Greetings–
Don’t check your calendar. It is, indeed, Saturday, not Friday. As I was getting ready to put together this newsletter yesterday, I got a call from an editor who needed a story done fast. Everything had to go by the wayside, including Friday’s Elk. Continue reading “Friday’s Elk, January 30, 2016”
The New York Times, January 29, 2016
The San Diego Archaeology Center holds a pair of extraordinary skeletons. Dating back about 9,500 years, they are among the oldest human remains ever found in the Americas.
A number of scientists would love to study the bones, using powerful new techniques to extract any surviving DNA.
“These skeletons of such antiquity are so important for helping us understand what happened in the past in North America,” said Brian Kemp, a molecular anthropologist at Washington State University.
Continue reading “Tribes’ Win in Fight for La Jolla Bones Clouds Hopes for DNA Studies”
Greetings–
In advance of the blizzard coming to my part of the world (and maybe yours), here are a couple stories, a video, and even a podcast for your wintry enjoyment:
The cancer “moonshot” that Obama announced at his State of the Union address last week was the last of three high-profile projects in biomedicine he’s personally unveiled over the past three years. At Stat, I get some prominent scientists to gaze into their crystal ball and figure out what kind of legacy Obama is leaving behind with these trio of initiatives. One important lesson: actual moonshots are really expensive.
The New York Times, January 21, 2016
When you learned about genes in high school, chances are it went something like this:
Our DNA holds about 20,000 protein-coding genes. To make a protein, a cell makes a copy of the corresponding gene, in the form of a single-stranded molecule called RNA. The cell uses the RNA molecule as a template to make the protein. And then the protein floats off to do its job.
That’s certainly true. But there’s more to the story.
STAT, January 18, 2016
To anyone who follows science, President Barack Obama’s announcement of a “moonshot” to cure cancer last week brought on a strong sense of déjà vu. It was, in fact, the third time in less than three years that he has launched a high-profile effort to solve a complex biomedical problem.
A year ago, in his 2015 State of the Union address, Obama announced the Precision Medicine Initiative, which is intended to usher in what he called “a new era of medicine — one that delivers the right treatment at the right time.”
And in an April 2013 speech at the White House, Obama unveiled the BRAIN Initiative, which he described as “the next great American project,” designed to help figure out how the brain works.
Continue reading “Obama’s big bet on science: It’s about far more than a cancer ‘moonshot’”