biology


Origin Ch.7: Adaptation

This post is part of a series on The Origin Of Species.  It was originally posted on the old blog in feb 2009, during the Darwin 200 celebrations. In chapter seven, Darwin responds to some more objections to his theory of natural selection. One such objection is that “many characters […]


The lazy gene: in which I review a nature versus nurture debate six years late

This is another archive repost from the old blog, written in aug 2008. The psychologist Oliver James was on The Late Edition a couple of weeks ago.[1] His argument was unconvincing and his behaviour unimpressive. So I took a quick look at his website. He offers for download a Radio […]


Light years upstream, dipping in the River out of Eden

This is another archival repost, originally written for the old blog in May 2008. Darwin’s 1837 phylogeny, with root and branches. I’ve talked about Horizontal Gene Transfer (HGT) on the blog a few times before, particularly in the context of bacteria acquiring genes for things like antibiotic resistance, and in […]


A rambling introduction to chemical carcinogenesis

This is an archive from the old blog, originally written in 2008. Regular readers may have noticed that I get rather annoyed by the casual use of the word “chemical” to mean “synthetic chemical”, and the use of the naturalistic fallacy (natural good, chemical bad) that is associated with this […]


Sunday syndrome #6: Welcome to life

This is another archival repost from the old blog — this one from january 2008. This post is part six in a series. The series so far can be found here. Cogito, ergo sum. René Descartes, 1637. I’ve given five posts and several thousand words over to introductions to principles […]


Sunday syndrome #5: The anarchist that wasn’t

This is another archival repost from the old blog — this one from January 2008.  The post is part five in a series. The series so far can be found here. In the first installment of Sunday Syndrome I used the example of Prader-Willi Syndrome. This week we’ll bring in […]


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 […]


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 […]