UGB Chapter 1435 This feeling is very strange
Chapter 1435 This feeling is very strange
Chapter 1435 This feeling is very strange
In the animal room, Fritz was grooming M7.
Yang Ping pushed open the door and entered. Fritz immediately stood up, gripping the comb tightly in his hand like a child who had done something wrong. Fritz was the zookeeper, but every time Yang Ping came to the animal enclosure, he would go directly to him instead of the student on duty.
Yang Ping said, "Continue!"
Fritz hesitated for a moment, then squatted down again. M7 was lying in the cage with its eyes half-open. When it saw Yang Ping, its ears twitched, but it didn't raise its head. It was enjoying being groomed and didn't want to be interrupted.
Yang Ping squatted down to be at eye level with M7.
"How was your day?" he asked Fritz, his eyes fixed on the bandage on M7's hind leg.
“He ate well,” Fritz said. “He woke up at three in the morning, and I gave him water. He ate half a banana at seven and three grapes at nine.”
"excretion?"
"normal."
"Sleep?"
“It’s been intermittent,” Fritz said, “but it adds up to fourteen hours.”
Yang Ping nodded and gently pressed M7's instep. M7's leg twitched slightly, not as a reflex, but as a slight attempt to avoid it, indicating that the sensory pathways were recovering, and that this recovery was conscious.
“Professor Weber,” Yang Ping said without turning his head, “you’ve come to see.”
Weber came up from behind and squatted down next to Yang Ping. His knees weren't very good, and he hissed softly as he squatted down, but he didn't complain.
“An avoidance reaction,” Yang Ping said, “first appeared on the thirty-fifth day after surgery.”
Weber stared at M7's leg for a long time. Then he reached out and pressed down, with more force than Yang Ping had. M7's leg twitched again, this time with a greater amplitude, accompanied by a low groan.
“It’s not a reflex,” Weber said, his voice strained, “it’s a perception; it knows we’re touching it, and it doesn’t like it.”
“Yes,” Yang Ping said, “this means that both Aδ and C fibers are recovering, but recovering too quickly isn’t necessarily a good thing.”
“Central sensitization,” Weber interjected, “is a precursor to hyperalgesia.”
Yang Ping glanced at him, a hint of approval in his eyes. Before Weber arrived, he had worried that the Nobel laureate would put on airs and boss him around. But after three months, Weber's performance had exceeded his expectations. It wasn't just polite "cooperation"; he genuinely treated Yang Ping as a member of the team, arguing when necessary and obeying when required.
"What's your judgment?" Yang Ping asked.
“Optogenetics systems need to be started early,” Weber said. “We can’t wait until the end of the fourth week; we should intervene by the end of the third week. The time window is narrower than we thought.”
“Just as I predicted,” Yang Ping stood up, brushing the dust off his knees. “Tang Shun!”
Tang Shun walked in through the door. He hadn't actually gone far; he had been keeping watch in the corridor.
“Professor,” he said.
"Notify Eva to start the light stimulation program ahead of schedule tomorrow," Yang Ping said. "Move the original schedule forward by seventy-two hours. You personally monitor the electrophysiological data, recording it every two hours. Call me immediately if there are any abnormalities."
“Understood,” Tang Shun said, taking out his phone and starting to take notes. “Anything else?”
“Also,” Yang Ping paused, “have Hans and Lina run the proteomics data again, focusing on the isoform distribution of BDNF. I suspect the previous antibody wasn’t specific enough and might have missed a certain subtype.”
"it is good."
“Professor Weber,” Yang Ping turned to Weber, “how much longer will it take for your team to debug their equipment?”
“The coupling efficiency of the fiber optic array has reached 85 percent,” Weber said, “but there are still issues with the heat dissipation of the LED module. After four hours of continuous operation, the temperature rises by two degrees Celsius, which may affect the activity of the NpHR.”
"Can this be resolved?"
“Give me two days,” Weber said. “I’ll redesign the heatsink.”
“One day,” Yang Ping said, “I need to see a record of six hours of stable operation by tomorrow night.”
Weber paused for a moment, then nodded. "One day."
Tang Shun relayed Yang Ping's instructions, and the entire research institute, like a sophisticated machine, began to turn its gears.
When Eva received the call, she was packing her luggage in her dorm room. She had planned to use this rare weekend to buy a new oscilloscope. After listening to Tang Shun's words, she simply said "Okay," hung up the phone, pushed her suitcase under the bed, changed into her white lab coat, and headed to the laboratory.
