Using a Virus’s Knack for Mutating to Wipe It Out

Posted on January 4, 2010May 13, 2020 by admin

The New York Times, January 4, 2010

Evolution is a virus’s secret weapon. The virus can rapidly slip on new disguises to evade our immune systems, and it can become resistant to antiviral drugs.

But some scientists are turning the virus’s secret weapon against it. They hope to cure infections by forcing viruses to evolve their way to extinction.

Viruses can evolve because of the mistakes they make when they replicate. All living things can mutate, but viruses are especially prone to these genetic errors. In fact, some species of viruses mutate hundreds of thousands of times faster than we do.

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Mouth War

Posted on January 3, 2010August 17, 2021 by Matt Kristoffersen

As we sink into the prime season for colds and flus, it’s a good time to remember that most kinds of viruses that invade our bodies aren’t interested in us. They attack the bacteria inside us instead.

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Calvin and the Cosmos [Science Tattoo]

Posted on January 2, 2010July 1, 2021 by Matt Kristoffersen

Emily writes, “Ever since I was a kid, I have had a love for astronomy. I studied Earth and Planetary Sciences in college and am now in graduate school, studying to be a middle school science teacher. Another love I had as a kid was reading Calvin and Hobbes. My science tattoo combines these two childhood loves — with Calvin and Hobbes looking up at the 8 planetary symbols and the symbols for a star and water. Just like Calvin and Hobbes, I will always be gazing up at the sky with wonder and awe.”

Click here to go to the full Science Tattoo Emporium.

The Singularity

Posted on January 1, 2010August 17, 2021 by Matt Kristoffersen

Playboy, January-February 2010

Let’s say you transfer your mind into a computer—not all at once but gradually, having electrodes inserted into your brain and then wirelessly out- sourcing your faculties. Your vision is rerouted through cameras, your memories are stored in a net of microprocessors and so on, until at last the transfer is complete. As neuro-engineers get to work boosting the performance of your uploaded brain so you can now think as a god, your fleshy brain is heaved into a bag of medical waste. As you—for now let’s just call it “you”—start a new chapter of existence exclusively within a machine, an existence that will last as long as there are server farms and hard-disk space and the solar power to run them, are “you” still actually you?

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Saving Tasmanian Devils From A New Form of Life–Themselves

Posted on December 31, 2009July 1, 2021 by Matt Kristoffersen

Tasmanian devils have given rise to a weird new quasi-form of life: a cancer that spreads from animal to animal like a parasite. In tomorrow’s New York Times, I report on the latest analysis of devil’s facial tumour disease, published in this week’s Science. Scientists have now tracked down the cancer to its progenitor: nerve cells known as Schwann cells.

Now scientists can use this evolutionary history to design diagnostic tests for the cancer and perhaps even vaccines. Let’s hope they succeed–the cancer has wiped out 60 percent of all Tasmanian devils since 1996 and has the potential to drive the whole species extinct in a matter of decades.

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