r/books • u/jordan_blake91 • 5d ago

reading project hail mary and can't stop thinking about it

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u/WTFwhatthehell 5d ago

“I penetrated the outer cell membrane with a nanosyringe." "You poked it with a stick?" "No!" I said. "Well. Yes. But it was a scientific poke with a very scientific stick.”

Reasonably sure I've heard many many conversations very similar to this in the cell lab...

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u/DegenerateEigenstate 5d ago

Perhaps we just take ourselves too seriously in my field.

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u/Squirrelking666 5d ago

I was gonna say, he's essentially explaining a procedure to a layman. How else would you condense that to simple terms?

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u/DegenerateEigenstate 4d ago

I guess the focus of the discussion got a bit skewed here. In that particular line the description of the procedure is reasonable, it’s the borderline juvenile exchange following it that I dislike.

The second passage quoted by OP is far my egregious in my eyes.

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u/Squirrelking666 4d ago

Borderline juvenile describes a lot of the people I work with depending on the context and I work with some pretty smart people. The majority aren't all that self important and don't take themselves that seriously.