Hans and Lina were eating noodles in the cafeteria when they received a notification. Hans pushed the remaining half bowl of noodles aside, while Lina took out her laptop from her bag and turned it on as she walked.
"Director Tang said the data needs to be run again," Hans muttered. "Didn't we just run it last week?"
“Professor Yang doubts the antibody's specificity,” Lina said, her eyes fixed on the screen. “This means that all previous conclusions may have to be overturned.”
"all?"
“Everything,” Lina said. “If any isoform of BDNF is missed, the entire signaling pathway model has to be rebuilt.”
Hans sighed, but didn't slow his pace. He had worked with Weber in Germany for five years and had seen Weber lose his temper—when papers were rejected, experiments failed, or young people made mistakes. But in the three months he had been in China, he hadn't seen Yang Ping lose his temper. Yang Ping didn't get angry; he would just look at you, his gaze indifferent, and say, "Redo it." Those two words were more powerful than Weber slamming his fist on the table.
“Lina,” Hans suddenly said, “who do you think is more capable, Professor Yang or Professor Weber?”
Lina paused for a moment.
"In terms of academic standing, whether it's academic status or research capabilities..." she said.
She didn't finish speaking, but Hans understood.
Back in Germany, Weber was a figure at the very top, someone everyone looked up to. But here, at the Sanbo Institute, Weber was someone who looked up to Yang Ping. This wasn't just politeness; it was genuine. Hans had personally witnessed Weber emailing Yang Ping to ask about a technical detail; he had also seen Weber argue heatedly with Yang Ping in group meetings because of differing opinions, only to ultimately say, "Professor Yang, you're right, I'll reconsider."
Weber had never shown this kind of attitude in Germany.
In the laboratory, Weber was working under a microscope, a tiny file in his hand, modifying the structure of a heat sink. His fingers were large, but his movements were precise, each cut landing precisely where it should.
“Carl,” Elena placed a piece of apple pie beside him, “eat first.”
“Wait a minute,” Weber said without looking up, “there are still three surfaces to fix.”
"Professor Yang wants you to finish it in one day?"
"right!"
"What would you have done if you encountered a deadline like this when you were in Germany?"
Weber stopped what he was doing and thought for a moment.
He said, "In Germany, I would tell the person who sets the deadline that it's impossible; it takes three days, exactly three days."
"And here?"
“Here,” Weber picked up an apple pie, took a bite, “I said one day, and I mean one day. Because if Yang Ping says one day, then it really is one day. It’s not that he’s forcing me; it’s just that we really only have one day.”
Elena looked at him, at the man who had been with her for forty-seven years. His hair was completely white, and the age spots on his hands were increasing, but his eyes were still bright, as bright as a young man's.
“You’ve changed,” she said. “Changed?”
“In Germany, you were the king,” Elena said. “Here, you’re a student, but you seem…happier.”
Weber slowed his chewing. He looked at the heat sink under the microscope, at the intricate patterns, and suddenly smiled.
“Because here,” he said, “I don’t need to be king; I just need to do this well.”
He pointed to the heatsink: "Fix it, get the LEDs working steadily, and stop the M7 from hurting. It's that simple."
"Simple?"
“Yes, it’s simple,” Weber said. “In Germany, I had to consider funding, promotions, paper rankings, and academic politics. Here, Yang Ping only asks me one thing: can I do it well? If I can, I do it; if I can’t, I say so. There’s no middle ground.”
Do you like this simplicity?
“I love this simplicity, and the key is that it’s so simple, yet it’s doing something truly great,” Weber said, before continuing to eat his apple pie and file the heat sink.
Elena didn't say anything more. She gently patted Weber's back, just like she had patted the young researcher who had just finished organizing the data and was slumped in his chair at the university in Heidelberg forty-seven years ago.
At 7 p.m., Tang Shun knocked on Yang Ping’s office door.
"Come in," Yang Ping's voice came from inside.
Tang Shun pushed open the door and saw Yang Ping standing in front of the whiteboard, holding a marker and drawing a complex timeline diagram. The whiteboard was already covered with drawings, various colored lines intertwined like a giant net.
“Professor,” Tang Shun said, “Eva’s data is in.”
"explain!"
"After early initiation of photostimulation, the dorsal horn discharge frequency of M7 decreased from 12 Hz to 4 Hz, stabilizing within the normal range. The tactile threshold recovered from 0.2 gf to 0.6 gf, and the pain threshold recovered from 10 g to 13 g."
“The direction is right,” Yang Ping said without looking back, “but it’s not enough. 0.6 grams is still below the normal value, indicating that sensitization is still present.”
