Ben Schulz

@benschulz.bsky.social

666 Followers 506 Following

Proteins | Sugars | Yeast | Beer | Mass Spectrometry | Professor in Biochemistry UQ. CW chickens, fungi, cats, pups.

The grand EV plan China's government decided to prioritise EVs in 2001 and developed a long-term plan that would eventually catapult the country to the forefront of the future automotive industry. The government focused on bankrolling new EV companies, giving loans to and partnering with existing companies, funding research and development programs, providing buyer rebates and tax exemptions, and building the infrastructure needed to support an electric revolution. More than $US230 billion ($328 billion) of state capital was invested into the emerging sector over a 15-year period to establish China's lead, and in the process transform China into an electric society.
But industry argues the task has been made more urgent as the Trump administration tries to bring medicine prices down in the US with a “most favoured nation” policy, which pushes drug companies to sell to the US at the lowest prices they sell at overseas. The risk is that manufacturers then avoid launching their products in smaller and lower-priced markets, such as Australia, so that they do not set a lower global baseline price.
Gemini boldly and incorrectly claiming erythrulose is red
These problems are best highlighted by detailing the farcical process through which the NHMRC has eroded the pillars that should support every credible peer review process. This includes the involvement of qualified experts. Previous grant review panels were carefully considered and assembled. Typically, about 80% of the panel (usually 12 members) were independent laboratory heads with prior grant panel experience. Remaining members were either new laboratory heads or, rarely, senior postdoctoral fellows. For training purposes, some senior postdocs were invited to serve as confidential observers, preparing them for future panels. This formative educational process for emerging leaders has now been scrapped and replaced with a YouTube-style video for junior scientists to educate themselves on peer review. In this new system, each grant is assigned to four or five anonymous reviewers whose qualifications are unknown.
QLD premier David Crisafulli is a baby in police dress up, proud of his badges for Hate Speech Laws, Police Anywhere Anytime, and Adult Crime Adult Time, messily eating a birthday cake decorated with Number 1 Cop Stan. A sticker on a traffic pole in Paddington, Brisbane.
Mayor Mamdani is proof that if your political representatives don't fix stuff, strengthen your community and make people's lives better it is simply and only because THEY DO NOT WANT TO First Dog on the Moon
For Crowley, the choice is clear. AI might make her work more efficient, but she would rather take the time to understand what she is doing. “I’m here to learn how to do things,” she adds. “I don’t think outsourcing it to a large language model is the goal of a PhD for me.”
MS/MS reporting indentification of a glycopeptide, with many non-assigned peaks
Overwhelmingly, our participants describe themselves as centrists, even when their substantive positions are economically extremely progressive. And, particularly in urban areas and among younger regional Australians, they are socially progressive as well. This self-described centrism is not an accurate ideological descriptor. It is a social positioning device: a way of signalling reasonableness in a political environment experienced as tribal and extreme - something most people hate almost more than they can articulate. Australians will argue passionately for radically progressive policies, but they want those policies explained in calm, moderate language. They reject what they perceive as activist posturing with a visceral intensity because they see it as divisive. And what they crave is community connection and a sense that they and their neighbours can just get along.
Mt Roland at dawn
Countries that don’t allow payment for plasma, such as Australia and the U.K., don’t have enough plasma-based therapies available to treat patients, making them dependent on plasma from the U.S., he said.
Elisa bravely supporting the All Blacks and Ben all fresh and happy before running
NSW Premier Minns defends police brutality
Gorgeous comb jelly
A/Prof Ben Parker on stage at Lorne Proteomics 2026
Gorgeous Lorne beach
A partially frozen Hudson River
Nirvana tour t-shirt
Perfect sand, surf beach, and sky
Fun and sweaty start to the new year
Fastest finishing Santa 🎅
Scattered clouds over gum trees
Me trying to run fast
Orienteering control on a small cliff
Site Directed Mutagenesis To mimic the negative charge of the Sia modification on ACO2, we changed the amino acid Asparagine (N) 612 to Aspartic acid (D) using site directed mutagenesis.
