Since transferring the LTEE to Jeff Barrick’s lab at UT-Austin in 2022, we’ve been going over the old lab notebooks, making sure everything looks good. It turns out, though, that I made a small error when I started the LTEE back in 1988. I thought that transferring 10 ml into 10 ml was a hundred-fold dilution because there’s a 0 right there after each of the 1s, and 100 has two zeros. QED: a hundred-fold dilution. Right?
Well, it turns out I was a bit off. That’s only a two-fold dilution because, apparently, the correct way to do the math is 10 / (10 + 10) = 2. Who knew? New math, I guess. Anyhow, everyone in the lab thought I had figured it out, since I was the perfesser, and they just kept doing the same thing all these years. So instead of 75,000 generations, it was only something like 11,250 when we sent the stupid amazing LTEE to Taxes. Oh well, still a big number.
We also discovered another tiny error. You know, I always thought some sucker hard-working student came in and did the transfers on weekends and holidays. I never quite knew who it was, but I figured someone did the unpaid work transfers. Well, it turns out, not so much. OK, never. Fridays were ok at 40%, and Mondays were even better at 53%. On Tuesdays, we maxed out at 73%. Not bad! We trailed off a tad at 59% and 47% on Wednesdays and Thursdays.
Anyhow, after correcting for these tiny oversights, the LTEE had gone past 4,300 generations before we sent it down to Taxes. Speaking of Taxes, I hope I don’t get audited again this year. But I hear you can stall if you’re a big shot. Being a PI qualifies, right?
Telliamed Revisited 