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Typical day at the lab today. My first experiment looks like nothing: I tested different concentrations and cells on the so-called Ambit2 module. These cells are supposed to be sensitive to ampicillin, but they never show this in today’s staining assay. Whether ampicillin is added or not, after a scornful 2 hours at 37 degrees…

So, let’s start this week a bit heavier again and then hopefully end it light. There are boxes in my head, they come and go, some stay for a long time (always) and some show up sporadically, or perhaps opportunistically. Love for my wife and love for my daughter? Rock-solid. Dutchman? Check. Entrepreneur? Recently. Liberal?…

Friday night and my head is empty. Been on the road again for about 18 hours this week to work 4 days in Suzhou. Achieved nice things with my intern Kelly, made a start on setting up a calibration curve in buffer Y (our “own” buffer for the E. coli we have growing in the…

And so begins 2019 with divorces. In the weekend of January 6, Kim (B) suddenly hears from his wife that it is over. The love is over, at least there is another, the relationship is over, and if it goes as she planned, the children will also pass over without too much resistance. Right. The…

Amazing what kind of thoughts the brain can produce. In China, there is a surveillance camera brand that has sold 175 million cameras today. That is over one camera for every 10 persons. Cameras that are always switched on. Which pry everywhere on, through or into. Sending data non-stop to algorithms to make blurry images…

Today it is chilly outside. Dizzy rain with a temperature just above freezing point. Nice weather to be indoors. On the way to Suzhou, I look forward to every indoor moment: the subway, the train, the second subway, the lab and the coffee room – with a cup of hot coffee. When it rains you…

When I descend on the escalator towards the platform at 6:30 in the evening, what I’ve been smelling the entire journey becomes visible. A light glow hangs over Suzhou, as if a table lamp is gently burning. The towers in front of me are fainter than you’d expect. In the twilight they stand in their…

On a Friday in January 2022, Jess and I were having lunch with a co-pilot who flies for Hainan air. We first met him in the mountains of Yunnan, when he returned from his last flight to Toronto, and we were supposed to meet in Shanghai today. As usual, we talked about work, travels, living…