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Author here!

I started writing this review in 2022, after learning about The Nobel Duel at the Frontiers in Reproduction course (Prof. Stephen Hammes mentioned it to me). At the time, both Schally and Guillemin were still alive! I worked on the review off and on for nearly 3 years. It’s a rather complex story, and I went down a lot of scientific rabbit holes in the process (such as looking into 1960s peptide purification methods).

Overall, I think the main lesson I learned is that the rivalry between Schally and Guillemin was avoidable. In other words, their “winner takes all” scientific environment was a necessary component of the rivalry, but by itself it wasn’t sufficient. After all, plenty of other endocrinologists didn’t have massive feuds. The rivalry was really driven by the combination of the scientific environment with the personalities and communication styles of the two men. If Schally and Guillemin had had a candid conversation in 1961 and agreed to work in separate areas (or, less likely, to work as equal partners), the whole feud would have never happened.

So today, if you’re feeling like someone isn’t giving you credit for your work, or is being unfair to you, reach out and talk to them before things escalate too far. Of course, this may not work, but it’s better than sending nasty letters (or these days, emails or tweets) back and forth. There will always be competition in science, but duels can be avoided.


Would you say the same of Watson-Crick/Pauling and Watson-Crick/Candlin? One was pure rivalry. The other was (to my mind) just a dick move.

Fred Hoyle famously had feuds. A lot of the Astro community couldn't work with him. I think it even extended to his grad students. He was an amazing educator and got side-tracked into bizarre theories which every now and then turn out to have a germ of truth (you could say that about extra-terrestrial sources of life in regard to precursor chemicals in the asteroid belt)

Hoyle and Martin Ryle for instance.


I don't think Watson/Crick vs. Pauling rose to the same level of animosity as this did. I'm not familiar with "Candlin", who was he/she? Or did you mean Franklin?

I think Newton vs. Leibniz would be a good comparison for the rivalry described in The Nobel Duel.


Yes I meant Franklin. Old age comes to us all (except the Jimi Hendrix club members)


/me pours one out for Jimi, Janis, Jim, Kurt, and Amy.


Great article. I have no interest at all in biology or medicine but I couldn't stop reading.


I am a biochemist and neuroscientist and also thought it was fantastic read. It's rare that someone manages to cater to both audiences this well. Kudos!



Yeah, this is definitely possible (and I'd bet the CIA et al already have this capability)


At first I thought it was about the biologist Arp Schnittger: https://scholar.google.ch/citations?user=tvLQFnwAAAAJ&hl=en


32B works well (I have 48GB Macbook Pro M3)


you’re not running r1 dude.

e: no clue why i’m downvoted for this


You are probably being downvoted because your comment is not very helpful, and also a bit rude (ending with "dude").

It would be more helpful to provide some information on why you think this person is not using R1. For example:

You are not using DeepSeek-R1, but a much smaller LLM that was merely fine-tuned with data taken from R1, in a process called "distillation". DeepSeek-R1 is huge (671B parameters), and is not something one can expect to run on their laptop.


Is this text AI-generated?


Probably. It's helpful tho, isn't it?


I actually wrote it myself.

I set a personal goal in trying to be more helpful, and after two years of effort, this is what comes out naturally. The most helpful thing that I do is probably not posting senseless things.

I do sometimes ask ChatGPT to revise my comments though (not for these two).


You have reached chatgpt level helpfulness - congrats!


Wasn't a value judgement


And it gets weirder. If you have 5 or more of something, you use the neuter singular form of verbs for it.

4 books were sitting on the shelf = Stały 5 książek na półce [feminine plural verb, which makes sense]

5 books were sitting on the shelf = Stało 5 książek na półce [neuter singular???]

As someone learning Polish this is quite confusing.


You have an error there (bad copy-paste?).

Should be "Stały 4 książki na półce".

Anyway, to make sense of the second one: treat "5 książek" as "5 of books", or "a 5-set of books"

— Four books were sitting on a shelf ("books" are plural, feminine)

— A five-set of books was sitting on a shelf ("five-set" is singular, neutral)

Now, why 5 becomes a set and 4 doesn't is not something I have a clue about.

But hope it helps grok how it affects the form of the noun being enumerated :)


Can someone please explain to me why we chose to treat one mode of transportation as the most privileged?

- Motorists are provided with massive road construction subsidies

- Motorists are provided with government-mandated parking spaces

- When a motorist hits and kills a cyclist or pedestrian, punishments are usually laxer than for other forms of manslaughter

- Public spaces and shopping areas are designed with motorists in mind

- Zoning layout of cities and suburbs presumes car ownership

- Environmental costs of driving are paid by society at large

I am all for a good drive at NASCAR, but surely the way we treat motorists is unreasonable?


Not at all, try to support the US economy on a bicycle? Without zoning laws and motoring infrastructure you will have a city of Florence, walkable - sure, but you are in a crowd of cars, pedestrians, cyclists, mopeds, etc.


Careful because if you don't build lots of roads you might end up with one of the most beautiful cities in the world.


Is Florence terrible?


Depends on if you enjoy being on time.


It's easier being on time in a walkable city, because the number of pedestrians and cyclists required to cause 'traffic' is extreme.

(I assume you mean Florence/Firenze in Italy, if there's an American city called Florence known for its lack of cars I'm unaware of it.)


Would you rather live in Phoenix, or something?


Why, do cyclists in Phoenix don't run red lights and yield to pedestrians?


In many locales, bikes are legally allowed to run red lights, if there’s no cross traffic coming. Bikes do have to yield to pedestrians, I’m not sure why you think otherwise.


Wow. Way to not even recognize how you personally benefit from road subsidies. I assume you buy groceries at a grocery store, for example.


Well said!


time to do a fractional factorial Cacio e Pepe!


My wife attempted this recipe several times over the last few years, it always turned out to be a gunky mess. Maybe this will help!


I, as a reviewer, made a similar mistake once! The author's initial version seemed to contradict one of their earlier papers but I was missing some context.


I also made this mistake! I recommended the author to read an adjacent work, which turned out to be by the very same author. He had just forgot to include it his work.


I’ve had it happen to me. Paper rejected because it was copying and not citing a prior message to a mailing list… the message from the mailing list was mine, and the paper was me turning it into a proper publication.


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