Can Hermaphrodites Teach Us What It Means To Be Male?

Posted on by Lori Jia

The Evolution Institute, January 4, 2015

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The vinegar worm (officially known as Caenorhabditis elegans) is about as simple as an animal can be. When this soil-dwelling nematode reaches its adult size, it measures a millimeter from its blind head to its tapered tail. It contains only a thousand cells in its entire body. Your body, by contrast, is made of 36 trillion cells. Yet the vinegar worm divides up its few cells into the various parts you can find in other animals like us, from muscles to a nervous system to a gut to sex organs.

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On Genes and Time

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MONKEYC.NET VIA CREATIVE COMMONS

You’d be forgiven for calling FTO the “fat gene.” There are two variants of the gene, and in study after study, one of those variants, known as rs993609, is associated with more weight, as well as a much higher risk of obesity. The comparison holds up in different countries, and in different ethnic groups. The link is so clear that it might seem like saying FTO can make you fat is as true as saying two plus two equals four.

Now try to imagine discovering that before World War II two plus two equaled zero.

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Gene Linked to Obesity Hasn’t Always Been a Problem, Study Finds

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The New York Times, December 31, 2014

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Among scientists who study how our DNA affects our weight, a gene called FTO stands out. “It’s the poster child for the genetics of obesity,” said Struan F. Grant, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

In 2007, researchers discovered that people with a common variant of FTO tend to be heavier than those without it. Since then, studies have repeatedly confirmed the link. On average, one copy of the risky variant adds up to 3.5 extra pounds of weight. Two copies of the gene bring 7 extra pounds — and increase a person’s risk of becoming obese by 50 percent.

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2014: A Storyful Year

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Source: Wikipedia

Thanks to everyone for sharing a year of science with me over the course of 2014. It was a year of frantic writing, as I tried (and failed) to keep up with all of the new research that expanded my appreciation of the natural world. In addition to blogging here, I wrote my weekly “Matter” columns for the New York Times, published a few longer pieces, and spent time in Second Edition World, revising a couple of my books. (Details to come in a few months.)

Looking over the year, I put together a list of the pieces I was most fond of (plus some radio work). If you’re looking for some reading (or listening) to fill the languorous spaces between gift-opening and holiday-meal-snarfing, check these out…

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White? Black? A Murky Distinction Grows Still Murkier

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The New York Times, December 24, 2014

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In 1924, the State of Virginia attempted to define what it means to be white.

The state’s Racial Integrity Act, which barred marriages between whites and people of other races, defined whites as people “whose blood is entirely white, having no known, demonstrable or ascertainable admixture of the blood of another race.”

There was just one problem. As originally written, the law would have classified many of Virginia’s most prominent families as not white, because they claimed to be descended from Pocahontas.

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