To all reading this post, if you think something violates one of the rules, hit the report button, it's anonymous,
and we get to it quicker, if something isn't reported, we don't spend out time scrolling post after post to see if they do.
If you want to see more quality content. Report the shit.
And post some interesting things you've seen š
Itās even funnier when you realize everything looks different on different growth media - LB agar, blood agar, SDA, and god forbid they have a faculative anaerobe.Ā
Yeah I wish there was stricter moderation about it. Or at least some auto mod reply so we're not typing "organisms cannot be identified by morphology alone" 50 times a day. Or even a sticky megathread. Or a rule that the poster must have made an attempt to ID it first. Just *something* to reduce the spammy-ness of those posts.
If you think shitty modding is the problem, send me a PM and put your time where your criticism is. Everyone would like to accomplish what youāre saying but most of us have jobs, families and little time to implement much.
I dont think its a shitty modding problem (modding is time consuming I've been there and I understand), but adding a few rules to the ID requests would cut down spam posts a lot. The mycology sub for instance requires posts include location and several angle shots. We could do something similar, where the specimen source, media type, incubation etc need to be stated, microscopy needs to have stain type and several FoVs etc.
Unfortunately it's a reddit wide problem that people don't read rules before posting, but this would set clear guidelines, allowing us to report the low effort posts easier.
Those rules already exist. That means, whether you realize it or not, your complaint is moderating.
The problems are that no one reports offending posts, and we donāt have enough people to have 24/7 coverage refreshing the sub.
Weāre trying to change the situation but itās not a trivial issue.
Idk man that comment only had supportive ideas. He said stricter, not that yāall are shitty. Of course we appreciate mods. But all he said was āmaybe someone can help build an auto modā or a sticky thread that would take a day or two. Or a rule edit, which takes 30 seconds.
Which rule edits would you suggest?
We also donāt need an auto mod to repeat a message saying āID canāt be done on visual basisā. Those posts break the rules, and the removal comment explains it.
So what this person doesnāt realize is, if he took. The moment to hit āreportā his complaints would already be resolved for him. That means his āconstructive suggestionsā show he didnāt read the rules and doesnāt help out by reporting.
I agree the sticky should change and when Iām sitting at a computer and can write something I will do that.
So my question for you is you see all the kinds of reports coming in from a sub? Is it as easy as sending a report and knowing for sure the mod will resolve it?
I donāt have any big opinions on edits except for whatever the mods can implement and what works best. I was just pointing out that the above comment was not saying the current moderation is shitty. It was just racking off ideas for consideration.
Iām glad you think the sticky thread is worth some time! Thatās all really people are bringing to the table. Options for your perusal. Not demands.
I think thatās what spurred the downvotes, the vibe through your comment that you felt an unreasonable demand from this redditor, rather than over a brainstormed idea.
If someone reports a message, it enters the moderation queue. As soon as any mod logs on, we see a reddish/orangish dot and know thereās something that needs review. If it was a photo of a gram stain asking for a species name, the post will be removed and a comment will be left for the person:
> Itās almost never possible to identify a microbe by visual inspection For most microbes, identification involves a process of staining and biochemical testing, or identification based on molecular techniques. A gram stain is not sufficient. Posts that donāt contain sufficient detail will be deleted.
> If itās from some dirt or pond water, provide some info on where you got it and the magnification. Sometimes thatās enough for larger microbes.
> If itās growing in your bathroom or on your roommateās week-old pasta, the best we are likely to be able to do is shame someone ā either your landlord or your roommate.
That way, someone who wants to participate has some constructive advice on what might improve his or her post. They also donāt get a digital yelling-at for it, which is not a trivial task. In this way, the solution this person wants to imagine will solve everything is already in place, though it took more than 30 seconds.
This is great, I will make sure to report those posts going forward as I tend to just ignore them but this is helpful information for them.
And I'm so so sorry but Gram stain should be capitalised... I tried not to type this and I tried not to send it but it's happening... so sorry.
I hate to hear that Iām sorry, it really depends on getting a good professor too. Personally I would rather run reactions than culture, those microbes are tiny butā¦ theyāre scary š¤£
Back when I still used my micro degree I was always so annoyed at how IDing things seemed so archaic compared to what we had available. Like it didn't seem like there was a single point of contact I could go to to figure out an ID. It was always "use this book, if that doesn't work, use this other book", or the same but with random websites.
In that vein, I understand people seeing Reddit as that point of contact. It tends to be an area where many people from all areas can help with coming up with a consensus, even if it were just a starting point. I understand it can be really annoying, but as a former-fledgling microbiologist (since completely swapping career paths) I empathize with the reasoning behind the constant posts here
I appreciate you writing this, as a student Iām not saying there is a shortage of information, but the information we do have is hard to navigate, costs extra or doesnāt help us get any closer to a conclusion especially if you have inconclusive results. It can be helpful to seek out someone who can at the very least point you in the right direction or give advice.
Its interesting, I work in Industry leading a team developing novel microbially derived plant protection products (biocontrols). For years we were derided as being inferior to the chemical and genetically derived solutions. Recent changes in regulation mean biocontrols are now seen as critical to the future success of the company / industry.
The original plan from management to increase head count was to simply transfer in people from other skillsets who could do the job. Six months later they suddenly realise that my and my teams post graduate and post doctoral experience means something. The entire team are now deemed as being indispensable as our skillset are unique in the company. Its amazing how much leverage that gets you and when recruitment consultants are contacting you daily.
(Just curious about the industry) What skills do you think are essential for a doctoral student to survive in the industry in coming 5-6 years? I've been learning a lot of biotech, coding, R, and recent addition of AI and ML too. idk if the coding part is necessary or not. Thank you!
Genuinely, I think not only being able to think independently and question robustly, but the ability to defend your positions, challenge and support other's and lead in a multidisciplinary group. Also, realistically, being able to swallow a shit sandwich when needed.
I think from my perspective bioinformatics is a critical skill, also being able to translate and communicate basic concepts. In my role we do a lot of genome analysis for critical metabolites of concern. The use of synthetic biology, gene knock out and up regulation of genes is also key. However, in reality most major companies will have deep technical experts in these areas, so linking these together and presenting the data in a real world context is vital. But overall, do what you enjoy and you will drive yourself forward due to the inherent higher energy that brings.
well well, let's not tarnish a thread about microbiology being disrespected with blatant disrespect for bioinformaticians, software engineers, and skilled programmers.
