Kariko is biochemist who got her PhD in 1982 before the public internet even existed.
Number of times the words "weird", "nerd" or "autistic" appear in Kariko's memoir: 0
Number of times the word "internet" appears in the book: 3
#1 referrring to her mother ("there was nothing she couldn't find on the internet") who would call Kariko daily to keep her informed of current events because Kariko was too busy working the lab (not publishing silly ideas to a substack blog about "Weird Nerds")
#2 referring to a book about stress by an endocrinologist that she read as a teenager ... she describes how the author in 1925 noticed that many diseases have the same symptoms and comments that "anyone looking up symptoms on the internet today" would also notice this
#3 referring to a period "in the 1990s, before the dawn of the internet bubble"
Thus, Kariko appears to have achieved success without being autistic and without heavy use of the internet. In fact, she achieved success despite an "internet bubble".
Let's hope the blogger finishes her PhD despite the distractions of the internet. It is likely that the only "Weird Nerds" she has identified are an internet audience who likely worship university dropouts and who are most certainly not doing real work on real biological problems in a wet lab. Instead, they are staring at screens and playing video games.
Trying to put computer addicts that idolise university dropouts whose idea of biotech is life extension in the same category as Nobel Prize-winning biochemists who have solved real problems is pure fantasy, like computer games. But coming from web bloggers, it's not surprising.
It's also not surprising that Kariko refers to an "internet bubble". That bubble arguably needlessly diverted investment away from biotech during Kariko's career. The example she cites is gene therapy which in the 1990s was "the next big thing", only to be later overshadowed when the internet bubble arrived.
Number of times the words "weird", "nerd" or "autistic" appear in Kariko's memoir: 0
Number of times the word "internet" appears in the book: 3
#1 referrring to her mother ("there was nothing she couldn't find on the internet") who would call Kariko daily to keep her informed of current events because Kariko was too busy working the lab (not publishing silly ideas to a substack blog about "Weird Nerds")
#2 referring to a book about stress by an endocrinologist that she read as a teenager ... she describes how the author in 1925 noticed that many diseases have the same symptoms and comments that "anyone looking up symptoms on the internet today" would also notice this
#3 referring to a period "in the 1990s, before the dawn of the internet bubble"
Thus, Kariko appears to have achieved success without being autistic and without heavy use of the internet. In fact, she achieved success despite an "internet bubble".
Let's hope the blogger finishes her PhD despite the distractions of the internet. It is likely that the only "Weird Nerds" she has identified are an internet audience who likely worship university dropouts and who are most certainly not doing real work on real biological problems in a wet lab. Instead, they are staring at screens and playing video games.
Trying to put computer addicts that idolise university dropouts whose idea of biotech is life extension in the same category as Nobel Prize-winning biochemists who have solved real problems is pure fantasy, like computer games. But coming from web bloggers, it's not surprising.
It's also not surprising that Kariko refers to an "internet bubble". That bubble arguably needlessly diverted investment away from biotech during Kariko's career. The example she cites is gene therapy which in the 1990s was "the next big thing", only to be later overshadowed when the internet bubble arrived.