Holidays, Hope, and Hacking: December
Read to see some learnings from the past month, some stuff I've done, and to (hopefully) gain some value recommendation-wise.
Hey!
Who’s Santa’s favorite singer? Elf-is Present-ly. :))
Welcome back to my newsletter. Hope you had a fun December.
For those who don't know, I'm Nina Khera. You may have met me during a meeting, or at the latest networking event in Boston. I'm a 15-year-old human longevity researcher who's working on projects from topics spanning cellular senescence (zombie cells) to epidermolysis bullosa (skin disease)!
This month I’ve focused on Biotein, focused on school as per usual, went to a conference, and worked with Youth STEM Matters on a cool new training project for the organization.
——
Biotein
This month, we continued our delta experiments (the bane of our existence right now is reagent delivery times), made content, and did a ton of prospective user interviews! We wanted to find out what users really wanted in a product to hone in on what we should keep and of which features we should get rid.
It was really interesting + helpful to do the interviews so far, as we’ve figured out what people care about most (and least!) which has helped us refine our product. Sign up for one (it would be very helpful) here. We’ve also brought on Dr. Collin Ewald as an advisor to help us out with experiment design and making our product comprehensive.
We also made a *snazzy* landing page for prospective beta testers: see here. If you’re interested/maybe interested in beta testing, sign up!
——
Mindsets and Philosophy
Here are some thoughts I’ve been having!
Relationships are sort of like flowers. You can’t overwater or underwater. If you overwater first only to underwater later, the flower will die. If you underwater first only to overcompensate and overwater later, the flower will also die. And having a bunch of dead flowers in your garden is not fun. That’s why it’s important not to have superfluous relationships. Don’t pollute your garden with a bunch of dead or near-dead flowers. I think it’s best to have a few flowers but water them well, as it takes effort to water each one. And you have to keep in mind that someone needs to give them ‘flower food’ daily. If another person isn’t giving the food or giving it inconsistently, they clearly don’t care. You should just put the flower away.
I feel like personality tests are self-fulfilling prophecies and very general (sort of like horoscopes). You can’t put people into boxes. We are 3D fluid beings. And that’s okay! But it’s comfortable for us to label and put ourselves into boxes because our brain works in organization. We don’t like chaos. This creates a fundamental disconnect with the world we live in, that literally tends toward chaos. Whether I am an INFJ, ESFP, Open, Agreeable, etc, I will change in the next second. Also the results are very general. Yes I consider myself Open but all my neighbors do too. And I could find traits of non-openness in myself. So what am I? Not sure but I know I’ll find myself to be anything tests assign me to be.
——
Knowledge Bytes
Here are some recommendations from the month!
- Meditative activity: Crochet/knitting. Super fun and also gives you something to do with your hands!
- Awesome source of head-racking proofs: Challenging Problems in Geometry by Alfred Posamentier. So many good geometrical proofs here! An Algebra version here.
- Interesting coding problems: Project Euler. I’m on problem 51!
——
Shoutouts
Here are some fun shoutouts:
The Biotein team for being an awesome and lively team! I’ve really enjoyed all our ideation/thinking sessions together and also our game nights :).
1517 Fund for giving us helpful feedback as always at our latest updates-sync! The feedback on interviews, marketing, and priorities was all super appreciated.
Ross from Solcraft Medical (biodegradeable pregnancy tests) for giving so much help re: eco-friendliness of our Biotein test!
Dr. Andrews and Ms. Parrish for being so kind and willing to chat + all of your advice!
Thank you to everyone reading this. Even if I didn't mention you this month. you probably helped me a lot. Thank you!
——
Next Month
In January, I’ll be working more on developing Biotein’s bio-age test, continuing on school, coding, writing more for YSM, and more! Also, wow. It’s the end of 2021. That’s crazy.
Reach out to me if you want to talk about human longevity (or just life sciences in general) or anything else honestly!
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nina-khera-115b5a175/
Personal Website: https://ninakhera.com/
Email: kheranina@gmail.com (or just reply to this email)