As any decent biologist knows, “nature versus nurture” is a false dichotomy. One way that this is made very clear is with “identical” twins who, though often very similar physically and behaviorally even when raised apart, are nonetheless also notably different from each other even when raised under the same conditions.

Another example [...]

Once again, I must scoop the distinguished Dr. Eisen and report a horrible new ‘omics word. Or maybe he already posted this one. And this is actually a portmantaeu of Fashion + Economics. Whatever.

Saw this on an ad on a website:

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Valentine’s Day is coming up (so they tell me), and two of the most popular science cartoons have produced appropriate comics:

Or, perhaps you prefer to use the greatest Valentine ever made:

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Profs are fast on email (by necessity — it’s a constant deluge, and I generally don’t manage to keep up fully):

Profs are slow on everything else (see above):

Ok, disclaimers first. I am Canadian, but I don’t watch hockey (except for the Olympics and maybe the playoffs). I also don’t watch soccer (except for the World Cup). I played both as a kid and think both are excellent sports. But I have to tell you, when you have played/watched hockey, even only [...]

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral, celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or [...]

For some reason, the Aquatic Ape hypothesis has significant appeal to non-biologists. The Aquatic Ape hypothesis, for those who don’t know, is an idea most vigorously promoted by Elaine Morgan that many human traits (loss of hair, bipedal locomotion, the diving reflex, and so on) evolved as adaptations to a largely aquatic lifestyle. In [...]

I am the proud recipient of a “Worst New Omics Word Award” from Jonathan Eisen, who blogs at Tree of Life. Usually these go to actual ‘omics words (so far: diseasome, ethomics, and museomics). It seems he thinks “omnigenomics” to describe the study of genome sizes (i.e., all components of the genome) in all [...]