Lab book
Observations in progress.
LAB BOOK
A working record of observations,
systems, science, and unfinished thinking.
ALL ENTRIES
SYSTEMS
GOVERNANCE
MICROBIOME
ORCHIDS
EMERGENCE
N = 1
ACTIVATION ENERGY
EMBODIMENT
Responsible Service of Coffee
Responsible Service of Coffee It is 7:33 pm at the RSL. The place is packed. A ramshackle band is playing in the background, disjointed yet somehow beautiful. I have found a quiet corner after a full day’s work and would like a coffee. This proves unexpectedly...
The Pressure Cooker Coup
Good systems do not require perfect humans. They are designed around the humans who actually exist.
Wasted Entropy and Softening Rituals
There is a strange ritual performed inside institutions. Before naming a problem, we must soften it. We begin by acknowledging how busy everyone is. We recognise the complexity of the environment. We thank people for their considerable efforts. We carefully establish...
What If the Stool Is the System?
We put food in. A remarkably complicated biological system happens in the middle. And poo comes out. Yet when we study stool, we often treat it primarily as a convenient container for something else. We extract microbial DNA. We sequence it. We measure metabolites. We...
The Racing Line
There is an ideal line through every corner. You look ahead. Position yourself early. Commit to the turn. Move smoothly through it and come out exactly where you intended. At least, that is how it works in theory. On a real road, there is sometimes a fucking pothole...
Everyone Is Solving the Same Problem
Everyone Is Solving the Same Problem Today, I watched several people trying to solve different parts of the same research problem become frustrated with one another because they disagreed about the “right” way to do it. The strange thing was that nobody was...
The Australian Research Balance Book
A research cohort is often funded as though it were a single-use object. Recruit the participants. Collect the samples. Answer the funded question. Publish the findings. Close the project. But a well-designed cohort can become something much more valuable. The Healthy...
Activation Energy – why systems fail in reality
We teach activation energy comfortably in chemistry. Every student learns that a reaction requires sufficient energy to begin. Lower the activation barrier, and the reaction becomes more likely to occur. It's one of the most fundamental ideas in science. Then we leave...
The Seedling Has Not Yet Published
Notes from someone still watering dustBy most conventional measures, I was not the person the system was designed to produce. I was a first-generation university student, the first in my family to complete a PhD, and a migrant trying to navigate institutions that...
Who is planting the seeds
Who Is Planting the Seeds? I attended a conference recently where much of the discussion centred on growth. More clinical trials. More trial sites. More innovation. More translation. More workforce development. More technology. More artificial intelligence. More...
