Author: Matt Kristoffersen

Friday’s Elk, March 3, 2017

Posted on by Matt Kristoffersen

I’m writing to you from the lovely town of La Jolla, California, where I’m participating in Future of Genomic Medicine, a meeting where scientists are talking about how sequencing our DNA is going to affect our lives. I gave a talk yesterday about the experience of getting my genome sequenced. If you’re on Twitter, you can read about the presentations under the hashtag #FOGM17.

From here, I’m heading to Palo Alto. If you live anywhere near Stanford University, please consider joining me for a talk at 1 pm on Monday, March 6, in McCaw Hall. I’m giving the keynote address at the annual meeting of the Stanford Center for Computational, Evolutionary and Human Genomics. Details here. Continue reading “Friday’s Elk, March 3, 2017” →

Friday’s Elk, February 17, 2017

Posted on by Matt Kristoffersen

Greetings! Here’s a quick update since the last Friday’s Elk.

1. The oceans contain vast underwater prairies known as seagrass meadows. For my column this week in the New York Times, I write about the remarkable services they provide to us–including killing off disease-causing bacteria. Maybe if we come to appreciate their value, we’ll stop destroying them at the rate of a football field every thirty minutes. (Image: prilfish via Creative Commons)

2. Why do we sleep? For my previous “Matter” column, I write about scientists who are inspecting the molecular changes that occur in the brain when we doze. Their results suggest that we prune away some connections between our neurons–sharpening our memories, as it were. Continue reading “Friday’s Elk, February 17, 2017” →

Friday’s Elk, January 22, 2017

Posted on by Matt Kristoffersen

Greetings! I have just a couple notes for you in this issue of Friday’s Elk.

1. Earlier this week, I published a column in the New York Times about the awful state of our fellow primates. Many species are dangerously close to extinction, due to human activity across the planet. If we want to save them, the time is now.

2. If you’re going to the Rancho Mirage Writers Festival this coming weekend, please join me on Saturday at 3:40 pm and on Sunday at 12:40 pm. I’ll be talking about the dangers of viruses, both old and new. Continue reading “Friday’s Elk, January 22, 2017” →

Friday’s Elk, January 6, 2017

Posted on by Matt Kristoffersen

Happy 2017! (I confess, I had to correct that from “2016” just before sending this out.)

This week I wrote a column about migrations. There’s something endlessly fascinating about migratory animals: namely, the huge amount of things we don’t understand about them. We’re not sure how they manage to make the same journeys every year. Sometimes it’s hard to know why they bother. Sometimes we don’t even quite know the course they take. Continue reading “Friday’s Elk, January 6, 2017” →

The Man Who Kicked Off the Biotech Revolution

Posted on by Matt Kristoffersen

Nautilus, January 5, 2017

Link

It’s hard to tell precisely how big a role biotechnology plays in our economy, because it infiltrates so many parts of it. Genetically modified organisms such as microbes and plants now create medicine, food, fuel, and even fabrics. Recently, Robert Carlson, of the biotech firm Biodesic and the investment firm Bioeconomy Capital, decided to run the numbers and ended up with an eye-popping estimate. He concluded that in 2012, the last year for which good data are available, revenues from biotechnology in the United States alone were over $324 billion.

“If we talk about mining or several manufacturing sectors, biotech is bigger than those,” said Carlson. “I don’t think people appreciate that.”

Continue reading “The Man Who Kicked Off the Biotech Revolution” →