From Pacific Standard, this is an interesting article on how humans are using DNA — ours and other species’ — to change the world. One wonders if that is such a good thing considering how little we still know about how DNA functions. Why DNA Is One of Humanity’s Greatest Inventions By Michael White • … Read more
Over the last decade or two, a lot of scientific interest has shifted from DNA and the genome to RNAs, then non-coding RNAs, and now micro RNAs are the new frontier in disease research as well as how genes shape and are shaped in development. Most of us know very little about these tiny little … Read more
This hypothesis and theory article from the open access journal Frontiers in Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology is very in-depth and thought provoking. The main sticking point for me, however, is the first of the three primary premises Earl sets forth: (1) contrary to one’s intuitive understanding, consciousness does not have an active, executive role in … Read more
For all of recorded history, billions of years, the blueprint of life has been written with just four letters — adenine (A), thymine (T), cytosine (C) and guanine (G), the DNA subunits contained in all organisms. Now that has changed. Scientists at Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, have identified a pair of bases, … Read more