Family fodder - Love is like a goat (from: Singularity 1, 2011)
Louise and the pins ft. Laura Marling – melancholy
It is no secret that Uza despises the genetic Moloch, that ridiculous and erroneous idea that everything lies within the genes and that they are small bundles of joy that encapsulate all that is required to execute the plan, be it physiological, morphological or behavioral. The reasons for the stronghold the genocentric view is so fierce are beyond the scope of this humble and angry little blog, but I do make a point of highlighting those scientific findings that undermine it. A new study provides such an opportunity as it demonstrates that even (genetically) identical cells display independent behavior and develop to different phenotypes in their final, mature form. In a paper published in the prestigious journal PNAS, researchers from Columbia university show just how misleading the basic assumption of genetic identity can be. A corollary of genocentrism is that any group of cells, no matter its size, is comprised of wholly identical individual cells as long as those cells share the same genetic makeup. Hmm… bullshit? Yes indeed! The team reports results from a long-term set of experiments that clearly show that during the development of blood vessels cells exhibit phenotypic plasticity, i.e. they have a range - rather than a single – of variants. This finding was made possible owing to a new technology that allowed the scientists to monitor the behavior of individual cells over time. By focusing on individual cells the team was able to avoid the statistical shorthand malady of averaging population behavior and what they found out was that individual cells actually behave quite different from their supposed average. The team learned that while small populations of cells do aggregate and converge to a conformed type of behavior, that is an ad hoc processes, fitting local conditions, rather than an automatic global reaction that encompasses all cells of the same genetic makeup.
Parsa H, Upadhyay R & Sia SK. 2011. Uncovering the behaviors of individual cells within a multicellular microvascular community. PNAS. 10.1073/pnas.1007508108
It's also no secret that science is anything but objective. While the scientific ideal and procedure mandate unscrupulous objectivity, the actual practice of science is heavily tainted (not to say tarnished) by personal agendas and biases. Just think of phrenology or eugenics and you'll see what I mean (but also how pharmaceutical companies buy scientific support for their products is a more current example). This is no news and tons of research has been devoted to the study of scientific subjectivity. One discipline that contributed significantly to this body of knowledge is gender studies and it has been established that the male-dominated practice of science translates also to male-biased representations of nature. A new Swedish research adds more to this observation. In a paper published in Animal Behaviour the two researchers demonstrate how the description of sexual conflicts in flora and fauna is significantly biased towards the male said, owing to the use of masculine language and differential terminology. The paper identifies and compares adjectives and terms used by scientists to describe the actions and behavior of the sexes of various species in sexual conflicts. The main finding is that the literature more often than not defines male behavior in active terms and female behavior in passive terms, as if only responding to the male behavior. That is obviously not true and an excellent example would be the case of postcopulatory sexual selection, in which sperm of different males compete for fertilizing the egg. In many cases this competition is futile, as the female reproductive system has its own filtering choosy mechanism that allow the female to actively choose its preferred sperm
Karlsson Green K & Madjidian JA. 2011. Active males, reactive females: stereotypic sex roles in sexual conflict research? Animal Behaviour. 10.1016/j.anbehav.2011.01.033
Not only does this movie carry Connery's best performance and Sir Harrison Birtwistle's only film score, this is a shut up! notice for all those who argue that current cable drama are the new cinema. The day I'd see a police officer on TV that can carry half the weight Connery does here, I promise to go out and kiss a hipster (…yuck)
The offence (Lumet, 1972)