State of the Union (aka mid corona update) (Patreon)

Hi All,

So it's been a hot minute since I've written an update post and I'm finally really settling into a new groove as I've gotten used to the new dystopia we find ourselves in and I wanted to give you a little update with what's going on and what I've got planned.

It took a little while to get my feet back under me as the lab I worked out of was made basically inaccessible due to the pandemic so a lot of the projects I had planned are on hold until I get a new large work space. Currently I've moved the bio lab into my apartment and have been doing all projects from home. This has put some new constraints on projects, and if I'm being honest, my sanity as I didn't have a large place to start with. But I've turned the place into my own little personal space ship with as many features and as much work space as possible.

It took some doing but I now have a rhythm again and not only that, I have several projects already lined up with most of them able to be wrapped up relatively quickly. And even under the new circumstances I think they're some of the coolest I've ever done.

First up which will be released next is my massive video about Covid. I've been working on this since basically the virus was first announced and it is a BEAST of a video. ~42 minutes long and deep diving into how the virus works, and how we test for it. I preform all the different types of tests currently available and explain how they work and why they fail in detail. I'm about halfway done the edit and if all goes well it'll be out this week or next at the latest.

After that, keeping on the covid theme, I'm building myself a respirator. And not just any respirator, a daft punk, positive pressure, triple filtered and packed full of electronics respirator. I'm more than a little paranoid of the virus, and if I'm stuck living in a cyberpunk dystopia, I'm building the cyberpunk dystopia I want, not the one I have. It's gonna be a fun build so stay tuned. 

After that there's a double wammy as the first half will be on the main channel, the second will be on the food channel. First we're going to deep dive into how holograms work and are made, and then use the fantastic Ben Krasnows method for debacking commercial holograms to both make holographic chocolate and base plates for 3d printing. The chocolate versions will be made into bon bon molds, and then on the second channel I'll be making some bespoke holographic bon bons.

Oh and did I mention I think I got the spider silk working? Ya I know, waited for you read this whole thing to make that announcement. I'm doing final tests currently, and ordering an improved version, but I have successfully made yeast that are g418 resistent which can only mean they carry my silk construct. Now the question is, do they produce silk, and are there any other issues with it, but regardless I can finally make the next part of the series talking about how we got this far and what the next steps are. It'll cover like a year's worth of work, so it'll be a lot, but since it'll take at least a month or two to wrap other things, I could have an actual sample of silk to show off by then. I literally just set the batch culture growing last night, so won't know for a few days if silk is detectable. But if you see me blast out the 60s spiderman theme on all social media channels you'll know what happened. We're currently ordering/designing a slight mod to the design to include a colorful reporter so we know 100% if silk is being made. Eitherway, progress is progress and I can't tell you how fricken excited I am. 

On the topic of bio, I'm working with my good friend Gabe to work on a slightly different neuron project. He is currently building a animal testing lab to study cancer treatments and the main animal he'll be working on are zebrafish. Once that's up and running we're going to modify some of the fish with a construct called brainbow. This is an amazing piece of DNA that randomly labels every cell in an organism with a different color of fluorescent protein. The result is incredibly beautiful but also very insightful. And since he's studying neuron cancer, it's the perfect thing to help track how the cancer develops and spread. We'll be likely using 2 versions. 1 that only labels neurons, and 1 that labels all cells. So we can see neuron development, but also how the cells in the rest of the body spread. 

And finally another update video, this time about the radioactive quack medicine products. After the last video I was contacted by the US nuclear regulatory commission and worked with them to file a formal complaint which resulted in several of the companies being shut down and most of the products scrubbed from sites like amazon. But I've since found new, WORSE products and more companies, so the new video will talk about those new products, how to file a NRC complaint to get them shut down, and talk about the first round of NRC stuff.

Of course there's more but those are the projects for the immediate future. I've also got more recipe videos I'm working on, including some from shokugeki and recreating famous patisseries recipes amongst other things.

That's all for now. I can't wait to make many of these videos and I hope you'll all enjoy them!

Cheers
-Justin