It’s always great to hear senior scientists talk about the bad old days, when one computer could fill an entire room and no one could say what genes were made of. Eric Kandel of Columbia has been studying memory since the 1950s, and won the Nobel Prize in 2000 for his work. These days he’s observing genes switching on and off at the junctions between neurons. But when he started out, he had to content himself with sticking electrodes into crayfish (chosen for their fat neurons). To observe their neurons, scientists would hook up the electrodes to amplifiers and loudspeakers, and the crackle of nerves would fill the room.
X-Men may be closer than you think | CNET News.com
I suspect all science writers have had the unhappy experience sooner or later of busting their butts to translate tough science into clear writing, only to have a headline writer top it off with a load of nonsense.
For more on the unhappy collision between Darwin and X-men see Chris Mooney here.
(Fraternal hat tip)
Originally published May 3, 2006. Copyright 2006 Carl Zimmer.
In March, six men entered a London hospital to receive an experimental drug. The men were volunteers, and the drug–a potential treatment for arthritis and leukemia–appeared from animal tests to be safe. But within minutes of the first round of doses, there was trouble. The men complained of headaches, of intolerable heat and cold. The drug made one man’s limbs turned blue, while another’s head swelled like a balloon. Doctors gave them steroids to counteract the side-effect, and managed to save their lives. But several ended up on life support for a time, and they all may suffer lifelong disruptions to their immune systems.
Continue reading “Wanted: Hominids for Clinical Drug Trials”
The New York Times, May 2, 2006
The warbles and rattles of a starling seem innocuous enough. But starlings are now the object of a fierce debate about the nature of language.
In the current issue of Nature, scientists report that starlings recognize song patterns based on rules of the sort that make language possible. Their paper has drawn sharp reactions pro and con from linguists and animal communication experts.
The debate is over what, if anything, the results mean for human language. Some scientists believe that the findings offer new clues to how it evolved. Others dismiss the notion.
Continue reading “Starlings’ Listening Skills May Shed Light on Language Evolution”