In today’s New York Times I have an article about the quest to create a virtual organism—a sort of digital Frankenstein accurate down to every molecular detail. The creature that the scientists I write about want to reproduce is that familiar denizen of our gut, Escherichia coli.
Mole rats are a pretty ugly, obscure bunch of creatures. They live underground in Africa, where they use their giant teeth to gnaw at roots. Those of you who know anything about mole rats most likely know about naked mole rats, which have evolved a remarkable society that is more insect than mammalian, complete with a queen mole rat ruling over her colony. But according to a paper in press at the Journal of Human Evolution, mole rats are important for another reason. Their evolution and our own show some striking parallels that may shed light on how our ancestors diverged from other apes.
It’s bad enough to see basic scientific misinformation about evolution getting tossed around these days. USA Today apparently has no qualms about publishing an op-ed by a state senator from Utah (who wants to have students be taught about something called “divine design”) claiming there is no empirical evidence in the fossil evidence that humans evolved from apes. I’m not sure what we’re supposed to do with the twenty or so species of hominids that existed over the past six million years. Perhaps just file them away under “divine false starts.”
The New York Times, August 11, 2005
Malaria is a devastating disease, striking an estimated 300 million to 500 million people a year and killing more than a million of them.
Scientists have long wondered how the parasite that causes malaria manages to be so successful.
New research has shown an unexpected source of its success. The parasite – a single-cell creature, plasmodium, carried by mosquitoes – makes infected humans smell more attractive to mosquitoes.
The New York Times, August 9, 2005
I recently spent a few days recovering from having my appendix removed. As I padded around my house in my pajamas, I pondered that dear departed bit of my gut.
I only became aware of my appendix when it flared with infection. Soon I was lying in an ambulance, with a paramedic poking at my abdomen. “Oh yeah,” he said, and went back to filling out paperwork.