Some recent articles from the blogosphere and further afield:
From the New York Times Magazine, Steven Pinker piece on his participation in George Church’s Personal Genome Project.
A number of journalists and writers have recorded their experiences of genetic testing (see, for example, Mark Henderson, Richard Powers and Ben Hammersley). With multiple reports of the same experience, we might think that each genetic `testee’ will have little to add to what has already been said.
But what comes across in these articles is the unique perspective each writer has as he encounters his genome. Pinker connects his participation in the PGP to his opportunities as a psychologist to subject himself to a battery of tests to discover more about himself. He considers what makes us who we are from the perspective of a cognitive psychologist as well as from a genetic point of view, mulling over the relationship between genes and behaviour.
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From PNAS and a companion blogpost by PZMyers at The Panda’s Thumb, a neat rebuttal of creationists’ celebrations of the concept of latent evolutionary potential (in this case, the capacity for organisms to increase in size) being realised as the environment changes. Having spent last term grappling with the concepts of neutral evolution and contingency, I welcomed Myers’ amusing analogy of random genetic drift with drunken Australians.
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And finally, if the gloom of British winter is getting a bit much, contemplate emigrating to Australia for The best job in the world.
(HT: JL)
