The best of the New York Times’ writers tackle the increasingly fuzzy world of genetics, epigenetics and all the still-as-yet-undefined complexity that surrounds DNA and how it operates. At work Monday, I got the 30,000 foot view of epigenetics from one of Fox Chase’s leading researchers, but yesterday’s Science Times really gets into how awfully, horribly complex this all is.
Carl Zimmer (who moderates a panel next week at The Franklin) sifts through the shifting science of epigenetics.
Andrew Pollack examines the hidden life of RNA.
Benedict Carey comes up with another reason to blame your parents’ genes, mental health.
Natalie Angier questions the very meaning of the word gene.
Since I don’t get the print edition of the Times, I’m clipping all these with Evernote now (someday I’ll get Leopard and be able to use the desktop version of Evernote, but its web app for now). This is one of those times I wish that newspapers in the US would subsidize those e-ink ereaders like they do in Europe. The devices hover around $300 retail, which is just a bit too much for me to justify on yet another gadget (no matter how much I really, really want one, Santa).