The principal way science advances is through the principle Einstein expressed as: “No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.” Members of the scientific community and of the public should be satisfied that the scientific process is working well when hypotheses are discarded due to nonconfirming evidence. … Continue reading A disturbance in the paradigm of child abuse
This 2018 Loma Linda review subject was gestational hypoxia: “Of all the stresses to which the fetus and newborn infant are subjected, perhaps the most important and clinically relevant is that of hypoxia. This review explores the impact of gestational hypoxia on maternal health and fetal development, and epigenetic mechanisms of developmental plasticity with emphasis … Continue reading The lack of oxygen’s epigenetic effects on a fetus
This 2018 Michigan review subject was cancer evolution: “Based on the fact that cancer typically represents a complex adaptive system, where there is no linear relationship between lower-level agents (such as each individual gene mutation) and emergent properties (such as cancer phenotypes), we call for a new strategy based on the evolutionary mechanism of aneuploidy … Continue reading An evolutionary view of stress and cancer
This 2018 French review subject was mechanisms of autoimmunity: “Autoimmune diseases (AIDs) encompass more than 80 distinct chronic disorders characterized by inflammatory reactions that can either be systemic or organ specific. In all cases, the disease development is the consequence of the effects of environmental factors in predisposed individuals. Most of the genes identified by … Continue reading Common features of autoimmune diseases
This 2018 Israeli human study subject was natural killer cell epigenetic memory of pregnancies: “Natural killer (NK) cells were first discovered for their ability to kill tumor cells, and later found to also kill pathogen-infected cells. Different tissue-resident subpopulations of human NK cells exist throughout the body, displaying unique phenotypic and functional properties. One of … Continue reading Immune memory of pregnancies
This 2018 Belgian review hijacked science to further an agenda: “We addressed this issue at the LATSIS Symposium ‘Transgenerational Epigenetic Inheritance: Impact for Biology and Society’, in Zürich, 28–30 August 2017, and here provide important arguments why environmental and lifestyle-related exposures in young men should be studied.” The reviewer DETRACTED from science in the studied … Continue reading How to hijack science: Ignore its intent and focus on the 0.0001%
This 2018 Washington rodent study subject was transgenerational epigenetic inheritance caused by a fungicide that’s been phased out or banned for over a decade: “This study was designed to help understand how three different epigenetic processes in sperm are correlated with vinclozolin-induced epigenetic transgenerational inheritance of disease. Most DMRs [differential DNA-methylated regions] identified in this … Continue reading A self-referencing study of transgenerational epigenetic inheritance
This 2018 US Veterans Administration review subject was resiliency and stress responses: “Neurobiological and behavioral responses to stress are highly variable. Exposure to a similar stressor can lead to heterogeneous outcomes — manifesting psychopathology in one individual, but having minimal effect, or even enhancing resilience, in another. We highlight aspects of stress response modulation related … Continue reading Resiliency in stress responses
This 2017 Colorado analysis, “No Evidence That Schizophrenia Candidate Genes Are More Associated With Schizophrenia Than Noncandidate Genes,” found: “A recent analysis of 25 historical candidate gene polymorphisms for schizophrenia in the largest genome-wide association study [GWAS] conducted to date suggested that these commonly studied variants were no more associated with the disorder than would be … Continue reading The truth about complex traits and GWAS
Ponder this drone photo of “a flying human tethered to a monkey” ground drawing made over 1,000 years ago as reported by National Geographic and excerpted by the Daily Star: Aren’t the geoglyph and its description pretty good expressions of our evolved condition? Especially since it’s the interpretation of people who lived more a millennium … Continue reading A flying human tethered to a monkey
