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Inspiring Science

~ Casting light on great ideas

Inspiring Science

Category Archives: Discussions

The laws of biology

26 Monday Aug 2013

Posted by sedeer in Discussions

≈ 14 Comments

Tags

biology, Law, philosophy, philosophy of science, physics, science

Science is our way of trying to understand the universe, to make sense of the patterns of objects and behaviours around us and explain the regularity of the world we experience. We use several different words to characterize the ideas and explanations we come up with. A hypothesis is an informed conjecture, a speculation about world which needs to be tested, while a theory is a well-supported, coherent framework which explains some aspect of the universe. Scientific “laws” seem to fall somewhere in between; while they’re very well-supported, they tend to assert things about the world rather than offer an explanation. For example, Newton’s law of gravity enables us to predict the gravitational attraction between two objects but doesn’t explain why objects are attracted to each other. Continue reading →

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Whose genome is it anyway?

21 Tuesday May 2013

Posted by sedeer in Discussions

≈ 19 Comments

Tags

Angelina Jolie, biology, DNA, Education, Full genome sequencing, Genetic testing, Genome, genomics, Genotyping, Health, Human, People, Popular science, relatedness, science, science and society, Science in Society

Angelina Jolie at the 2010 Comic Con in San Diego (Photo credit: Wikipedia)Fifteen years ago it was the stuff of science fiction.  Now, you can just swab your cheek, send it to a company and, for only a few hundred euros, have your DNA analyzed.  You’ll find out about your ancestry and your predisposition towards certain inherited diseases or conditions (from cancer and diabetes to myopia).  You’ll also learn if you’re a ‘carrier’ — that is, if you’re carrying a gene that won’t affect you but might affect your children.  You can even get information about more light-hearted issues like whether you’re likely to have fast- or slow-twitch muscles or your ability to taste certain bitter flavours.  The technology is pretty great, but it also raises some interesting questions which I thought would be worth discussing (especially since I really enjoyed our previous discussion). Continue reading →

What makes you who you are?

14 Thursday Feb 2013

Posted by sedeer in Discussions, Humans

≈ 24 Comments

Tags

Behavior, biology, Emerald cockroach wasp, identity, Parasitism, Parasitoid wasp, Popular science, science, Toxoplasma gondii, Toxoplasmosis

Ampulex compressa, commonly called Emerald Cockroach Wasp. Pictured in Dar es salaam, Tanzania. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)“I’m sorry about what happened yesterday. I…I wasn’t myself.” Those words, or something like them, have been offered countless times as an explanation for (mis)behaviour, but what do they actually mean? People seem to have a sense of an intrinsic self, a personality they identify with, and many people are concerned about how outside factors might (like birth control pills) influence this personality or change the way they behave. In this post, I’d like to explore how we construct and define our sense of self, but rather than writing an essay on the subject, I’m hoping to start a discussion about it. Continue reading →

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All text and original images by Sedeer El-Showk. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

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