By itself, the migratory locust is about as harmless as a grasshopper. But under the right conditions, it can assemble with billions of its comrades into apocalyptic swarms that destroy thousands of hectares of crops in Africa, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. Now, scientists have discovered that a gut parasite may be key to keeping […]
Continue reading →I’ve a new feature, “The Social Life of Genes,” in Pacific Standard. It involves bees, birds, monkeys, and how our social life and our genes constantly converse, reshaping us (and our social life) as they go. One of the main characters is a young UCLA psychoneuroimmunologist named Steve Cole, who in the 1990s, reviewing the health […]
Continue reading →I’ve a feature on “The Social Life of Genes” coming out in Pacific Standard next week Tuesday 3 Sept, which I discussed yesterday on WNYC’s Leonard Lopate Show. Here, while that feature is in queue, is a look at one aspect of genetics the feature addresses: The need to understand the importance of gene expression, not […]
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