Sydney Brenner: the passing of a giant
Nobel laureate Sydney Brenner, who helped place Singapore on biotech world stage, dies at 92. If you are in genetics and development you know who Brenner his, and what he meant to these fields. I happened to be in the room with Brenner once, in Berkeley in 2008 I believe. He was already quite an […]
The “evo-devo” peak
Jerry Coyne has a post up which critiques an extremely breathless review of a new book, Epigenetics Revolution. Overall I agree with the thrust of Coyne’s take. Epigenetics is real, and probably important, but it doesn’t imply that there…
Borders we forget: Saudi Arabia & Yemen
There’s a lot of stuff you stumble upon via Google Public Data Explorer which you kind of knew, but is made all the more stark through quantitative display. For example, consider Saudi Arabia and Yemen. In gross national income per capita the difference between these two nations is one order of magnitude (PPP and nominal). […]
Things are looking up for the world’s poor!
I just listened to a discussion between John Horgan and Madhusree Mukerjee, and the conversation ended on a moderately down note as Mukerjee seemed pessimistic about the prospects for the world’s poor. Where do these people get the idea that things are getting worse? I recall the same sentiment from Massimo Pigliucci. These are people […]