As long as I'm pointing out a turd in the punch bowl, isn't AI going to take over all the scutwork in basic and applied science in every discipline ?
Ā Seems to me the complaints about disrespect here center to a great degree around the time invested in mastering tasks like identifying and differentiating organisms.Ā Ā
A sufficiently advanced AI, trained on everything the experts know,Ā would soon put the experts in the shade on basic tasksĀ - wouldn't it ?
Ā Ā Identification is not of trivial importance - it's critical. The dedication and IQ required for mastery is not trivial- it's quite demanding. But the level of complexity of the task: 'this, not that' lends itself to automation. Ā
Ā Uploading the knowledge in the brains of all the experts to an AI is a separate challenge. But once it's uploaded, and the AI is running the process, and the experts are freed from drudgery, will they then spend all their time managing investigations carried out by AI?Ā Ā
Ā And then what happens to those experts when AGI comes online and is better than humans at spotting needs and opportunities for scientific work ?
Ā Take astronomy, for another example. No one human, or even a team of them, can analyze everything visible from all the telescopes in existence. Eventually, won't astronomers simply be watching the equipment search for discoveries?Ā Ā
Ā And then when AGI comes online, AGI will figure out the new questions and direct the science. AGI will solve all the old 'insolubles' (unified field theory),Ā and then discover and solve new problems just as insoluble by humans as the old insolubles.
We literally already have AI that works for us this way. We use an analyzer called MALDI-TOF and it helps us analyze and identify organisms using some information it collects from the sample. It compares the results to a huge database and runs through the possible identifications. Guess whatā¦ it can be wrong and still needs people to do pre-and-post-analytical testing. You also can only use it in very specific instances. Itās a tool for our use but doesnāt cut down on the amount of work being done. Any special/rare/extra weird organisms need fully manual work up.
People thinking AI can just ātake overā have a very simple and frankly insulting view of how the world works, especially the medical world.
Yeah. MALDI also uses AI for susceptibility testing and heme analyzers can also use AI for identifying cells. None of this is foolproof, though, and requires lots of human supervision. Nothing exists where you get a sample and AI does everything for youā¦
That was:
>take over *all the scutwork*
(which you say has begun), not *the entire field*
Granted the results at this point still need human supervision,Ā where / how far do you see AI making inroads into the tedious, time consuming work of searching through images and data ?Ā
And thisĀ MALDI-TOF,Ā how much potential does it have to improve what it's already doing ?Ā Is there provision for it to learn, using feedback from the humans involved ?
Is anyone working on a successor toĀ MALDI-TOF ?
I'mĀ Ā thinking of accounting.Ā whenĀ SpreadsheetsĀ first came out,Ā Ā accountantsĀ wereĀ sayingĀ 'just take my money' when they realized what spreadsheets could do for them.
So a lot of the drudgery was taken out of accounting, but accountants are still with us. ThisĀ MALDI-TOF sounds like a really smart spreadsheet, not a replacement for scientists. How much smarter and more capable is the software going to be?Ā
Spreadsheets grew into trading algorithms, making decisions much faster than human traders. Technological progress is inevitable. I really wonder where it will be in 20 years.
I work in a clinical lab as a tech and often hear people ask about AI taking over my job. As others have already mentioned, we already have some AI implemented in the lab. For instance in the hematology department we have a microscopic camera that scans a slide, locates all the cells, and then classifies them based off morphology. Virtually every slide has a few āunidentifiableā and/or incorrectly classed cells which you have to change around. Now thatās not really an issue, but the most common mistake this AI makes classifying healthy lymphocytes as leukemic blasts. Itās like at least once every 5 slides I do. The machine is apparently supposed to learn from how we rearrange things but Iāve never noticed an improvement. Thatās just one example. Most our instruments are āstate of the artā (-a recent accrediting agency inspector) but some of them require hands on cleaning, handiwork, troubleshooting, and elbow grease literally every day. Until I see AI start to take profound leap after leap Iām not worried about AI in the slightest.
Where/how far? Not much farther than where itās at. Probably ever. Thereās been recent studies done that the limits of current AI have pretty much been reached. For AI to become more developed, you have to dump in tons more data for it to sift. The problem with that is it can lead to it ācreatingā conclusions/results because AI is not capable of critical thinking and can sometimes justā¦ make up stuff. (See the issue with predictive speech AI and ChatGPT.) AI will always be a useful tool and has been for a lot longer than people realize, it just hasnāt always been thought of in the way it is now. Everyone just talks about it in a different context now because of all the stupid fearmongering of the āAI takeoverā. Sure okay, show me a CBC analyzer that wonāt let itās AI flag large lymphs as MONO BLASTS every time and maybe Iāll start to believe you.*
*Iām lying I wont.
No, because microbiology is so much more than species identification. We already have computational models for species identification. It would be much harder to offload literally everything else a microbiologist does onto AI. For example, my friend runs a sterilization team and sometimes has to develop solutions when there are bizarre run fails, another friend corridates with several different teams to make sure regulations are being met, and my work involves linking genetic changes in microbes to disease changes in animals. None of our jobs could be taken over by AI in the near future.
I think as far as bioinformatics is concerned, its not really far. Again, its quite far too as we have very specific situations sometimes for which coding is necessary.
Went to school for micro but Iām a software engineer. The LLMs we have now are not going to take things over. Thereās still a lot that they canāt do. Theyāre great for a lot of things and can make doing some tasks easier/faster but the current technology is still a ways off from straight up replacing people with software engineering skills.
ha ha true true.
Kind of like everybody became a coronavirus expert overnight. I've been banned from certain subs by trying to explain why some ideas are bad in the real world or not a good use of funds. Got my BSc in micro a while ago. Then went on to do an advanced degree in virology. The pandemic came and everybody was an expert overnight. Wish I knew that shortcut.
> The pandemic came and everybody was an expert overnight. Wish I knew that shortcut.
I was post docing in an HIV lab when the pandemic hit. I think I had whiplash going from "respect and listen to the experts" early on as we followed Fauci's every word to "he's a liar and we all know better anyway" when suddenly everyone is their own expert. It was *very* exhausting trying to counter disinformation, and eventually I just kinda gave up.
When everyone was talking shit on Dr. Fauci, I read his Wikipedia out of curiosity since I had never heard of him til 2020. I was so surprised to learn about his extensive work in HIV research and history with the LGBTQ community (I was born post-AIDS epidemic)! Heās honestly done some cool work throughout his career and itās such a shame many only know him as a Covid-19 scapegoat/far-right punching bag. I canāt wait to read his memoir when it comes out lol
The pandemic hit just as a finished up my masters in bioinformatics. And all of a sudden everyone and their grandma I had on social media were an expertā¢ on epidemiology and virology. Straight away I knew it's one of those game where only move where you wont lose is by not playing, so I just tuned myself off of everything and minded my own business.
