Inception is real. At least that’s what the interwebs have been saying this week. A lab at MIT headed by Nobel prize winner, Susumu Tonegawa, has implanted a memory in mouse’s brain. What they did was really cool but it’s definitely nothing like Inception. Continue reading “Inception for Mice”
Meet the Tuatara
The tuatara is often referred to as a living fossil because his buddies went extinct around 100 million years. They live in New Zealand and there are two species.
There have been reports of tuataras living up to 200 years. Henry the proud new father in the video below is 111!
“Meet the…” is a collaboration between The Finch & Pea and Nature Afield to bring Nature’s amazing creatures into your home.
Having your cake and eating it: more arguments over human genome function
My fellow F&P publican Josh Witten has drawn my attention to a rebuttal (PDF) of Graur et al’s rebuttal of claims made by ENCODE.
The authors, John Mattick and Marcel Dinger of the University of New South Wales, advance various claims to dispute the idea that most of the genome is non-functional, but here I’ll just focus on one:
We also show that polyploidy accounts for the higher than expected genome sizes in some eukaryotes, compounded by variable levels of repetitive sequences of unknown significance.
Uh, yeah. That’s the resolution to the C-value paradox, and it’s one reason why people argue that repetitive sequences, i.e. transposable elements, are, contra claims about ENCODE data, largely non-functional – because their numbers vary greatly between species with a similar biology. As Doolittle writes:
A balance between organism-level selection on nuclear structure and cell size, cell division times and developmental rate, selfish genome-level selection favoring replicative expansion, and (as discussed below) supraorganismal (clade-level) selective processes—as well as drift— must all be taken into account.
Reading into the paper, how is it possible that the following claims by Mattick and Dinger don’t contradict each other? Continue reading “Having your cake and eating it: more arguments over human genome function”
The Art of Science: Peter Trevelyan’s Delicate Geometry
As an artist looking at other people’s work, I am always intrigued by artists doing things that I couldn’t possibly do myself. Things, for example, requiring extraordinary patience, dexterity and complicated geometry. Things like the work of New Zealand artist Peter Trevelyan, who makes “built drawings” – fragile, airy sculptures made of fine graphite rods (the lead from mechanical pencils) held together with glue.
Trevelyan’s work is informed by a broad range of influences. His interest in mathematics, drawing and architecture are evident in his sculptures. Less obvious, perhaps, is his fascination with theories of social systems. Some of his sculptures look at social systems as a collection of individual decisions – each individual pencil lead – which combine to form a structure that can be symmetrical and beautiful or oddly misshapen and rather menacing.
You can find more images and information on the website of Trevelyan’s gallery, Bartley + Company.
Whale watching near Tadoussac
When the weather is warm enough – between May and October – whales will swim from the North Atlantic into the Gulf of St Lawrence, and upstream into the St Lawrence river. They get about as far as Tadoussac. At this point, the river is still very wide. Wide enough even for blue whales.
When it gets colder, the whales return to the ocean, but from May until October, Tadoussac is host to whales – and several companies stationed there organise whale watching trips.
I started a 4-month lab project in Quebec City in October 2000, so at the very end of whale season some other Dutch students and I went on a day trip to Tadoussac. Continue reading “Whale watching near Tadoussac”
The Finch and Pea 