In early 2020, COVID appeared to be mostly respiratory, with blame for the shattering of delicate lung tissues initially placed on the…
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post COVID Virus Ventures Beyond the Lungs, Often Lodging in the BrainRead more
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post Yet Another Reason to Not Eat Beef: Cancer-Causing MutationsRead more
I stopped eating beef 5 years ago, following a trip to Costa Rica just days after being diagnosed with breast cancer. Our…
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post Do Shrinking Chromosomes Put Older People at Higher Risk of Severe COVID?Read more
When a headline in the Washington Post dubbed COVID “A Plague of the Elderly,” I cringed, envisioning Logan’s Run, the sci-fi classic…
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post On the Third Anniversary of the Pandemic, My 100th COVID Article, With Links to AllRead more
Three years ago, health officials in China announced the first cases of infection with a “novel coronavirus.” Dr. Zhang Jixian reported the…
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post In Search of a Religiosity GeneRead more
Do our genes predispose us to follow a religion? I searched Google Scholar for reports on the inheritance of religiosity. I sought…
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post “Lessons in Chemistry” Tackles Sexism in Science but Perpetuates Nerd StereotypeRead more
Lessons in Chemistry, by Bonnie Garmus, introduces readers to what it was like to be a woman pursuing a career as a…
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post A 2-Million-Year-Old Ecosystem in the Throes of Climate Change Revealed in Environmental DNARead more
The reconstruction of a once-living landscape in northern Greenland from 2 million years ago, deduced from bits of DNA bound to minerals…
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post On COVID Origin and Omicron Persistence: This Geneticist’s ViewRead more
The latest phrase borrowed from biology in COVID conversations is convergent evolution. It refers to pairs of unrelated species that look similar…
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post Ten Lessons from COVID: A Round-up of ExpertsRead more
Planning for the next pandemic begins with acknowledging what we did wrong for COVID-19. As the situation has calmed, experts are weighing…
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post The Genomic Scars of Antisemitism, 2022Read more
Between election news and the ever-earlier encroachment of Christmas, an important November anniversary of a horrific event goes mostly unnoticed: Kristallnacht, the…
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post My Five-Year Breast CancerversaryRead more
Five years ago today, I learned that I had breast cancer. I didn’t find out in the usual way, an alarmingly ambiguous…
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post Halloween Evokes Thoughts on OrganoidsRead more
When the jello brains and gummy organs of Halloween come out, my thoughts turn to organoids. These are tiny organs, or parts…