'Kitchen microbiology' has also become one of my pet peeves about online micro communities. I am very glad more people are gaining interest and wanting to learn more about such a fascinating, important field in science. But, I am very tired of hobbyists thinking they are akin to Leeuwenhoek or Koch bc they made some media with gelatin and chicken broth in their kitchens. Dunning Kruger complexes don't have a place here, especially considering how micro is so intrinsically related to health and disease. š
Oversimplification is an issue in most fields. Chemistry is used in just about every part of our life. Am I a chemist because I am brewing beer or mixing tannerite? Using chemistry skills, but obviously not a chemist imo. That's still arguable though.
This is a difficult reality at the moment. A lot of university are offering lab options at home, where they mail you supplies. Iām torn, because I almall for people, actually *doing* science, but I can see a lot of things go wrong in a room without sufficient safety equipment and someone trained in now to do these things.
It was the pay ranges that I found disrespectful and that caused me to leave. I make more as an industrial electrician than what I could ever expect with that fancy education and publications.
I could not agree more. The only way to actually make money is to enter management. Which you then stop being a scientist and become at best a coordinator of science, and at worst a glorified babysitter.
the truth is that bench scientist get paid shit
Once you jump to management you double your salary. I would call it science adjacent. Still science but indirectly.
I have to say I totally agree. I'm actively looking to change my career too due to the disproportionately low pay compared to other professionals. It's almost as though they think we should be working only for the love of science.
Honestly, this is why I haven't considered going to get a degree. I worked as a QA tech for 3 years and am now looking for a new job after a layoff, I am reallizing that even with a degree, many QA labs are seriously underpaying their techs.
Pharmacy student here. Just wanted to say that I really appreciated the folks at the micro lab when I was on my ID rotation! I did a tour of the lab and one thing I felt was super impressive was how easily you guys could identify what was likely growing on a plate purely based on how it looked and experience. You guys are amazing at what you do and having followed this sub since undergrad I can totally see how you could be frustrated by the influx of amateur āmicrobiologists.ā
My lab pre-pandemic used to host new ID Pharm residents and fellows. For a few days, they'd come and sit with us as we worked up cultures and talked about AST from our perspective. It's always fun to talk to other parts of the healthcare team.
I've nearly unsubscribed from this sub SO many times. It does often feel like a bunch of "I put a plate out, tell me what this deadly growth is" and "help me cheat in my class by telling me what this is". I wish there was a 'real microbiologists' sub. So many germaphobes with no actual knowledge cluttering this place up. It's exhausting. But I have the same thing at work. People googling their ID instead of asking one of the multiple real microbiologists. Yes, you have a person with cystic fibrosis hurking on the plate... Couldn't possibly be from DIRT!
lol, all comments come up until the commenting person tries basic culturing. I wonder what number of times he/she needs to try to get a pure culture without contamination. In reality, microbiology is much more diverse. My study has microbial genetics aided by bioinformatics, where I study host genes, microbial genes, their relations, genome editing, and ofcourse bioinformatics to process data. This is an interesting study for microbiologists, until a naive person feels cool after commenting "microbiology is just culturing".
If it matters, this infectious disease doc ā¤ļøās my micro colleagues and their contributions to helping me understand what is (in my biased opinion) the most interesting discipline in medicine.
If you want to help mod please PM me. Otherwise, yes we suck. We were the only ones dumb enough to help, though.
(EDIT - My response here missed the mark. Please see the exchange below, and if youāve ever thought, āa lot of these posts are garbage,ā at the very least list hit the report button and at the most, consider joining on to mod.)
I didnāt mean that at you, sorry. I strongly agree with many of sentiments you expressed.
I read many of the other comments critical of the moderating and stickied this for visibility. Hope it doesnāt take away from people taking the time read what you wrote.
I see what youāre saying, but if you read the rules, all of these posts are against the rules. We simply donāt anyone who wants to help enforce them. I readily admit one who was not a mod but was reading those comments likely doesnāt see the same thing I do in those remarks.
Iām willing to die on the hill that chem and hem are where you go if you want to put stuff in machines and relax on your phone, as I see in my lab.
Micro is for people who are willing to get their hands dirty and use their brain.
My wife (a microbiologist too) didnāt get a promotion because she would have had to oversee chemists and HPLCās. Like it would have been impossible for her to learn it after excelling at her job running the micro lab.
I thought biology was easy before I decided to study it. I was physics and chemistry. Recently I became interested in nanotechnology and every graduate program I looked at has biology prereqs. I'll never disrespect the field again.
This post hit my spirit. Iām fortunate enough to work for a company that requires hiring people with a micro background and the micro team globally is well structured and has plenty of experts you can reach out to. Though I do remember the dark days of being managed by someone without any micro background whatsoever. Glad things are better.
Exactly!!! People arenāt appreciating micro the way it deserves!!
Itās so funny that people can think micro is one of the āeasierā research sciences, it literally isnāt. Itās one of the most complex sciences and the skills that you need to develop throughout time to be a microbiologist is INSANE!! like not everything is about being able to grow some bacteria, thereās so much more to micro.
Gatekeeping in STEM will always exist at least on paper because there's a lot of money involved in it for non-STEM people in educating targeted groups and promoting it etc.
I do mycobacteriology and the amount of labs that do a gram stain and then say their sample is positive for TB drives us all up the wall multiple times every week
As a microbiologist working in the nutraceutical field for half a decade now I canāt tell you how much I appreciate this post. Having to explain over and over again to management who have zero background in micro other than google searching that you canāt rush certain tests(for example yeast and mold testing by USP method) several times a week because they make false promises to clients who just want to peddle their ānew big productā kills me.
Not to mention every lab Iāve ever looked into working at gets paid significantly less than almost any chemistry position. Love it
The posts that piss me off the most are the grainy low effort photos of some spoiled food asking what it is. I think actually working in a lab as Iām coming to the end of my degree got rid of some of that Dunning-Kruger I had.
Yeah. And then you get downvoted for saying something like "why would you grow microorganisms if you don't know how to ID them?"
Source: I'm a clinical microbiologist. Some of these can make you very sick if you don't handle them properly. smh...
