Update, questions, and the future (Patreon)

Hi Everyone

I haven't posted in a bit, so I wanted to take a moment to give a little update on how things are going on the channel, ask some questions, and talk a bit about my plan for things moving forward.

So first the update. Like many/most of you my city is under lock down so my access to the lab is essentially gone. I can still drop by occasionally to pick up items, but basically all physics projects I had planned are off the table for the time being. I was working on the ruby/sapphire project, making opal, and some other which are all on pause for now. Same goes for any radio projects that involve going outside or projects that require travel like the neurons. This is why you may have noticed I've been leaning into bio stuff and cooking things for the last month. 

Right before the lock down really cinched down, we moved the bio parts of the lab into my apartment so I could continue to work on things like the golden beer, spider silk, and other bio projects. It's a bit tight, and my apartment feels more like a space ship than ever, but i'm making it work. However even with the equipment and my stock of reagents moved, as you can imagine most companies are either overwhelmed with orders or have simply shut down, so even access to bio reagents has become harder. 

But it's not all dire. First, the channel hit 500K subscribers recently! I can't beleive there are actually half a million people interested in my work, but it never would have been possible without your support so thanks a million! 

Beyond that, I've been getting a ton of bio work done, and have various projects just about wrapped up and ready to be turned into videos. The spider silk remains extremely frustrating but is moving forward steadily. I found a super easy option to solve a lot of my issues with the project quickly, so will be attempting to get those done asap. I'm also just about finished with the golden beer thing and have made the carotene producing yeast successfully and am starting to brew and bake with them. I'm just waiting on a premade strain of the yeast to arrive that produce more lycopene and so are more orange, for the sake of color contrast comparison.

You may also have noticed that I've started streaming regularly. With my reduced ability to do projects, I wanted a way to keep ya'll engaged and just do something fun, and streaming seemed like the best option. If you've been tuning in and enjoying, please let me know. For those who haven't seen any of them yet, there are 3 different "shows" so far. "whose gene is it anyway", "biohack chats", and "live lab work". The first is about designing and researching bio projects/DNA using ideas pulled from a hat and submitted by all of you. The second is an interview/hang out with some of my cool bio friends and talking about their amazing projects. And the last is what it sounds like, ya'll get to follow along as I work.

So now some questions. First, have you been enjoying the live streams? Do you find they add value to the channel? Are there other "shows" you'd like me to add, or topics you want me to cover on the other streams? Also do you want me to post links to them here? I won't charge for them, but just as a reference to a piece of content that got made.

Next, would you be interested in patron only live streams. If so, what would you like them to be about?

Finally on a semi related note, there has been a lot of requests for a discord, but I don't really want to have a massive public discord flooded with more people that can be easily moderated. But I would be open to a patron/member/donor discord. Is this something you'd be interested in?

Let me know your thoughts below!

Now lets talk future. The grim reality is this shit show will be like this for probably the next 2 years. There will be moments when lock downs are lifted, but until a vaccine is available, it'll be periodic lock downs probably until 2022 and even then things will still be weird basically forever. The world of 2 months ago is gone. As such, the channel is being forced to evolve. So things like the live streams will likely continue for the foreseeable future so long as people enjoy them. I've also been reworking my video schedule, habits, and work space to make it possible to not only continue making videos, but continuing to improve them and work on exciting and fun projects. I want to leave the lockdown with the channel even better than it was before, rather than letting lockdown mess with things or drag me down.

So this is what I've got planned for now besides the live shows (not necessarily in this order): 

- A spider silk update video. Even if I can't get it working, I'm giving myself 1 more month and then I'm making an update with everything I've managed up until this point. I've done so much work on it, there's already enough for a video, I just wanted to hold out until we made some silk for the first time. 

-The golden beer. Talked about this above, project is almost done.

-Muon time dilation experiment. Follow up on the last video, using muons to verify special relativity

-My rediculous birthday cake. Every year I make my self a more and more rediculous birthday cake. This year I plan on taking ya'll along for the ride. If I'm gonna be stuck alone, I may as well enjoy it right? Making a tiny planet shaped mirror glazed etremet

-How corona virus testing works. I'll demonstrate and explain how 3 different types of covid testing works; PCR, LAMP, and antibody. Already almost done 2 of 3, waiting on reagents for the LAMP one. I've been working on this for months already

-Lactase update. This one is basically filmed and ready to go, I just can't seem to wrestle the script into a form I'm happy with. Will probably release this one within a week. 

-growing images using bacteria. I've got some optogenetic bacteria that in theory should be useable to "grow" an image by projecting light onto a film of bacteria. The exposed bacteria should produce GFP in response and form the image.

-2 new shokugeki recipe episodes. Mille feuille aux duxelle de champignons, and momo's -autum leaf etremet.

-Picking up signals from a sensitive plant (mimosa pudica) and using them to trigger a light switch

-hydro/aquaponics and or microgreen growing

That's everything, so please leave me some feedback below, and I hope you are all staying safe and healthy in these crazy times. Thank you all so much for your support. Having the peace of mind in all this crazyness that I've got all of you behind me has made these past months easier.