Is free will just the illusion that we can decide which tapeworm to obey? Daniel Cressey at Nature on how “When two parasites want different things, only one can triumph.” “In October, a woman in Guinea died of Ebola, leaving behind two daughters, one of them two years old, the other five. A relative named Aminata Gueye Tamboura […]
Science has some surprising roadblocks. There are the expected obstacles, ones that are easy to grasp- the contaminated cell culture, the mislabeled reagent, the power outage in the middle of a crucial gel’s run. All of these things fall under the heading of ‘shit happens’. They are inevitable, the risk they will occur can be […]
Friend of the blog Luis Rocha wrote a very critical (but concise) review of the Alan Turing biopic The Imitation Game, which included inaccuracies he reports based on personal conversations with one of the Bletchley Park code breakers portrayed in the film: “I had the great fortune of speaking with Peter Hilton a few times in real life. […]
“The Twitter version of plant science history might say agriculture invented, Mendel experimented with pea plants, and GMOs get planted.” Apparently there’s more. Ian Street at his blog The Quiet Branches on the history of plant science. There is no “I” in TEAM, CANCER, or TUMOR. Coincidence? Carl Zimmer at the New York Times doesn’t […]
As my fan (wassup Oscar?), my stalker (restraining order still in effect), and my Mom (hi Mom!) may have noticed, I’ve been away for a couple of weeks. It’s the kind of timeframe that usually signals a blog’s demise- and I should know, I’ve buried a few. Rest assured: OT is not in a shallow, […]