Brainoid

Perhaps because of the great goal of developing SCIENCE, Chen Linyou and Wang Xin became particularly diligent in learning Python. Until nine o'clock in the evening, they had no sign of leaving the laboratory, which made Qi Min feel a little embarrassed.

She said that publishing in SCIENCE was just a matter of bragging. In fact, her original article did not dare to be submitted to SCIENCE at all, not to mention that all the magazines that were submitted to the second area were rejected. Now only the construction of brain-like bodies has been added. The original data sample size has been questioned. The brain-like bodies built on this basis may not necessarily be saved. And if she was asked to supplement the neuron connection detection data, it would be really difficult for Qi Min in this lab with nothing.

Qi Min felt that her project was just a matter of funding and articles. In addition, at least she could publish the article she was supposed to use for her PhD graduation, and it would be enough to do the annual assessment. The University of Science and Technology of China pays more attention to the transformation of results, and the support for pure natural science research is relatively weak. If she wants to thrive in this school, she will still have to do something that is more closely integrated with practical applications in the future.

But what to do?

If a full-scale brainoid can be built and tested before the end of the year, she will have to start working on new projects after the Spring Festival. In order to apply for next year's funds before the relevant reviewers go on holiday during the Spring Festival, the project book must be written in advance.

It seems it's too late to think about what to do in the future. Qi Min opened the news interface of SCIENCE and NATURE and glanced at it twice, and saw a lot of interesting things. Unfortunately, she couldn't do anything in her current lab with nothing.

However, Qi Min saw from these websites that environmental protection is now being taken seriously, and the most common equipment in her bioinformatics laboratory is the PCR machine left behind by retired teachers. She sat in front of the computer and thought for several hours, and finally came up with a truly feasible new direction: PCR identification of microbial genes in soil samples, scoring local soil according to pollution conditions, and then using deep learning to find soil pollution. Relationship to microbiota changes.

Although this sounds a bit routine, this direction will require the collection of a lot of wet experiment data, which ordinary pure bioinformatics laboratories will not be very willing to do. Therefore, this is also an advantage for Qi Min, who has a background in wet experiments. .

While the two doctoral students were learning Python, Qi Min checked some literature in the laboratory and spent three days roughly writing the project book.

——

On the Saturday of Chen Linyou and Wang Xin's first week in the laboratory, Qi Min asked them to go back and complete a small project on protein sequence comparison using Python, and present it during the meeting on Sunday to test their learning.

Of course, all the questions have been completed. After all, this stuff can be easily found on ithub, and if they learn to find open source code from Github, this is also considered a skill. But what Qi Min wants to see is whether they can explain the principles and logic, rather than just copying tutorials or other people's codes.

Chen Linyou and Wang Xin completed this task quite well, although Qi Min knew as soon as he heard it that they must have discussed it in private, and the code they wrote was just the difference between changing the parameter names.

After both of them finished speaking, Qi Min said, "Hey, you two wrote it together, right?"

"Ah...yes, yes." Chen Linyou was stunned immediately.

However, Wang Xin was still calm and asked Qi Min: "Senior sister, how did you tell?"

"Your code is just a change of parameter name." Qi Min said with a smile, and comforted them, "I'm not saying that you can't learn from each other. You must cooperate in the same laboratory. But if it is cooperation As a result, can you tell me your personal contribution?”

Such a few lines of code should have been written by one person. For such a small workload, division of labor and cooperation are obviously uneconomical.

Qi Min originally thought that the code should be written by Chen Linyou, who has a C language foundation. However, this tall and thin young man said: "The code was originally written by Wang Xin... The structure of the loop I wrote before was wrong, and it was her I found it. Then I changed it to what it looks like now based on her code."

After hearing this, Qi Min couldn't help but be a little surprised. It seemed that the two of them discussed each other after they had finished writing the code. This kind of honest style of study is rare, especially when there is no requirement to complete it independently at all.

"Is the code you wrote before with the wrong structure still there?" Qi Min asked in passing.

Chen Linyou immediately found the original code from his notebook and projected it on the screen.

Qi Min took a look. In fact, his method was not wrong, but it was a little troublesome because it compared many positions that were not actually used for comparison, so it might be time-consuming to run. But for novices, writing code like this is normal.

"This actually works...but the one written by Wang Xin is of course better." Qi Min commented, "It seems that you have all learned to write Python, so I will send you the project book I am working on now. Look, if there’s anything you don’t understand, let’s talk about it tomorrow?”

Chen Linyou and Wang Xin nodded quickly, and the small meeting ended.

About to leave the conference room, Qi Min was about to unplug the converter port for the projector from the notebook, but Wang Xin asked: "Senior sister, would you like to have lunch together?"

Qi Min was stunned for a moment, and then said: "Okay... what do you eat?"

"We..." Wang Xin looked at Chen Linyou, who shrugged and said it didn't matter, so she suggested, "How about we order takeout?"

"Okay." Qi Min didn't care about this, but she suddenly remembered that she had promised Hua Ruiming to order takeout next time, so she said, "If we want to order takeout together, can I call someone else?"

After hearing this, Wang Xin and Chen Linyou looked at each other with ambiguous smiles.

"Of course it works, how could it not work?" Wang Xin smiled slyly.

So Qi Min sent Hua Ruiming a WeChat message, and the other party soon replied: "Okay, what kind of food do you want to eat?"

Qi Min asked two doctoral students: "What do you want to eat?"

"I can do either." Chen Linyou said.

Wang Xin thought for a while and said, "There are many of us, why don't we have pizza?"

Qi Min replied to Hua Ruiming: "I still have two people in the lab who want to eat, how about pizza?"

"Okay, take a look at this one." Hua Ruiming replied, followed by a link and another sentence, "You guys can order it."

Qi Min clicked on the link and dragged it to the projection screen, and together with Chen Linyou and Wang Xin, ordered enough food for four people.

After returning to the laboratory to wait for takeout, Hua Ruiming asked again on WeChat: "How about a game while waiting for food?"

Qi Min was a little hesitant. As the PI of the laboratory, it was not good to take the lead in playing games. Moreover, he was playing with doctoral students from other departments, and he was suspected of leading other students.

But it's impossible not to play, because it's impossible to quit playing games as a laboratory PI. No matter how bad you are, you still have to play.

Qi Min replied decisively: "Okay."

However, when she opened the chicken-eating mobile game, Chen Linyou happened to see her: "Wow, senior sister, do you also eat chicken?"

"Really?" Wang Xin immediately came to join in the fun, "Can you help me? I just started playing."

Qi Min had to lament that today's doctoral students are too courageous, and some are clamoring for the laboratory PI to take them to play games. But it was her mistake to play games in the lab first, not to mention it was the weekend, theoretically a break.

"Okay... okay." Qi Min said helplessly, "I'm not very good at playing, let's help each other."

It’s so easy to eat takeout in the laboratory. If the weather is not so good, someone will encourage you to order takeout (face covering)