A pair of papers from the lab of Fred Gage has provided new insights into the molecular and cellular processes affected in Rett syndrome. This syndrome is associated with arrested development and autistic features. It affects mainly girls, who typically show normal development until around age two, followed by a sudden and dramatic deterioration of […]

An amazing study just published in Cell starts out with fruit flies insensitive to pain and ends up with what looks very like a synaesthetic mouse. Penninger and colleagues were interested in the mechanisms of pain sensation and have been using the fruit fly as a model to investigate the underlying biological processes. Like any […]

On a recent BHTV Jeff Sharlet and Amy Sullivan discuss a recent trend in the conception of Islam among the military: As I listened to them I got really annoyed. It is not accurate to say that Islam is an ideology and not a religion, but it is also not without foundation. Many Muslims would […]

I have previously written several posts on the work of George Price. This one contained general reflections on Price’s reputation; this one attempted to explain how he arrived at the first (1970) form of his famous equation; this one did the same for the later (1972) version of the equation; and this one one attempted […]