Biology doesn't need Optimization

The idea of making batteries in 20.109 intrigued me at first, and after a couple of days in lab, I felt truly inspired, at least a little. 

I didn't have a lot of time to be in awe of the phages though because the research proposal took so much time. That made me sad, as Angie's applications of biology intrigued me a ton, and led to the title of this post: Biology doesn't need optimization.

I'm sort of growing more into the biological engineering mode of seeing what biology can do for us, not in a super-controlling way but as a way of making the life we have more sustainable, or efficient (or just cool, but that's probably not the strongest theme off which to publish a paper). As much as it felt meh to leave a lot of the technical things to Jifa's magic, I'm happy to leave with a battery that can light a purple LED for a short time and some confidence that my ideas could grow into life-long research one day.

Speaking of research, the proposal was much less mind-wracking than the journal club presentation, but I still struggled a little. Narrowing down an idea for a proposal, then the research, and the convincing story of why the research is necessary is, at simplest, difficult. I appreciated the difficulty, especially since I will likely enter academia, but I wish I understood more what our constraints (related to 20.109) meant so that the early homework in the module was more effective for our group.

Eventually, we made it though, and with a battery! As it discharges, the green light fades and we are farther from our experiences here in 20.109...

(The green light from the Great Gatsby in all of it's symbolic finality)