Previous work: Gwern My lay understanding is that it's not known how to sequence gametes without destroying them. If we could non-destructively sequence gametes, it would be easier to e.g. screen for genetic illnesses. Instead of fertilizing a few eggs, which are expensive to acquire, and then sequencing the resulting embryos, we could produce many sperms, find acceptable sperms, and then use those to fertilize the few available eggs. This post describes a way to sequence gametes non-destructively, assuming that it's possible to sequence gametes destructively. I lack lots of basic biological knowledge, so I can't verify that this idea makes sense, would work, or would be feasible or efficient. I hope others who are more informed can check and use the idea. I'll focus on sperm for clarity; I don't know whether / how this might extend to ova.

TL;DR: To keep track of your thoughts about a question that has multiple parameters, you can use multi-dimensional spreadsheets. If you use vim, vim-multisheets is a basic implementation of multi-dimensional spreadsheets; code here . Tracking beliefs and then automatically unfolding some of their consequences can point towards questions you haven't answered and point to contradictions in your beliefs.

Aliyah walks toward one side of a half-meter-wide ditch. Without missing a beat, she plants her left foot at the rounded lip of the ditch and then swings her right leg forward over the ditch to plant her right foot at the opposite lip, bobbling her upper body forward in dynamic equilibrium between the upward-centerward forces from her proceeding alternating legs, in a smooth motion reprising her past steps over solid ground. Boaz, following Aliyah, walks toward the half-meter-wide ditch. He starts to step across, but pauses halfway through, poised over the ditch. To amuse himself, he reverses by pushing back on the opposite lip, starts forward again, goes almost all the way, then reverses again. With just a bit of effort he can statically occupy a near approximation of any position and stance that Aliyah passed through during her step, dwelling for a time in that moment that was for Aliyah a non-extended point in a dynamic process. Carmel walks toward a meter-wide ditch. A push from ...

Very hot water stops itch. Itching due to an immune reaction--bug bite, allergies, poison ivy / poison oak--is caused by histamine. Heat makes histamine release quickly. So if you have an annoying itchy spot, go to the sink and run the water very hot. Don't burn yourself, but it should be really hot; hot enough that you can be okay with it running over your skin, but only by easing the cold water down gradually so the water gets hotter and hotter. If the itch feels weirdly intense, even pleasurable, like you're scratching all of it all at once, you're doing it right. Once the histamine is released, it should stay non-itchy for a while, like an hour or two or three. If the itch is in an inconvenient spot, e.g. face or neck, use a hot water bottle or in a pinch, ziploc bags. Works even for terrible poison ivy / poison oak rashes; it's way more effective than topical steroids for itch relief. When you can't find something and then you find it, after you're don...

An old woman twists a rag over a bucket and the dampness of the rag lessens. She's sitting in the livingroom of an old house on a chair in front of a low table. It's not clear how old she is. The rag is still damp, but less so now that she's twisted it, and at least mold probably won't bloom under the rag if she leaves it there on the low table spread in a rumpled square, so there she puts it, and now her hands are twisting another rag, steadily centered over the bucket. There are many rags on the table. They're all wet, and it's not clear why they're wet. Maybe water vapor collects on them during foggy nights with the windows left open, or maybe the roof of the old house is letting rain water pass through the part of itself that flies directly over the low table. It's not clear why the rags are wet and it's also not clear how old the old woman is. Sometimes she's as young as five, and often she's sixteen or twenty-nine, and it would not be e...