anciendaze

Science was originally nothing more than a Latinate synonym for knowledge. Its specific use to designate the activity of scientists can be traced back only to the 19th century. My topic today is the essential counterpart of new science, ignorance. This is a large subject, so I'll post it in...

This post is different from previous ones I've made. I'm going to try to put current problems and controversies into a broader biological perspective. This will not appeal to everyone. The problem I'm grappling with is a fundamental one with implications far beyond the moment. Abstractions...

Gerwyn (he who must not be named) has turned up an early paper on virus which appeared when tissue samples were 'passaged' through nude mice. Type C virions include retroviruses; some sizes can hardly be anything else. I've selected some sentences from the abstract which practically jumped...

Contamination has as many heads as hydra. Unfortunately, all the recent publications on this subject w.r.t. XMRV haven't done much more than reiterate doubts expressed less clearly in earlier papers. Let me systematically consider each of the multiple meanings of contamination, so far as I have...

This is my first attempt at a blog post. I've avoided the genre up until now because my personal life is exceptionally dull. ( I could tell you a lot about bedroom ceilings.) Besides reading and sleeping, I do a good bit of thinking. Some of these thoughts may be of interest to others...