Yearly Archives: 2007


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 talking in terms of the all-or-nothing loss (or gain) of […]


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 will get in return an example of the comment above. […]


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 to catch. It would appear to be medical genetics week […]


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 types of aberration that occur, and several different mechanisms that […]


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 diet, pathogens, trauma, and similar environmental factors. One might get […]


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 random mutation, and others slowly disappear through natural selection or […]


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 be wasting away because of it, but you’re probably addicted […]


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 us. It’s why doctors make jokes about diseases and pathologists […]


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 bacteria are alive: they reproduce, with slight imperfections, and are […]


Science and sci-fi: biochemistry on your PC

This is another archival repost from the old blog, this one from May 2007. The Hollow Man was on the television the other day, confirming once again my belief that hollywood lacks the imagination to make sci-fi even a fraction as interesting as real science. There was, however, a most […]


Horizontal transfer and the modern species

This is another archival repost originally written for the old blog in april 2007. Bacteria tend to get ignored to some extent by writers of popular science and science blogs, except in the context of disease and medicine. There is a general assumption that, as single celled organisms, they must […]