Elisa and Ben
g) Log-fold change of glycosylation site occupancy in cells expressing variant Stt3 with Ala scanning mutations across residues comprising Pocket 1 and 2, compared to wild type Stt3. Tm, tunicamycin; red, significantly underglycosylated compared to wild type Stt3 (p <0.05). For full details see Supplementary Material. (h) Structure of the Stt3/Ost3 complex rendered with cartoons (Stt3 white; Ost3 gold) with the residues in Pocket 1 targeted by Ala scanning shown as surface in magenta. Residues not labelled are not visible. Rendering with Visual Molecular Dynamics21 (VMD) (https://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/).(i) Glycosylation occupancy at Asn45 of wild type (WT) and Asp44Val variant (D44V) Cwp1. *, P<0.05. Aligned sequences of Cwp1_WT and Cwp1_D44V.
Gout Gout winning the 200m, no other athletes in frame
At the Beer Mile World Classic in Portugal, in late July, Bellemore broke his own world record for the beer mile, setting a time of four minutes 27.1 seconds. For reference, the fastest ever mile time is 3:43.13, set by Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco in 1999. El Guerrouj did not drink four beers during his run.
Crisafulli stated the choice to host the games in the park was clear: “It became a choice between the embarrassment of hosting the Games at QSAC (Queensland Sport and Athletic Centre) or a new stadium at Victoria Park. “The Games must be held at a new stadium at Victoria Park. “Any other choice would have meant placing the government’s interests ahead of the interests of Queensland.”
Brisbane Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner had sought to ease concerns about green space loss after Crisafulli’s announcement in March. “The construction elements that are proposed, including the stadium and the swimming complex, will only take up a fraction of the green space,” Schrinner said.
However the act which governs environmental approvals does not include provisions to consider the climate change impact of a project, and so projects cannot be approved or rejected on that basis.
Muffin or chihuahua? Lactosamine or alpha-gal?
Sunrise over the Coral Sea
Prof Nicki Packer presenting A/Prof Nick Scott with the AGS MCR award
Sweaty before Parkrun even started
Wordle statistics finally with a win in one!
IMPROVING THE SAFETY AND SECURITY OF BIOLOGICAL RESEARCH Executive Orders May 5, 2025 Sec. 8. Definitions. For the purposes of this order, “dangerous gain-of-function research” means scientific research on an infectious agent or toxin with the potential to cause disease by enhancing its pathogenicity or increasing its transmissibility. Covered research activities are those that could result in significant societal consequences and that seek or achieve one or more of the following outcomes: (a) enhancing the harmful consequences of the agent or toxin; (b) disrupting beneficial immunological response or the effectiveness of an immunization against the agent or toxin; (c) conferring to the agent or toxin resistance to clinically or agriculturally useful prophylactic or therapeutic interventions against that agent or toxin or facilitating their ability to evade detection methodologies; (d) increasing the stability, transmissibility, or the ability to disseminate the agent or toxin; (e) altering the host range or tropism of the agent or toxin; (f) enhancing the susceptibility of a human host population to the agent or toxin; or (g) generating or reconstituting an eradicated or extinct agent or toxin.
"A bill will be introduced to state parliament, giving the Games infrastructure authority power to override 15 planning laws, including the Environmental Protection, Queensland Heritage and Nature Conservation Acts."
Vote summary from Dickson predicting Dutton will lose his seat
@WhiteHouse tweet "correcting" a NYT article, calling Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia an "MS-13 Illegal Alien who's never coming back"
@WhiteHouse tweet "correcting" a NYT article, calling Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia an "MS-13 Illegal Alien who's never coming back"
Bag of Hot Cross Buns with a corner eaten by a mouse, but with all the sultanas left uneaten
Pup waiting for his little ball to be thrown on the beach
Sexiest glycoboi
Wikipedia text: The term "monopsony" (from Greek μόνος (mónos) "single" and ὀψωνεῖν (opsōneîn) "to purchase fish")[1] was first introduced by the British economist Joan Robinson
Scrub turkey high above a raging Enoggera Creek
Creek water levels getting close to the bridge into Saint Johns Wood, Brisbane
Category 2 Tropical Cyclone Alfie heading directly for southeast Queensland
Cyclone Alfie Langer, about to get up to some mischief in and around Brisbane. Stolen from Zach Mander's tiktok