On Monday, I finished reading The Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson. This book focuses on Jennifer Doudna and her discovery of CRISPR-Cas9. (Note: the other scientist often cited for figuring out CRISPR is Feng Zhang. Isaacson acknowledges his work, but tells the story from the perspective of Doudna.) Before going in, I already had a good idea how CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing worked (thanks to PBS NOVA s47e11 “Human Nature”), but I still found it interesting.
The book is especially relevant in this day and age due to COVID-19. The last few chapters reveal how CRISPR-Cas9 was used to create the Pfizer and Moderna coronavirus vaccines. In fact, if I were a high school graduate today, I’d probably choose bioengineering over computer science as my major. CRISPR-Cas9 is simply the next big thing; the world of possibilities it opens up seems vast and exciting. Who knows…perhaps it could even be the key to living forever.
On Friday, I finished watching Loki (warning: possible spoilers ahead). This Disney+ show was highly recommended by my Google colleagues and I went in with high expectations.
The setting was complicated with a lot to digest, so the show started off a little slow. To be fair, my poor memory could be to blame. Sad to say, I remembered so little about the Marvel Cinematic Universe that I assumed Loki was a complete bad guy at first. However, the show quickly picked up. Before long the screen was riddled with explosions and action fight sequences. As a side note, I agree with YouTube critic Jeremy Jahns that some parts are unnecessary.
Anyway, it’s interesting how they made time travel fit in the MCU. When you have so many storylines and so many characters, giving an individual the ability to modify time is a risky affair; it simply grants that character too much power and has the potential to make many of the previous storylines pointless.
PS: while watching reviews, I learned that the main villain in the end of Loki is also named Kang (that fact didn’t seem to be revealed in the episode).
