In today’s New York Times, I have a feature about the X chromosome. The X chromosome is one of those things that we learn about early on in school, and yet it still contains mysteries–ones that potentially have a direct impact on our health. Men have one X chromosome and one Y, while women have two X’s. This imbalance has led to all sorts of remarkable things–most remarkable of which is the fact that women shut down one of their X chromosomes–but which chromosome (mom or dad’s) depends on the cell.
Category: Blog
It’s always a pleasure to talk with Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich and their crew at the show Radiolab. For their latest episode, “Black Box,” we talked about the mystery of consciousness and how I got in an argument with my anesthesiologist before I had my appendix taken out.
I’ve embedded the whole episode here:
Daniella Perry writes,
This is an image of a hawk moth and Darwin’s orchid. It spoke to me for its history, beauty, and simplicity, as well as its significance in demonstrating the predictive power of Darwin’s theory of evolution by means of natural selection. This orchid (Angraecum sesquipedale) is endemic to Madagascar and has an unusually long spur (20-35cm), where it keeps its nectar. Charles Darwin predicted in 1862 that even though a moth with an equally lengthy proboscis had not yet been discovered, one must exist in order to pollinate the orchid. Continue reading “The Predicted Tattoo (Science Ink Sunday)”
Influenza strikes every year, but every flu season is rife with uncertainty. In other words, it’s a lot like the weather–important to our lives, and hard to predict. For my new “Matter” column for the New York Times, I take a look at how flu researchers are borrowing the tools of weather forecasting to look into the future–with increasing accuracy. Check it out.
Travel back far enough in your genealogy, and you will run into a fish.
Before about 370 million years ago, our ancestors were scaly creatures that lived in the sea, swimming with fins and using gills to get oxygen from the water. And then, over the course of millions of years, they began moving ashore, adapting to the terrestrial realm. They became tetrapods, a lineage that would eventually produce today’s amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. As scientists have unearthed fossils from those early days, one lesson has come through ever more loud and clear: the transition was not a single leap. Instead, it was drawn out and piecemeal. Continue reading “How We Got On Land, Bone by Bone”