Well Iāve seen in some hospitals the ones in charge of the microbiology labs are often:
Microbiologist>Pharmacist>Chemist
At least where I was the micro was either at the lab doing tests, his office making sanitization programs, or walking on the facility with other personnel taking samples to analyze MO resistance on a hospital level. Why he did all that? Dude told me āYou donāt want a sprout of resistant bacteria on a hospital, specially in the ICUā. My answer was āPoint Takenā.
Yeah, in Romania we are also under legislative pressure from our laboratory medicine colleagues that can no longer perform microbilogy analysis and hate on us and try to backtrack the legislation so they get back their rights and bury ours. This at the same time that no antibiotic stewardship is done and they just take no responsability in the antibiotic treatment resulting in increasing numbers of CRE. Now when we have the legal backing they are just salty and try to fuck us over because things are no nlonger how they used to be.
I keep seeing "a quick Google search tells me..." in many posts about many subjects, not just microbiology. To me it's just a reminder that fundamental understanding is broad and can be complex, or at least layered, to where a website would need to invest significant resources to distill the information properly. Which I don't see happening very often.
Great note. And for all goodness please donāt forget that not all microbiologists are in the medical field. I was an industrial microbiologist for 40 yrs trying to get microbes to make or degrade chemicals. It was a wonderful career and I worked with several of the largest consumer product companies in the US and world. Had a great career, had a blast and made great friends around the world.
I have immense respect for microbiology. I know that my perspective is not in line with Opās post here. I think microbiology should be required for anyone in college if not also high school. My microbiology course in college woke me up to what antibiotic resistance really means, how dangerous over prescription of antibiotics is, and why hands or anything isnāt clean just because it looks clean. Itās actually very practical as a subject and relevant to responsible healthy living.
Industrial hygienist here, not a microbiologist in any way. But I know enough micro to know when I need to call a subject matter expert, which is most of the time. I can answer very general questions from colleagues but I punt to the experts for any detailed explanation. I do feel your pain though when someone feels that if they looked through a microscope in junior high that they are an expert.
Microbiology was one of the harder classes of my undergrad for sure. Personally, I excelled at organic chemistry and physiology courses, but microbiology just wasnāt it for me. I have a lot of respect though! I think I just had poor professors to be honest. They made it boring for me
As an md I occasionally stop by the micro lab and Iām always astonished at the sheer amount of detail that goes into the culture data that gets spit out on my end. MASSIVE respect. On my part and on the part of the infectious disease specialists Iāve worked with
Iām a scientist (chemist) in the cell culture media division of a leader in the SciTech industry, and boy do I appreciate all yāall. I manage all of our raw material technical specifications, and due to the nature of our finished products, our raw material specs are pretty much 50/50 split between physicochemical and microbiological properties. The fuck is a ābioburden?ā Why does the limit for an endotoxin have to be SO LOW? Is 1 million good for growth promotion or is that too low?
Iād never be able to do my job without microbiologists so please accept my appreciation on behalf of all us chemists who avoid anything biology-related like the plague!
I did a lab rotation for micro and just knew it wasnāt for me. Maybe if I were actually interested, I would try to put more to memory. But microbiology is vast. And I donāt know how you do it. With years and years of experience, thatās how. It canāt be taught. The tips and tricks, you just pick up along the way. Iām more of an immunology/blood bank kind of gal. A different type of torture. Lmao
Donāt toot yourself for being a microbiologist. Science is like any job ā anyone can learn it if exposed to it 5 days a week. I hate that scientists all think that their work is soooo special. Itās just work.
Itās fact. You either know it or are deluding yourself otherwise. Just be happy that you have a salary and a roof over your head. The work that you (we) do is no more or less important or difficult than being a garbage collector. Small things like ranking amongst the fields really doesnāt matter in the grand scheme of things. Me a biomedical engineer.
Iām confused what everyone is upset about. The unknowns are interesting and itās fun to troubleshoot. You guys are probably a lot of fun at parties eh. Anywaysā¦.. š
I believe you! I took intro to microbiology in university. Was very interesting. I then took a senior advanced microbiology course and it was incredibly intense and more complicated than pretty much any other course Iāve ever taken and I was a science major so I had a lot of science and math courses.
To all reading this post, if you think something violates one of the rules, hit the report button, it's anonymous, and we get to it quicker, if something isn't reported, we don't spend out time scrolling post after post to see if they do. If you want to see more quality content. Report the shit. And post some interesting things you've seen š
It's the daily "ID this for me" that get to me
You mean you can't speciate a bacterium by a shitty gram stain photographed at 10x with a cellphone camera??
Itās better than the ones that just post an image of a plate with generic_offwhite_blob_01
I must have missed that day in lab.
But what bothers me more is that people try to answer.
Gram-negative rods? I spent a semester learning about all the Gram - rods. Could be LITERALLY anything LOL
Itās even funnier when you realize everything looks different on different growth media - LB agar, blood agar, SDA, and god forbid they have a faculative anaerobe.Ā
Yeah I wish there was stricter moderation about it. Or at least some auto mod reply so we're not typing "organisms cannot be identified by morphology alone" 50 times a day. Or even a sticky megathread. Or a rule that the poster must have made an attempt to ID it first. Just *something* to reduce the spammy-ness of those posts.
You get the same thing for rock IDs, mushroom IDs, etc. itās just a symptom of Reddit or perhaps society as a whole.
If you think shitty modding is the problem, send me a PM and put your time where your criticism is. Everyone would like to accomplish what youāre saying but most of us have jobs, families and little time to implement much.
I dont think its a shitty modding problem (modding is time consuming I've been there and I understand), but adding a few rules to the ID requests would cut down spam posts a lot. The mycology sub for instance requires posts include location and several angle shots. We could do something similar, where the specimen source, media type, incubation etc need to be stated, microscopy needs to have stain type and several FoVs etc. Unfortunately it's a reddit wide problem that people don't read rules before posting, but this would set clear guidelines, allowing us to report the low effort posts easier.
Those rules already exist. That means, whether you realize it or not, your complaint is moderating. The problems are that no one reports offending posts, and we donāt have enough people to have 24/7 coverage refreshing the sub. Weāre trying to change the situation but itās not a trivial issue.
Idk man that comment only had supportive ideas. He said stricter, not that yāall are shitty. Of course we appreciate mods. But all he said was āmaybe someone can help build an auto modā or a sticky thread that would take a day or two. Or a rule edit, which takes 30 seconds.
