P.C. Shannon

I was just thinking the other day about how human civilization has effectively halted our evolution. Then I read this in Nature today (full article):

Icelandic scientists reported earlier this year, for instance, that 20% of Europeans carry a large genetic inversion that is spreading throughout the population. Women who carry the inversion have more children than those who don’t — a classic sign that it confers some sort of selective advantage.

It turns out that not only are we still evolving, but evolution may be more about large-scale rearrangements in the genome than changes in single base-pairs.

This reminds me of a presentation I saw a year or two ago about transposons in the rice genome. Transposons are these weird little pieces of DNA that exist in the genome. They are capable of jumping around the genome from place to place to place. Typically, they’re thought of as parasitic, although clearly they’re not organisms in their own right. They do nicely embody the idea of the “selfish gene” quite nicely.

The point of the presentation was the researcher’s assertation that transposons become active—that is, they jump around the genome a lot more—during periods of stress, and this increased activity promotoes evolution. The idea is that by stimulating evolution, the transposons make the host better able to deal with the stress, such as relocating to a colder climate.

It’s an interesting idea, although I’m not sure how many scientists buy into. But the notion from Nature that evolution involves reorganization of genome is certainly widespread, even though it upturns many long-held ideas about evolution and the very nature of biology. But this century has seen many such revolutionary ideas come to light. It’s an exciting time.

80s Commercials — Includes bizarre He-Man action figures and (indubitably) Crispy Critters cereal. This brings a tear of nostalgia to my eye.
Squirrel Fishing — A study
Will Ferrel’s Commencement Address at Harvard
Merchants of Cool — from PBS’s Frontline

Listen people, the avian flu is coming. Hopefully later rather than sooner, but there will be a pandemic. And it’s gonna be bad. I’m not going to scare you with apocalyptic predictions, but please, get a flu shot.

As far as anyone can remember, I personally have only ever had the flu once. Never had it as a kid, never got it in college, even when my roommate in the dorm did. I finally caught it in New York City at the end of 2003. Caroline got it too, which was surprising because she’d had her flu shot that year. The injection only protects you against the three most common strains from the previous year, and that year, a strain of influenza called Fujian was very common. Still, the shot provides some generalized protection against all types of flu, so Caroline had a slightly better time of it than I did.

As a microbiology student in college, I realized that one possible reason that I never got in flu in spite of obvious exposure was that I had a mutation that made me immune. In a large enough population, there are always individuals with a natural immunity to a given disease; there are some people in the world who are immune to HIV, for example.

I also knew the particulars of influenza mutation and evolution. I won’t go into the specifics, but suffice it to say that influenza mutates and evolves rapidly, so that different strains appear every year and every few decades theres a pandemic. This means that if I had a natural immunity (and not just good luck), it wouldn’t protect me forever. The fear in the back of my mind is that when the next pandemic came, my mutation would make me hypersensitive to the virus, sealing my fate.

Now, my theory of natural immunity turns out to be true. A recent article in the journal PLoS Biology (technical article and general audience synopsis; I love PLoS, but that’s a subject for a different time) examined the genes of a number of flu viruses collected in New York State, including the so-called Fujian strain. Fujian just so happens to have certain mutations that make it different from the more common types of influenza, hence the epidemic of the 2003-2004 flu season.

These mutations also, apparently, allow it to overcome my natural immunity. The mutations obviously contribute to the strains increased pathogenicity. The bug that causes the coming pandemic is likely to have similar mutations as well as being ferociously virulent. Clearly, it has my name on it.

Really, its an emotional reaction to think that my mutation, which has so far granted me immunity, would work to my detriment when the avian flu strikes. Logically, I would be no more or less susceptible than anyone else. On the other hand, my body has only ever had to fight off one influenza virus, and that lack of general flu antibodies might work against me.

Hmm… When do flu shots start?

More goodness, from me to you.

Consumers’ Rights, including tips on how to get a refund for stuff that don’t work.

Homemade Prison Wine from The Sneeze, home of “Steve, Don’t Eat It!” Hilarious.

The Daily Set—the old set of The Daily Show is going on tour, without Jon Stewart or any of those other fake news people.

Hacking Firefox—This time, it’s tabs and navigation.

Getting Orgnaized with Digital Photography

Worry-free DVD Burning—Reviews of the latest Sony DVD burners

DVD Flambé—Which brands of recordable DVDs give you the best value for the buck? More importantly, which survive being microwaved?

DVD Burners at PCWorld