Yearly Archives: 2007

George the creationist

This is another archival repost, originally written for the old blog in Dec 2007. Read about member of parliament George Galloway in any British newspaper, no matter what its editorial policy or political situation, and you will read about corrupt, … Continue reading

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Sunday syndrome #4: Concentrate!

This is another archival repost from the old blog — this time from Nov 2007.  The post is part four in a series. The series so far can be found here. So far in the Sunday syndrome column, we’ve been … Continue reading

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One god short of an atheist

This is another archival repost originally written for the old blog in november 2007. “Yes I agree, but this is different. Don’t lump us in with those charlatans!” Criticise quack miracle cures, irrational superstition, loony pseudoscience, and religion, and you … Continue reading

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Carefully sabotaging the genome

This is an archive from the old blog, originally written in 2007. The “Thursday Paper” column on the blog is for reporting on a recently published peer-reviewed research. Apologies if this one isn’t so polished, but I have a train … Continue reading

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A brief taxonomy of mutation

This post is an archive from the old blog, originally written in 2007. I’ve been discussing in the “Sunday syndrome” column various disorders caused by genetic aberrations, but I haven’t really explained how such aberrations occur.  There are several different … Continue reading

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Sunday syndrome #3: Fight of the century

This is another archival repost from the old blog, this time from november 2007. The post is part three in a series. The series so far can be found here. Some causes of disease are heritable genetic aberrations. Others are … Continue reading

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Darwin was a racist!

This is another archival repost, first published on the old blog in Nov 2007. Accusations of racism have been flying these past few weeks, but in the heat of the moment, the discussions have been more noise than signal. This … Continue reading

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Robustness: a new battlefield in the evolution wars?

This is another archival repost from the old blog, originally written in oct 2007. Evolution, from the point of view of the geneticist, is the change in allele frequencies that occurs in populations over time. New alleles are created by … Continue reading

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Sunday syndrome #2: The gene for low set ears

This is another archival repost, this time from oct 2007. The post is part two in a series. The series so far can be found here. Knowing how and why things go wrong tells us a lot about how and … Continue reading

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Thursday paper: Epigenetics and drug tolerance

This is another archival repost, originally from oct 2007. Are you an addict? I bet you are (I saw you gambling addicts coming!). It might be coffee, chocolate, or tobacco, rather than alcohol, heroin, or self-harm, and you might not … Continue reading

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Introduction to cell signalling (part 1)

This is an archive of a piece originally published on the old blog in 2007. A particular interest of mine is cell signalling. This is the field of molecular biology that looks at how biochemical events in the cell go … Continue reading

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Sunday syndrome #1: Oh God, that’s just morbidly obese!

This is another archival repost from the old blog, originally from oct 2007. It’s not healthy to bottle up your worries and stress. That’s why all the best comedy throughout the ages has dealt with the tough issues that worry … Continue reading

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Antibiotics in an anti-science age

This is another repost originally written for the old blog in 2007. Over the next few years or decades, traditional antibiotics will largely be replaced by bacteriophages. Like everything in biology and medicine, this is ultimately down to evolution. Pathogenic … Continue reading

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Scientific findings are always changing

This is another archival repost originally written for the old blog in oct 2007. In an episode of Friends, Ross and Phoebe have a somewhat implausible argument about Evolution. The argument ends with Ross conceding a point about probability and … Continue reading

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This name has already been taken

This is another archival repost of something originally written for the old blog in Oct 2007. I apologise for the half-hearted post. I had hoped to write a lot more, but was foiled by migraine, and ran into the deadline: … Continue reading

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