"Eva suggested increasing the frequency of light stimulation from once per hour to once every half hour."
“No,” Yang Ping shook his head, “the frequency is too high, and NpHR will become desensitized. Just like the GABA_A receptor, continuous activation leads to diminishing returns.”
"And what are your thoughts?"
Yang Ping put down his marker and turned around. There were deep shadows under his eyes, but his gaze remained clear, like two lamps in the dead of night.
“My idea,” he said, “is not to increase the frequency, but to increase the precision.”
"Precision?"
“Yes,” Yang Ping walked back to his desk and took out a manuscript from the drawer. “This is something I had someone write yesterday—a new closed-loop algorithm. It’s not a simple threshold trigger; it’s predictive triggering. Based on the electrical activity pattern of M7 over the past ten minutes, it predicts its discharge trend for the next five minutes, intervening in advance instead of waiting for an anomaly to occur before taking remedial action.”
Tang Shun took the manuscript and quickly glanced through it. His brows furrowed deeper and deeper, finally stopping at a particular page.
“This algorithm…” he looked up, “requires processing a huge amount of data in real time, and our existing equipment might not be able to handle it.”
“That’s why we need you,” Yang Ping said. “You’re the lab director; you’ll handle the equipment.”
"I can apply to purchase a new GPU cluster, but the approval process will take at least two weeks..."
“We can’t wait two weeks,” Yang Ping said. “Use the existing resources to optimize. Compress the data dimensions, simplify the model, sacrifice a little accuracy for real-time performance.”
"How much precision should be sacrificed?"
"No more than five percent," Yang Ping said. "If it exceeds five percent, the prediction becomes meaningless."
Tang Shun remained silent for a moment. A 5% loss of accuracy is an extremely demanding requirement in engineering, meaning he had to walk a tightrope between the algorithm and the hardware, and the slightest mistake could lead to a complete collapse.
"Are you having difficulties?" Yang Ping asked.
“Yes,” Tang Shun said honestly, “but it can be done.”
"how long?"
“Forty-eight hours,” Tang Shun said. “Give me forty-eight hours, and I’ll produce a working version.”
"Then forty-eight hours!"
“I did it,” he said, his voice a little strained.
“Go ahead,” Yang Ping said. “I’ll stay here. Contact me anytime if you need anything.”
Weber completed the modification of the heat sink.
He installed the LED module on the test bench, connected the power supply, and set it to run continuously for six hours. For the first four hours, the temperature remained stable at 35 degrees Celsius without rising. In the fifth hour, the temperature rose to 36 degrees Celsius, but was still within a safe range. In the sixth hour, the temperature dropped back to 35.5 degrees Celsius, indicating that the heat sink's thermal capacity had come into play, and the peak temperature period had passed.
Weber recorded the data and sent it to Yang Ping's email. Then he leaned back in his chair and let out a long sigh.
Mannstein walked in through the door, carrying two cups of tea.
"Finished?" He handed one of the cups to Weber.
“It’s done,” Weber said, taking the tea, taking a sip, and frowning. “The taste is weird!”
“Chinese tea is all like this, it’s quite delicious,” Mainstein said. “It’s just that you’re not used to it yet?”
“You’ll get used to it,” Weber said, taking another sip. “It’s alright!”
Mannstein sat down next to Weber, looking at the small LED module on the test bench. The yellow indicator light blinked in the darkness, like a distant star.
"Professor Weber, I didn't know you knew about this stuff?"
"Of course, a researcher's knowledge cannot be limited to just one point; otherwise, it's difficult to stimulate imagination."
"You came to China, moved your lab here, and worked for Yang Ping... Do you regret it?"
Weber turned his head and looked at Mainstein.
"Maninstein, do you know what people call me in Germany?"
“Professor Weber,” Mainstein said, “or, Nobel laureate Weber.”
“Yes,” Weber nodded, “when they called me, there was distance in their eyes. They respected me, but they didn’t dare to come closer.”
"Here, Yang Ping calls me Professor Weber, Tang Shun calls me Teacher Weber, and Fritz calls me Mr. Weber, but no one calls me a Nobel laureate."
"Do you care?"
“I do care,” Weber said, “but what I care about more is that when they call me, there’s not that distance in their eyes. They look at me like I’m someone they can work with, not a statue they have to look up to. I’ve found real ease here, something truly pure.”
"Yes, me too. Sometimes it's a strange feeling. Maybe it's because Professor Yang is too strong, while everyone else is just an ordinary person."
"Perhaps!"