Category Archives: Genetics

But Nothing Could Go Wrong With Widespread Genomic Testing

Posted on October 22, 2012 by mikethemadbiologist

Whenever the FDA or some other government agency issues a statement about direct-to-consumer genomic sequencing (or genotyping), a minor skirmish in the science bloggysphere erupts. On the one side are medical and public health professionals, while on the other are … Continue reading →

Posted in Fucking Morons, Genetics, Genomics, Public Health | 7 Comments

Wall Street and Genetic Testing: Wouldn’t This Be Discrimination?

Posted on February 11, 2012 by mikethemadbiologist

Admittedly, Wall Street breaks the law so often without any consequences, not to mention notions of basic decency, this would be par for the course: Dr. Zak wanted to see if he could find the genetic signature of this personality … Continue reading →

Posted in Bidness, Civil Liberties, Genetics | Comments Off

Los Cubanos!

Posted on January 25, 2012 by mikethemadbiologist

Amazingly, all of these snails belong to one species, Polymita picta (from the Harvard Museum of Natural History): I realize this is from an exhibit on coloration in nature, but if HMHN wanted to do this right, it would put … Continue reading →

Posted in Evolution, Genetics, Museums etc. | Comments Off

Accidental Schadenfreude Is a Beautiful Thing: The Charles Murray Edition

Posted on January 24, 2012 by mikethemadbiologist

By way of Jesse Taylor, we learn that Charles Murray, author of The Bell Curve and longtime advocate of a genetic basis for the racial difference in IQ scores, will release a book on the growing socioeconomic divisions. In the … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservatives, Fucking Morons, Genetics, IQ | Comments Off

Just-So Stories and the ‘Evolutionary Biology Diet’

Posted on December 20, 2011 by mikethemadbiologist

Amanda Marcotte and Rebecca Watson pointed me towards this absurd article “Why women need fat.” In fairness, I don’t dispute the idea that the recent advent of a diet full of processed sugars hasn’t been good for us, or that … Continue reading →

Posted in Evo Psych, Evolution, Genetics, Hunger, Obesity | 1 Comment

STEC Surveillance: UR DOING IT WRONG?

Posted on August 22, 2011 by mikethemadbiologist

I CAN HAZ SHIGA TOCKSIN PCR? PLZ? It’s time for food, and specifically STEC, surveillance, to enter the last two decades of the twentieth century.
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Posted in E. coli, Food, Genetics, Microbiology | 5 Comments

Multilocus Sequence Typing and How to Make a Mad Biologist Cranky

Posted on June 13, 2011 by mikethemadbiologist

Note that I said cranky, not mad. All these E. coli and no idea what they are…
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Posted in E. coli, Genetics, Public Health | 7 Comments

Are Shiga-Toxin Phages E. coli Diseases? (File Under Speculative Hypotheses)

Posted on June 9, 2011 by mikethemadbiologist

Or maybe wild-ass speculation.
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Posted in E. coli, Ecology, Evolution, Genetics, Viruses | 4 Comments

Serendipity, Picking the Right Strain, and the Foundations of Modern Molecular Biology

Posted on May 26, 2011 by mikethemadbiologist

People who aren’t scientists often think there is this huge implacable juggernaut that will inevitably discover what needs to be discovered. But so many key discoveries are actually very serendipitous.
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Posted in E. coli, Genetics | 6 Comments