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My small attempt to celebrate science and to make it interesting and fun by giving jargon, confusion and elitism a solid beating with the stick of good writing.
Ed Yong is an award-winning science writer based in London. Not Exactly Rocket Science is his attempt to make the latest scientific discoveries interesting to everyone by beating jargon, confusion and elitism with the stick of good writing. He finds writing about himself in the third person strange and unsettling.
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Category: Genetics
Despite its massive bulk, Tyrannosaurus rex's genome was no larger than a hummingbird's, and completely dwarfed by that of the humble house mouse
Posted by Ed Yong at 8:30 AM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Bees
Social insect queens frequently sleep with many males. Even though that makes their daughters less related to each other, it also increases their genetic diversity and that makes the colony more productive and stronger.
Posted by Ed Yong at 8:30 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Evolution
Mice with "humanised" versions of the Foxp2 gene couldn't speak like their cartoon equals, but their calls were subtly altered, their central nervous system developed in different ways, and they showed changes in parts of the brain where FOXP2 is usually expressed.
Posted by Ed Yong at 8:30 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Viruses
Immunity to viral infections sounds like a good thing, but it can come at a price. Millions of years ago, we evolved resistance to a virus that plagued other primates. Today, that virus is extinct, but our resistance to it may be making us more vulnerable to the present threat of HIV.
Posted by Ed Yong at 12:00 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Animals
Termite queens depend on a gene called Neofem2 to rule over their colonies. Silence it, and the happy workers start a war of succession, headbutting each other to established dominance.
Posted by Ed Yong at 8:30 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Horizontal gene transfer
For centuries, farmers have been genetically modifying their plants without even knowing it. Grafting, a common technique used to fuse parts of two plants together, causes the two halves to swap genes with each other.
Posted by Ed Yong at 8:30 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Viruses
Retrocyclins are genes that protect other primates from HIV but have lain dormant in our genomes for 7 million years. Now, these sleeping guardians are set to awaken.
Posted by Ed Yong at 8:30 AM • 14 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Genetics
The largest ever study on autism genetics has found six common genetic variants that affect the risk of developing autism-spectrum disorders. The six probably control the activity of genes involved in connecting neurons together.
Posted by Ed Yong at 1:00 PM • 20 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Eye evolution
The rod cells of nocturnal mammals pack their DNA in a special way that turns the entire cell into a narrow light-collecting lens. It's completely opposite to the usual arrangement used in the rods of day-living animals and, indeed, in almost all other eukaryotic cells.
Posted by Ed Yong at 8:30 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Anthropology
A neat piece of historical genetics confirms that the Spanish Habsburg dynasty of kings caused its own extinction through generations of inbreeding.
Posted by Ed Yong at 8:00 PM • 23 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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Latest science stories | More at nytimes.com
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2:50 PM, 06.30.2009
