Unraveling the Key to a Cold Virus’s Effectiveness

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The New York Times, January 8, 2015

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If there is a champion among contagions, it may well be the lowly rhinovirus, responsible for many of the coughs and sniffles that trouble us this time of year. Rhinoviruses are spectacularly effective at infecting humans. Americans suffer one billion colds a year, and rhinoviruses are the leading cause of these infections.

Scientists have never been sure why they are so effective, but now a team at Yale University may have found a clue. The scientists argue that rhinoviruses have found a blind spot in the human immune system: They take advantage of the cold air in our noses.

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A Very Different Kind of Selfie

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C. ELEGANS WORMS. WIKIPEDIA

Human sexuality is obviously complicated. But it’s a mistake to think that, if you could somehow strip away human culture, sex would get simple. Even if you could find the simplest animal out there with a sex life, you wouldn’t find that imaginary simplicity.

This week I’ve written an essay on just such an animal, the worm Caenorhabditis elegans. With only a thousand cells in its entire body, the worm is unquestionably simple But it’s also arguably the best-studied animal on the planet. And yet its sex life–featuring self-fertilizing hermaphrodites with some males on the side–remains bizarrely mysterious.

I’ve written an essay for the online magazine Evolution: This View of Life on C. elegans, its strangely complicated sex life, and how that sex life–like other things in biology–is only starting to make sense in the light of evolution. Check it out.

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Can Hermaphrodites Teach Us What It Means To Be Male?

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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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