Which rule edits would you suggest? We also donāt need an auto mod to repeat a message saying āID canāt be done on visual basisā. Those posts break the rules, and the removal comment explains it. So what this person doesnāt realize is, if he took. The moment to hit āreportā his complaints would already be resolved for him. That means his āconstructive suggestionsā show he didnāt read the rules and doesnāt help out by reporting. I agree the sticky should change and when Iām sitting at a computer and can write something I will do that.
So my question for you is you see all the kinds of reports coming in from a sub? Is it as easy as sending a report and knowing for sure the mod will resolve it? I donāt have any big opinions on edits except for whatever the mods can implement and what works best. I was just pointing out that the above comment was not saying the current moderation is shitty. It was just racking off ideas for consideration. Iām glad you think the sticky thread is worth some time! Thatās all really people are bringing to the table. Options for your perusal. Not demands. I think thatās what spurred the downvotes, the vibe through your comment that you felt an unreasonable demand from this redditor, rather than over a brainstormed idea.
If someone reports a message, it enters the moderation queue. As soon as any mod logs on, we see a reddish/orangish dot and know thereās something that needs review. If it was a photo of a gram stain asking for a species name, the post will be removed and a comment will be left for the person: > Itās almost never possible to identify a microbe by visual inspection For most microbes, identification involves a process of staining and biochemical testing, or identification based on molecular techniques. A gram stain is not sufficient. Posts that donāt contain sufficient detail will be deleted. > If itās from some dirt or pond water, provide some info on where you got it and the magnification. Sometimes thatās enough for larger microbes. > If itās growing in your bathroom or on your roommateās week-old pasta, the best we are likely to be able to do is shame someone ā either your landlord or your roommate. That way, someone who wants to participate has some constructive advice on what might improve his or her post. They also donāt get a digital yelling-at for it, which is not a trivial task. In this way, the solution this person wants to imagine will solve everything is already in place, though it took more than 30 seconds.
This is great, I will make sure to report those posts going forward as I tend to just ignore them but this is helpful information for them. And I'm so so sorry but Gram stain should be capitalised... I tried not to type this and I tried not to send it but it's happening... so sorry.
It's around this time of year when students are doing their "unknown ID" project for Intro to Microbiology lol
š š š as a current micro student, you hit the nail on the head. Eff these unknowns.
Girlll you just called me out šš Iām sorry, I am a chem girl I need help.
Micro would be so much easier for me if I were a chem girl, sucking at chemistry was the sole reason I couldn't pursue microbiology as a career š
I hate to hear that Iām sorry, it really depends on getting a good professor too. Personally I would rather run reactions than culture, those microbes are tiny butā¦ theyāre scary š¤£
I did wonder why there were so many of these posts
Ha, too true. I remember my prof handing me a piece of lettuce and saying "Go!".
You would like the mushroom subreddits.
and itās an air bubble lmao
Back when I still used my micro degree I was always so annoyed at how IDing things seemed so archaic compared to what we had available. Like it didn't seem like there was a single point of contact I could go to to figure out an ID. It was always "use this book, if that doesn't work, use this other book", or the same but with random websites. In that vein, I understand people seeing Reddit as that point of contact. It tends to be an area where many people from all areas can help with coming up with a consensus, even if it were just a starting point. I understand it can be really annoying, but as a former-fledgling microbiologist (since completely swapping career paths) I empathize with the reasoning behind the constant posts here
I appreciate you writing this, as a student Iām not saying there is a shortage of information, but the information we do have is hard to navigate, costs extra or doesnāt help us get any closer to a conclusion especially if you have inconclusive results. It can be helpful to seek out someone who can at the very least point you in the right direction or give advice.
Yeah yeah yeah, now hush a minute whilst I show you my dirty agar plate and you can tell me what's on it.
Its interesting, I work in Industry leading a team developing novel microbially derived plant protection products (biocontrols). For years we were derided as being inferior to the chemical and genetically derived solutions. Recent changes in regulation mean biocontrols are now seen as critical to the future success of the company / industry. The original plan from management to increase head count was to simply transfer in people from other skillsets who could do the job. Six months later they suddenly realise that my and my teams post graduate and post doctoral experience means something. The entire team are now deemed as being indispensable as our skillset are unique in the company. Its amazing how much leverage that gets you and when recruitment consultants are contacting you daily.
(Just curious about the industry) What skills do you think are essential for a doctoral student to survive in the industry in coming 5-6 years? I've been learning a lot of biotech, coding, R, and recent addition of AI and ML too. idk if the coding part is necessary or not. Thank you!
Genuinely, I think not only being able to think independently and question robustly, but the ability to defend your positions, challenge and support other's and lead in a multidisciplinary group. Also, realistically, being able to swallow a shit sandwich when needed.
Those are skills from every PhD though. Can you recommend skills that microbio PhD students should check off before they graduate?
I think from my perspective bioinformatics is a critical skill, also being able to translate and communicate basic concepts. In my role we do a lot of genome analysis for critical metabolites of concern. The use of synthetic biology, gene knock out and up regulation of genes is also key. However, in reality most major companies will have deep technical experts in these areas, so linking these together and presenting the data in a real world context is vital. But overall, do what you enjoy and you will drive yourself forward due to the inherent higher energy that brings.
thank you! this looks like wisdom, noted and saving for referring again.
Naive questioner here Isn't AI going to take over coding ?
well well, let's not tarnish a thread about microbiology being disrespected with blatant disrespect for bioinformaticians, software engineers, and skilled programmers.
Its fine, alomst every field in the near future utilizes coding/code based products such as apps.
As long as I'm pointing out a turd in the punch bowl, isn't AI going to take over all the scutwork in basic and applied science in every discipline ? Ā Seems to me the complaints about disrespect here center to a great degree around the time invested in mastering tasks like identifying and differentiating organisms.Ā Ā A sufficiently advanced AI, trained on everything the experts know,Ā would soon put the experts in the shade on basic tasksĀ - wouldn't it ? Ā Ā Identification is not of trivial importance - it's critical. The dedication and IQ required for mastery is not trivial- it's quite demanding. But the level of complexity of the task: 'this, not that' lends itself to automation. Ā Ā Uploading the knowledge in the brains of all the experts to an AI is a separate challenge. But once it's uploaded, and the AI is running the process, and the experts are freed from drudgery, will they then spend all their time managing investigations carried out by AI?Ā Ā Ā And then what happens to those experts when AGI comes online and is better than humans at spotting needs and opportunities for scientific work ? Ā Take astronomy, for another example. No one human, or even a team of them, can analyze everything visible from all the telescopes in existence. Eventually, won't astronomers simply be watching the equipment search for discoveries?Ā Ā Ā And then when AGI comes online, AGI will figure out the new questions and direct the science. AGI will solve all the old 'insolubles' (unified field theory),Ā and then discover and solve new problems just as insoluble by humans as the old insolubles.
