Multiple Sclerosis, a disease of hithertho unknown etiology has been somehwat elucidated: Infection with the Epstein-Barr virus is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for it. Moderna is working on a vaccine for EBV at the moment. More here.
Cambrian Bio's secret master plan to build aging drugs.
Some people have trouble recognizing faces. Others remember them all
Progress in storing data in DNA
The Charisma of Leaders (ht/ Molly Mielke)
Quanta's The Year in Biology
Apprenticeship Online
Are warp dri…
Last year in my end of year review I wrote that
What is the plan for 2021? The year will start with some posts in the Fund People, not Projects series that I just started. Having an answer to "What's the best way to structure science" would be nice. Maybe by the end of year we'll have that answer. I am also working on some longevity-related stuff but that will take a while to be made public.
Indeed 2021 started with that, I added a few more entries to the Fund People, not Projects series. Some o…
Survey of the origins of some foundational techniuqes in biology
Markus Strasser's post-mortem of his work on knowledge extraction from academic publications. A must read for everyone interested in the broad tools for thought category.
Antiaging diets: separating fact from fiction. A review of what is known about various diets claimed to help with lifespan/health in humans
In my immunosenescence explainer I noted that levels of zinc go down with age. Zinc is key for the immune system. Recent review on this …
Nobel Prize winner P.B. Medawar once wrote, in Advice to a Young Scientist, that 'any scientist of any age who wants to make important discoveries must study important problems.' But what makes a problem "important"? And how do you know it when you see it? The answers don't come from reading them in a book, or even by explicitly being taught them. More often, they're conveyed by example, through the slow accretion of mumbled asides and grumbled curses, by smiles, frowns, and exclamations over yea…
A single Swedish family used to own 40% of the Swedish stock market, they remain majority shareholders in multiple companies across Europe: the Wallenberg family. Bonus: They plow back some of that money into science funding, having funded in 1937 early work on electrophoresis by Arne Tiselius.
Starship is still not understood: Those big cyliders of steel are more transformational than you think.
A taxonomy of serendipity
Bryan Johnson, of Braintree and Kernel fame, is tracking his biological age (assessed…
In an earlier links, I linked to a post critical with the "polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) are bad for you" thesis. This other post is a reply to that one. (For what's worth I still think that saturated fat is bad and that olive oil is all the oil you need so why bother with seed oils :)
"Charge more", niche keyboards edition
Dominic Cummings on how to really take over a government (it's the deep state what you need)
A rare paper showing a reversal in atherosclerotic plaque (in mice)…