Subject
12 entries
Biology
Bookmarks
The Soul of an Octopus — Sy Montgomery
Sy Montgomery's memoir about befriending octopuses at the New England Aquarium — part natural history, part meditation on consciousness and what it means to know another mind. One of the best books about animal cognition written for a general audience.
Biological Circuit Design: Caltech Textbook
A web-based textbook on biological circuit design by Michael Elowitz and Justin Bois (Caltech) — covering genetic circuits, feedback mechanisms, oscillatory dynamics, and developmental patterning with Python exercises. The quantitative foundation for understanding living systems as engineerable circuits.
The Human Animal Ep. 1 — Language in the Body
Episode 1 of The Human Animal (1994), Desmond Morris's BBC series applying zoological observation to human behavior. The language episode examines gesture, facial expression, and body language as evolved communication systems — treating humans as the animals we are.
I Should Have Loved Biology
James Somers's essay on how biology education killed his interest in one of the most wondrous subjects imaginable. A sharp critique of how rote memorization strips away the genuine mystery from cells, evolution, and molecular machinery — and what biology education should be instead.
How the Gut Differentiates Artificial Sweeteners from Sugars
Research showing the gut uses distinct neural pathways to sense sugar vs. artificial sweeteners — sugar activates both taste receptors AND a caloric-sensing gut-brain axis, while artificial sweeteners only hit taste receptors. May explain why zero-calorie sweeteners don't fully satisfy cravings.
Creating a Bioinformatics Nation
Nature commentary on the challenge of building bioinformatics capacity nationally — the growing gap between genomic data production and the computational skills needed to analyze it. Published in 2002, it presaged the data science talent shortage that would affect all data-intensive fields.
Finally a Nanopore Sequencer That Works
CoreGenomics blog covering Oxford Nanopore's MinION — the first nanopore sequencer that actually worked reliably in practice. A 2013 milestone post documenting the moment nanopore sequencing moved from theoretical promise to real instrument.
BioBlender — Biological Visualization in Blender
BioBlender is a Blender plugin for scientific visualization of molecular biology data — rendering protein structures, DNA, and cellular components using the same 3D animation tools used for film VFX. Makes professional-quality biological visualization accessible to researchers.
Your Body's Best Time for Everything
WSJ's guide to chronobiology and optimal daily timing — when your body is physiologically primed for different tasks. Exercise, creative work, analytical thinking, and sleep each have distinct peaks driven by circadian rhythms and cortisol/melatonin cycles.
The Genetics of Muggle/Wizard Inheritance
A fan-written genetic analysis explaining how the wizarding gene in Harry Potter could be singular, autosomal, and dominant despite apparent exceptions like Muggle-born witches and squibs. A delightful example of real science applied to fictional worldbuilding.
Why Supermarket Tomatoes Tend to Taste Bland
LA Times coverage of a 2012 Nature Genetics study identifying the genetic mutation responsible for why commercial tomatoes taste bland — a breeding decision made for shelf life and appearance at the cost of flavor. The gene controls sugar production in fruits, and modern tomatoes had it bred out.
Biologists Grow Human-Eye Precursor from Stem Cells
Nature News coverage of a 2012 milestone: biologists grew a human eye cup (optic cup) from induced pluripotent stem cells, self-organizing into the correct layered structure. An early demonstration that complex organ structures could self-assemble from stem cells — significant for regenerative medicine and our understanding of developmental biology.