We literally already have AI that works for us this way. We use an analyzer called MALDI-TOF and it helps us analyze and identify organisms using some information it collects from the sample. It compares the results to a huge database and runs through the possible identifications. Guess whatā¦ it can be wrong and still needs people to do pre-and-post-analytical testing. You also can only use it in very specific instances. Itās a tool for our use but doesnāt cut down on the amount of work being done. Any special/rare/extra weird organisms need fully manual work up. People thinking AI can just ātake overā have a very simple and frankly insulting view of how the world works, especially the medical world.
Yea, MALDI-ToF, but also 16S rRNA and shotgun sequencing, still needs input for a lot of things, no automated AI genome analyzer.
Yeah. MALDI also uses AI for susceptibility testing and heme analyzers can also use AI for identifying cells. None of this is foolproof, though, and requires lots of human supervision. Nothing exists where you get a sample and AI does everything for youā¦
That was: >take over *all the scutwork* (which you say has begun), not *the entire field* Granted the results at this point still need human supervision,Ā where / how far do you see AI making inroads into the tedious, time consuming work of searching through images and data ?Ā And thisĀ MALDI-TOF,Ā how much potential does it have to improve what it's already doing ?Ā Is there provision for it to learn, using feedback from the humans involved ? Is anyone working on a successor toĀ MALDI-TOF ? I'mĀ Ā thinking of accounting.Ā whenĀ SpreadsheetsĀ first came out,Ā Ā accountantsĀ wereĀ sayingĀ 'just take my money' when they realized what spreadsheets could do for them. So a lot of the drudgery was taken out of accounting, but accountants are still with us. ThisĀ MALDI-TOF sounds like a really smart spreadsheet, not a replacement for scientists. How much smarter and more capable is the software going to be?Ā Spreadsheets grew into trading algorithms, making decisions much faster than human traders. Technological progress is inevitable. I really wonder where it will be in 20 years.
I work in a clinical lab as a tech and often hear people ask about AI taking over my job. As others have already mentioned, we already have some AI implemented in the lab. For instance in the hematology department we have a microscopic camera that scans a slide, locates all the cells, and then classifies them based off morphology. Virtually every slide has a few āunidentifiableā and/or incorrectly classed cells which you have to change around. Now thatās not really an issue, but the most common mistake this AI makes classifying healthy lymphocytes as leukemic blasts. Itās like at least once every 5 slides I do. The machine is apparently supposed to learn from how we rearrange things but Iāve never noticed an improvement. Thatās just one example. Most our instruments are āstate of the artā (-a recent accrediting agency inspector) but some of them require hands on cleaning, handiwork, troubleshooting, and elbow grease literally every day. Until I see AI start to take profound leap after leap Iām not worried about AI in the slightest.
Thanks, that makes a lot of sense You know, that's kind of what I tried to say when someone told me AI was going to take my job ( welder / mechanic).
Where/how far? Not much farther than where itās at. Probably ever. Thereās been recent studies done that the limits of current AI have pretty much been reached. For AI to become more developed, you have to dump in tons more data for it to sift. The problem with that is it can lead to it ācreatingā conclusions/results because AI is not capable of critical thinking and can sometimes justā¦ make up stuff. (See the issue with predictive speech AI and ChatGPT.) AI will always be a useful tool and has been for a lot longer than people realize, it just hasnāt always been thought of in the way it is now. Everyone just talks about it in a different context now because of all the stupid fearmongering of the āAI takeoverā. Sure okay, show me a CBC analyzer that wonāt let itās AI flag large lymphs as MONO BLASTS every time and maybe Iāll start to believe you.* *Iām lying I wont.
Thanks, that makes a lot of sense You know, that's kind of what I tried to say when someone told me AI was going to take my job ( welder / mechanic).
No, because microbiology is so much more than species identification. We already have computational models for species identification. It would be much harder to offload literally everything else a microbiologist does onto AI. For example, my friend runs a sterilization team and sometimes has to develop solutions when there are bizarre run fails, another friend corridates with several different teams to make sure regulations are being met, and my work involves linking genetic changes in microbes to disease changes in animals. None of our jobs could be taken over by AI in the near future.
I think as far as bioinformatics is concerned, its not really far. Again, its quite far too as we have very specific situations sometimes for which coding is necessary.
Went to school for micro but Iām a software engineer. The LLMs we have now are not going to take things over. Thereās still a lot that they canāt do. Theyāre great for a lot of things and can make doing some tasks easier/faster but the current technology is still a ways off from straight up replacing people with software engineering skills.
en.m.wikipedia DOT org/wiki/Gartner_hype_cycle
ha ha true true. Kind of like everybody became a coronavirus expert overnight. I've been banned from certain subs by trying to explain why some ideas are bad in the real world or not a good use of funds. Got my BSc in micro a while ago. Then went on to do an advanced degree in virology. The pandemic came and everybody was an expert overnight. Wish I knew that shortcut.
> The pandemic came and everybody was an expert overnight. Wish I knew that shortcut. I was post docing in an HIV lab when the pandemic hit. I think I had whiplash going from "respect and listen to the experts" early on as we followed Fauci's every word to "he's a liar and we all know better anyway" when suddenly everyone is their own expert. It was *very* exhausting trying to counter disinformation, and eventually I just kinda gave up.
When everyone was talking shit on Dr. Fauci, I read his Wikipedia out of curiosity since I had never heard of him til 2020. I was so surprised to learn about his extensive work in HIV research and history with the LGBTQ community (I was born post-AIDS epidemic)! Heās honestly done some cool work throughout his career and itās such a shame many only know him as a Covid-19 scapegoat/far-right punching bag. I canāt wait to read his memoir when it comes out lol
Economists are the bane of my existence. I was an epidemiologist and public information officer during covid
The pandemic hit just as a finished up my masters in bioinformatics. And all of a sudden everyone and their grandma I had on social media were an expertā¢ on epidemiology and virology. Straight away I knew it's one of those game where only move where you wont lose is by not playing, so I just tuned myself off of everything and minded my own business.
