Much to chew on about many meats

Mark A Jobling [pictured here] of the University of Leicester writes about the genetic underpinnings of exotic meats. His essay, called “Flogging a dead horse“, appears in the journal Investigative Genetics [2013, 4:5]: People eat mules, as well as donkeys and horses, and in meat contamination testing, mule meat would appear to be horsemeat, because of the […]

“The more we learn, the less we understand”

“The more we learn, the less we understand,” says geneticist Steve Jones about genes and genetics, in this Lost Lecture: David Dobbs pursues this theme in the essay “Weighing The Promises Of Big Genomics“, in Buzzfeed: …“Many genes of small effect” became a sort of tepid curse. I myself prefer the stronger, more memorable phrase “Many Assorted […]

The omnibus mixed-up paternity/genetics/academics adventure of T. Lippert

The Faculty Lounge blog has a long (but riveting!) account of the very strange story of Tom Lippert. One of its many aspects echoes of the story of Cecil Jacobson (Dr. Jacobson was awarded the 1992 Ig Nobel Prize in biology for devising a simple, single-handed method of quality control. [REFERENCE: “The Babymaker : Fertility Fraud and the Fall […]

Genetics and ever so much, more or less, of choral singers

This research study tries to encompass many worlds of knowledge or possible knowledge, or wished-for knowledge: “AVPR1A and SLC6A4 Polymorphisms in Choral Singers and Non-Musicians: A Gene Association Study,” Andrew P. Morley, Madan Narayanan, Rebecca Mines, Ashraf Molokhia, Sebastian Baxter, Gavin Craig, Cathryn M. Lewis, Ian Craig,  PLoS ONE 7(2), 2012: e31763 The authors, at […]

Genetics & the hair of Steven Pinker, LFHCfS

The Pharyngula blog discusses genetics and its relation to LFHCfS member Steven Pinker: Steve Pinker examined his own genome, and discovered that his genes said he was predisposed to be red-haired and at high risk for baldness. If you’ve seen Steve Pinker [and if you haven’t you can remedy that by watching the video here], you […]