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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 why things work when they go right. Indeed, this is […]
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 […]
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 […]
A few weeks ago I blogged about Down’s syndrome, and this week about cancer and cancer cytogenetics. I’ve spotted loads of things I neglected to mention about cancer, but there’s one thing I deliberately left for another post, because it’s something I’m less familiar with and wanted to read a […]
This is another archival repost from the old blog — this one from march 2007. I wrote this for a one hour timed essay for the “medical genetics” module and the lecturer picked it out for special commendation for its “novel and elegant organisation and presentation,” so I thought I’d […]
This is another archival repost of something written on the old blog waaay back in April 2005. This evening I’ve come across the first of what is for me a whole new world of anti-science stupidy. It comes in the form of John Hughes of “Smokers United UK”, which consists […]