Top all-time · #8449
Claus Wilke
Personal blog · blog.genesmindsmachines.comsciencedataai
Claus Wilke writes Genes, Minds, Machines, a personal blog at blog.genesmindsmachines.com about science, data and ai. Since 2025, 9 different Hacker News readers have linked it 13 times, most often “I'm sorry, you're not going to die from an AI-engineered supervirus”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-09-15, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (6) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Commenters mostly link to later parts of his posts arguing that Python is not a great language for data science, plus pieces on AI-engineered supervirus risk and CRISPR-like editing of mitochondrial DNA.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 6 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Genes, Minds, Machines: Thoughts about Science, Communication, and AI. A newsletter covering topics in biology, data visualization, effective communication, AI, and higher education.
Most-linked posts?
- /p/python-is-not-a-great-language-for-2e02 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2025-11-25
- I'm sorry, you're not going to die from an AI-engineered supervirus2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2026-08-31
- If your random seed is 42 I will come to your office2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-10-23
What Hacker News says?
The second part of the article is right here: https://blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/python-is-not-a-great-...
Comment linking /p/python-is-not-a-great-language-for-2e0
on “Python is not a great language for data science”Submitted Python is not a great language for data science as a story · 346 points
HN discussionThe 'sequel' is also online: https://blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/python-is-not-a-great-...
Comment linking /p/python-is-not-a-great-language-for-2e0
on “Python is not a great language for data science”Submitted I'm sorry, you're not going to die from an AI-engineered supervirus as a story · 86 points
HN discussionPart 2 is here: https://blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/python-is-not-a-great-...
Comment linking /p/python-is-not-a-great-language-for-2e0
on “Python is not a great language for data science”Submitted I'm sorry, you're not going to die from an AI-engineered supervirus as a story · 8 points
HN discussionMany misconceptions here, let's clear them up: > if there are other genes between the ends that are cut I think what you're saying is that if two sites on the same chromosome are cut, then everything in between is deleted. However, this isn't going to happen in practice. DNA repair systems will rejoin the cut DNA ends rapidly, just erroneously (with maybe a few dozen missing/incorrect bases typically). If the cut si…
Comment linking /p/we-still-cant-predict-much-of-anything
on “CRISPR-like tools that finally can edit mitochondria DNA”Submitted LLMs excel at programming–how can they be so bad at it? as a story · 3 points
HN discussionhttps://blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/im-sorry-youre-not-goi...
Comment linking /p/im-sorry-youre-not-going-to-die-from
on “AI could kill all humans in next decade, warn experts”Submitted We still can't predict much of anything in biology as a story · 3 points
HN discussion> There is simply no good reason to believe that AI will magically be able to work around these fundamental tradeoffs of biology, that it could somehow design a virus with the lethality of H5N1 influenza but the contagiousness of H3N2. The basic science required to build such a thing has not been done. When people believe that AI could figure this out on its own, without first running extensive and expensive basic s…
Comment linking /p/no-alphafold-has-not-completely-solved
on “I'm sorry, you're not going to die from an AI-engineered supervirus”Submitted If your random seed is 42 I will come to your office as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted If your random seed is 42 I set your computer on fire (2025) as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
