Hopeful Monster

Welcome to my newsletter - here is my monster post

Excuse me, have you heard about our lord and zzzavior? (The Fly, 1986)

Aww, baby monsters

Common Substack advice is to write a ‘hero post’ that explains what your newsletter offers. I never liked heroes¹. So, here is my monster post.

Bear with me; I promise there’s a point.

One of the first semi-academic presentations I ever gave was on the concept of hopeful monsters in evolutionary biology, popularized by German biologist Richard Goldschmidt in his 1940 book The Material Basis of Evolution. Goldschmidt thought that the small, gradual changes that are the focus of Darwin’s work were insufficient to explain the often large differences between species.

So, Goldschmidt proposed that those small, gradual changes (he called them micromutations) accounted for the variation within species, but larger, more abrupt changes (macromutations) were needed to account for the differences between species. Those macromutations would give rise to ‘hopeful monsters’. Goldschmidt’s hypothesis is a form of ‘saltational’ evolution: big leaps rather than small steps account for much of life’s diversity.

His ideas were ridiculed and today it’s pretty clear that small, gradual changes can produce large differences, especially given enough time. But, we also know that Goldschmidt wasn’t entirely wrong.

Sometimes, large evolutionary changes can happen rapidly by tweaking developmental pathways². If a small genetic change alters processes early in development, this can result in big changes in the adult form. For example, Hox genes specify the location of body parts in a growing embryo and some researchers suggest that tweaks in a mere handful of those genes might be responsible for the difference in limb number between insects and a class of crustaceans called branchiopods. Other potential hopeful monsters are centipedes and turtles, both of which evolved some of their trademark traits relatively rapidly. (With CRISPR, there may be many more hopeful monsters soon…)

These are all ‘hopeful monsters’ of the common fruit fly, generated by suppressing the activity of a single gene! (From Rutherford & Linquist. 1998. Hsp90 as a capacitor for morphological evolution. Nature. 396)

Messing around with body plans is not the brightest idea and most monsters don’t survive, hopeful or not. It only takes one, though. Because the underlying genetic changes aren’t necessarily large, these monsters could, in some cases, procreate with the less monstrous members of their species.

Aww, baby monsters.

Growing extra limbs

Why am I talking about a quirky hypothesis in evolutionary biology?

I am thinking of this newsletter as a hopeful monster, ready to grow a new limb or two. A segment, maybe. Or… sections? Applause for that smooth transition, please.

Part of me squirms. After all, you should³ find your niche and stick to it. But I know from experience that trying to cram myself into a prefab box gives me existential claustrophobia. Why not poke some holes in that box?

At the same time, posting wildly on Subtle Sparks isn’t working (maybe I’ve seen too many ‘look at how fast my newsletter is growing’ posts…). Whatever the case, I’m holding back in my writing because I want Subtle Sparks to be everything and as a result, I worry about it being too much of this or not enough of that. Paralysis by overanalysis in 3… 2…

Long story short, Subtle Sparks now has three sections (which you can think of as sub-newsletters).

• 🧠 Mindful Culture: Psychology, human behavior, and poking cultural trends. Think engagement fatigue, the introversion series, or hustle culture and the millennial curse.

• 🧬 Tangled Biobank: Dispatches from the frontiers of weird biology and unusual biotechnology. This is the newest addition. In Tangled Biobank, I’ll lean into my research background. The first section of this post is a good sneak preview. Recent posts on drug maps and tumor cities will also give you an idea.

• 🎭 Jungle Writing: Literature, creativity, and unbound curiosity. Think crappy marble, Janus, or wandering black swans. Jungle Writing is very much the domain of my inner trickster.

My post frequency will stay roughly the same at - on average - one post per week.

What does this mean for you? If you’re already a subscriber, you’re subscribed to the three sections and all is well in the world. If, after a while, you find that one or two sections don’t interest you, you can go to your settings and (un)subscribe from/to the sections you (don’t) want to receive. New subscribers can pick the whole newsletter or only a part from the get-go. For once, I’d encourage gluttony — taste all the sections and indulge. Zero calories, plenty of mental nutrition. Win-win.

As all gym rats know, managing volume is the key to working out (or writing) often. Having different sections lets me switch from one type of writing to another — I’ve been aching to write some more biology and biotechnology stuff. Don’t worry, your inbox won’t be bloated any further; I know that tens of thousands of hopeful (ha!) newsletters and other outlets clamor for your attention. I need to, as they say in business town, add value, not volume⁴.

The tricky part

Monsters need love too. Unfortunately, I’m not TikTok’s favorite 6’5” blue-eyed trust fund guy in finance⁵. Maybe that’s good. That guy sounds kind of… boring?

I’m not worried about running out of ideas. Ideas are (almost) never the problem. Time and especially motivation are the beasts our monster shall grapple with. Ideally, selfishly, I want Subtle Sparks to grow — anything short of world domination is a failure, my inner critic tells me (he’s a fun guy). Growth and interaction motivate me to put in the effort and create something you enjoy; a word or two that reaches through the screen and offers a sense of kinship, perhaps. Or an intriguing essay about a quirk of biology or a weird biotech advance.

This brings us to the boss fight. Normally, this is where the monsters die.

Paid subscriptions. *gasp*

This is a struggle for me. On the one hand, I try (and consistently fail) to convince myself that my time and efforts have value. On the other, I don’t know how to approach paid subscriptions. I could offer something unique or extra to paid subscribers, but the point of finding sparkly ideas in wonky rabbit holes is to share them with you. On the third hand (monster, remember?), what is the value of something you give away for free at the cost of your own time and energy? For now, I’m thinking of paywalling some parts of the posts that take the most time and effort (roughly one in four).

(If you are a student, single parent, or are currently unemployed and you’d like but can’t afford a paid subscription, let me know, and I’ll update your subscription behind the scenes, no questions asked.)

But I don’t know. So let me ask you.

Open question: if you are a free or new subscriber and you’re on the fence about a paid subscription, what could push you off that fence? I promise a soft, cuddly landing. (If you’re not at all considering it, your thoughts are, of course, also welcome.)

1. I have *thoughts* about character archetypes.

2. If you’re interested in evolutionary developmental biology - evo-devo for insiders - I highly recommend Sean B. Carroll’s 2005 book Endless Forms Most Beautiful. Even though we’ve learned a lot since it came out, it remains one of the most eye-opening popular science books I’ve ever read.

3. Atchoo! Sorry, my ‘should’ allergy acted up.

4. ATCHOO!

5. Look at me, swooping along with the trendy people.