology

Hobbies:

My main hobby in term-time is rowing. I also enjoy sewing, science fiction books, horror movies and caring for my pitcher plant Paula.

About me:

I am a former state comprehensive student who initially intended to go into something medicine-adjacent. I was pressured into applying for Oxford, but in hindsight I am very glad for that! Since then I have fallen in love with virology and bioinformatics. Also, my degree has become secondary to my burgeoning rowing career.

Feel free to drop me an ask any time!

[bacteriorage]

My abstract got accepted for a conference but they changed it from a poster to a presentation? Is that allowed? Sir in science career terms I am 10 years old please don't make me speak in front of the class

[cutecipher]

science has always been political. what gets studied. what doesnt. who gets to do the studying. on and on and on.

[o-craven-canto]

[o-craven-canto]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox#Eradication

[lifespan-deactivated20260401]

[dogpuppy]

[fruitblush]

this is actually like my third or fourth rodeo so i sort of get it but sort of dont

[fruitblush]

in some ways worse than my first rodeo cause i feel like i should be better at it by now

[captain-lovelace-deactivated202]

being a grad student will introduce you to file formats you never knew existed. why am I downloading a .djvu file

[captain-lovelace-deactivated202]

sure whatever download as TPS. as NEX. dude you gotta open this as a SAM file, it's a BAM file, it's a VCF. Save it as a TRE file and then open it in PAUP*. yeah there's your problem you need to save this as a POOB file it'll only work if it's POOB

[t00thpasteface]

can you imagine being a scientist in charge of torturing a tardigrade to see what kind of batshit conditions it can survive. clocking in with your labcoat and goggles or whatever and being handed the cutest animal ever and you can only see it with a microscope and they're like "we want you to dunk this thing in liquid nitrogen and then blast it with xrays and uv" and you're like. okay boss. and then the thing survives just fine anyway

[wtf-scientific-papers]

[All the world’s a phage]

Hatfull (2025)

[bacteriorage]

I know I haven't said anything in ages because term is super busy but hi yes! Second week of term! I am feeling woefully inadequate in my project and don't have time to make meaningful progress. I am also running out of money and may have to drop out for those reasons anyway! Yippee!

[elbiotipo]

Today in a genetics course I'm taking we played around with this website which is literally just a character creator for fruit flies

[elbiotipo]

here's my new OC I call her Recombinantia she has every single allele and her starry purple eyes refract the sunlight filtered by her dichaete wings

and her husband who is like, a guy

[detectivehole]

link to FlyLab JS (works on mobile)

[bacteriorage]

have my simulations worked

yeah!

no fuck you

no and they also crashed before they could finish

Voting ended onSep 10, 2025

[bacteriorage]

Well they successfully ran all the way through but my supervisor sent a message on the Slack asking for a meeting to discuss usage of compute time so. You win some you lose some. Let's see if this data's useful at least....

[bacteriorage]

And the answer is.... KIND OF!

[bacteriorage]

I RAN ALL TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY SIMULATIONS WITH THE EXACT SAME RANDOM SEED. KILLING MYSELF IMMEDIATELY.

[bacteriorage]

have my simulations worked

yeah!

no fuck you

no and they also crashed before they could finish

Voting ended onSep 10, 2025

[bacteriorage]

Well they successfully ran all the way through but my supervisor sent a message on the Slack asking for a meeting to discuss usage of compute time so. You win some you lose some. Let's see if this data's useful at least....

[bacteriorage]

And the answer is.... KIND OF!

[bacteriorage]

have my simulations worked

yeah!

no fuck you

no and they also crashed before they could finish

Voting ended onSep 10, 2025

[bacteriorage]

Well they successfully ran all the way through but my supervisor sent a message on the Slack asking for a meeting to discuss usage of compute time so. You win some you lose some. Let's see if this data's useful at least....

[bacteriorage]

have my simulations worked

yeah!

no fuck you

no and they also crashed before they could finish

Voting ended onSep 10, 2025

[bacteriorage]

Today I solved a problem with my research by ignoring it for so long that someone literally published a paper answering my question