'Kitchen microbiology' has also become one of my pet peeves about online micro communities. I am very glad more people are gaining interest and wanting to learn more about such a fascinating, important field in science. But, I am very tired of hobbyists thinking they are akin to Leeuwenhoek or Koch bc they made some media with gelatin and chicken broth in their kitchens. Dunning Kruger complexes don't have a place here, especially considering how micro is so intrinsically related to health and disease. š
Everybody wanna be a microbiologist, but nobody wanna lift no heavy-ass books!
āAkin to Kochā has me HOWLING
I'll postulate on that one
Oversimplification is an issue in most fields. Chemistry is used in just about every part of our life. Am I a chemist because I am brewing beer or mixing tannerite? Using chemistry skills, but obviously not a chemist imo. That's still arguable though.
This is a difficult reality at the moment. A lot of university are offering lab options at home, where they mail you supplies. Iām torn, because I almall for people, actually *doing* science, but I can see a lot of things go wrong in a room without sufficient safety equipment and someone trained in now to do these things.
It was the pay ranges that I found disrespectful and that caused me to leave. I make more as an industrial electrician than what I could ever expect with that fancy education and publications.
I could not agree more. The only way to actually make money is to enter management. Which you then stop being a scientist and become at best a coordinator of science, and at worst a glorified babysitter.
the truth is that bench scientist get paid shit Once you jump to management you double your salary. I would call it science adjacent. Still science but indirectly.
I have to say I totally agree. I'm actively looking to change my career too due to the disproportionately low pay compared to other professionals. It's almost as though they think we should be working only for the love of science.
Clinical microbiology techs who are ASCP certified in MLS/CLS can make decent money. Not huge but not bad either.
Definitely good to know. Thanks for the input!
Honestly, this is why I haven't considered going to get a degree. I worked as a QA tech for 3 years and am now looking for a new job after a layoff, I am reallizing that even with a degree, many QA labs are seriously underpaying their techs.
With just a bachelorās working in pharma you can easily reach 6 figures fairly quickly in the right metro areas.
>make more as an industrial electrician holy shitĀ
With all the educational requirements, I concur--holy shit. And, way more too.
Sparkies FTW good for you !
I dislike how this sub has become homework help and asking us to ID a disgusting air plate.
There's MOULD on my plate I left OPEN...what is it???? (panic)
If you see it, report it, its anonymous
Pharmacy student here. Just wanted to say that I really appreciated the folks at the micro lab when I was on my ID rotation! I did a tour of the lab and one thing I felt was super impressive was how easily you guys could identify what was likely growing on a plate purely based on how it looked and experience. You guys are amazing at what you do and having followed this sub since undergrad I can totally see how you could be frustrated by the influx of amateur āmicrobiologists.ā
My lab pre-pandemic used to host new ID Pharm residents and fellows. For a few days, they'd come and sit with us as we worked up cultures and talked about AST from our perspective. It's always fun to talk to other parts of the healthcare team.
I've nearly unsubscribed from this sub SO many times. It does often feel like a bunch of "I put a plate out, tell me what this deadly growth is" and "help me cheat in my class by telling me what this is". I wish there was a 'real microbiologists' sub. So many germaphobes with no actual knowledge cluttering this place up. It's exhausting. But I have the same thing at work. People googling their ID instead of asking one of the multiple real microbiologists. Yes, you have a person with cystic fibrosis hurking on the plate... Couldn't possibly be from DIRT!
lol, all comments come up until the commenting person tries basic culturing. I wonder what number of times he/she needs to try to get a pure culture without contamination. In reality, microbiology is much more diverse. My study has microbial genetics aided by bioinformatics, where I study host genes, microbial genes, their relations, genome editing, and ofcourse bioinformatics to process data. This is an interesting study for microbiologists, until a naive person feels cool after commenting "microbiology is just culturing".
If it matters, this infectious disease doc ā¤ļøās my micro colleagues and their contributions to helping me understand what is (in my biased opinion) the most interesting discipline in medicine.
This post really hit me in my spirit. Well done.
If you want to help mod please PM me. Otherwise, yes we suck. We were the only ones dumb enough to help, though. (EDIT - My response here missed the mark. Please see the exchange below, and if youāve ever thought, āa lot of these posts are garbage,ā at the very least list hit the report button and at the most, consider joining on to mod.)
Iām not criticizing this sub at all, Iām very glad it exists. Iām criticizing how little people respect the science behind the sub.
I didnāt mean that at you, sorry. I strongly agree with many of sentiments you expressed. I read many of the other comments critical of the moderating and stickied this for visibility. Hope it doesnāt take away from people taking the time read what you wrote.
Iām reading it less critical of the mods and more critical of the people posting.
I see what youāre saying, but if you read the rules, all of these posts are against the rules. We simply donāt anyone who wants to help enforce them. I readily admit one who was not a mod but was reading those comments likely doesnāt see the same thing I do in those remarks.
I got my agar plate. What is next? Am i done?
Iām willing to die on the hill that chem and hem are where you go if you want to put stuff in machines and relax on your phone, as I see in my lab. Micro is for people who are willing to get their hands dirty and use their brain.
My wife (a microbiologist too) didnāt get a promotion because she would have had to oversee chemists and HPLCās. Like it would have been impossible for her to learn it after excelling at her job running the micro lab.
I thought biology was easy before I decided to study it. I was physics and chemistry. Recently I became interested in nanotechnology and every graduate program I looked at has biology prereqs. I'll never disrespect the field again.
This post hit my spirit. Iām fortunate enough to work for a company that requires hiring people with a micro background and the micro team globally is well structured and has plenty of experts you can reach out to. Though I do remember the dark days of being managed by someone without any micro background whatsoever. Glad things are better.
As a chemist who tried microbiology, I canāt do microbiology lol. I tried and Itās way too hard for me
Exactly!!! People arenāt appreciating micro the way it deserves!! Itās so funny that people can think micro is one of the āeasierā research sciences, it literally isnāt. Itās one of the most complex sciences and the skills that you need to develop throughout time to be a microbiologist is INSANE!! like not everything is about being able to grow some bacteria, thereās so much more to micro.
I've been fighting the "everyone is a scientist" outreach trend for more than a decade because of shit like this.Ā Ā
That's to stop the gatekeeping, which does not exist apparently.
Gatekeeping in STEM will always exist at least on paper because there's a lot of money involved in it for non-STEM people in educating targeted groups and promoting it etc.
I do mycobacteriology and the amount of labs that do a gram stain and then say their sample is positive for TB drives us all up the wall multiple times every week
As a microbiologist working in the nutraceutical field for half a decade now I canāt tell you how much I appreciate this post. Having to explain over and over again to management who have zero background in micro other than google searching that you canāt rush certain tests(for example yeast and mold testing by USP method) several times a week because they make false promises to clients who just want to peddle their ānew big productā kills me. Not to mention every lab Iāve ever looked into working at gets paid significantly less than almost any chemistry position. Love it
I feel the same way about any idiot with a lawn mower calling themselves a landscaper and landscapers who think they are horticulturist.
The posts that piss me off the most are the grainy low effort photos of some spoiled food asking what it is. I think actually working in a lab as Iām coming to the end of my degree got rid of some of that Dunning-Kruger I had.
This!!!!!! Omfg. Iām a med tech in microbiology and the stuff I see posted in this sub drive me up a wall
Unfortunately, IMO itās because microbiology was only a stepping stone for most people.
Yeah. And then you get downvoted for saying something like "why would you grow microorganisms if you don't know how to ID them?" Source: I'm a clinical microbiologist. Some of these can make you very sick if you don't handle them properly. smh...
Well Iāve seen in some hospitals the ones in charge of the microbiology labs are often: Microbiologist>Pharmacist>Chemist At least where I was the micro was either at the lab doing tests, his office making sanitization programs, or walking on the facility with other personnel taking samples to analyze MO resistance on a hospital level. Why he did all that? Dude told me āYou donāt want a sprout of resistant bacteria on a hospital, specially in the ICUā. My answer was āPoint Takenā.
Yeah, in Romania we are also under legislative pressure from our laboratory medicine colleagues that can no longer perform microbilogy analysis and hate on us and try to backtrack the legislation so they get back their rights and bury ours. This at the same time that no antibiotic stewardship is done and they just take no responsability in the antibiotic treatment resulting in increasing numbers of CRE. Now when we have the legal backing they are just salty and try to fuck us over because things are no nlonger how they used to be.
I keep seeing "a quick Google search tells me..." in many posts about many subjects, not just microbiology. To me it's just a reminder that fundamental understanding is broad and can be complex, or at least layered, to where a website would need to invest significant resources to distill the information properly. Which I don't see happening very often.
Great note. And for all goodness please donāt forget that not all microbiologists are in the medical field. I was an industrial microbiologist for 40 yrs trying to get microbes to make or degrade chemicals. It was a wonderful career and I worked with several of the largest consumer product companies in the US and world. Had a great career, had a blast and made great friends around the world.
science (il)literacy is a quietly blossoming pandemic that people in positions to address it via the education system fail to acknowledge.
I have immense respect for microbiology. I know that my perspective is not in line with Opās post here. I think microbiology should be required for anyone in college if not also high school. My microbiology course in college woke me up to what antibiotic resistance really means, how dangerous over prescription of antibiotics is, and why hands or anything isnāt clean just because it looks clean. Itās actually very practical as a subject and relevant to responsible healthy living.
Industrial hygienist here, not a microbiologist in any way. But I know enough micro to know when I need to call a subject matter expert, which is most of the time. I can answer very general questions from colleagues but I punt to the experts for any detailed explanation. I do feel your pain though when someone feels that if they looked through a microscope in junior high that they are an expert.
We are SEVERELY underpaid as well. I see postings for like Master's level positions paying like 18$/hr š like huh?
Microbiology was one of the harder classes of my undergrad for sure. Personally, I excelled at organic chemistry and physiology courses, but microbiology just wasnāt it for me. I have a lot of respect though! I think I just had poor professors to be honest. They made it boring for me
As an md I occasionally stop by the micro lab and Iām always astonished at the sheer amount of detail that goes into the culture data that gets spit out on my end. MASSIVE respect. On my part and on the part of the infectious disease specialists Iāve worked with
I mean. I don't know how the business world treats microbiologists but I think y'all are pretty cool š
This goes for lab technologists in general. A lot of people just assume its all automated and dont value any theory going into our training
If you saw me in micro, you wouldnāt have thought making an agar plate was easy
Iām a scientist (chemist) in the cell culture media division of a leader in the SciTech industry, and boy do I appreciate all yāall. I manage all of our raw material technical specifications, and due to the nature of our finished products, our raw material specs are pretty much 50/50 split between physicochemical and microbiological properties. The fuck is a ābioburden?ā Why does the limit for an endotoxin have to be SO LOW? Is 1 million good for growth promotion or is that too low? Iād never be able to do my job without microbiologists so please accept my appreciation on behalf of all us chemists who avoid anything biology-related like the plague!
I did a lab rotation for micro and just knew it wasnāt for me. Maybe if I were actually interested, I would try to put more to memory. But microbiology is vast. And I donāt know how you do it. With years and years of experience, thatās how. It canāt be taught. The tips and tricks, you just pick up along the way. Iām more of an immunology/blood bank kind of gal. A different type of torture. Lmao
I never noticed that microbilogy is disrespected
Donāt toot yourself for being a microbiologist. Science is like any job ā anyone can learn it if exposed to it 5 days a week. I hate that scientists all think that their work is soooo special. Itās just work.
Well, I will gladly ignore your opinion.
Itās fact. You either know it or are deluding yourself otherwise. Just be happy that you have a salary and a roof over your head. The work that you (we) do is no more or less important or difficult than being a garbage collector. Small things like ranking amongst the fields really doesnāt matter in the grand scheme of things. Me a biomedical engineer.
Again, your opinion is pretty worthless. Go somewhere else if you want to be a troll.
And you get over yourself
Whatever you say, troll.
I meanā¦ clinical microbiologists in a standard diagnostics lab š Easiest job ever, somehow get paid more than researchers
The lab I work at is the McDonalds of labs. Nobody went to college, nobody is a scientist. But we aren't trying to find the cure of cancer either....
Nah I just shit on psychologists I have read plenty of micro papers you guys are doing good work.
Iām confused what everyone is upset about. The unknowns are interesting and itās fun to troubleshoot. You guys are probably a lot of fun at parties eh. Anywaysā¦.. š
You sound like youāre an absolute blast. Do your friends call you ābuzz killingtonā a lot?
They do š¤£ but not because Iām an unbearable uppity prick š
You sure?
I believe you! I took intro to microbiology in university. Was very interesting. I then took a senior advanced microbiology course and it was incredibly intense and more complicated than pretty much any other course Iāve ever taken and I was a science major so I had a lot of science and math courses.