Three weeks of speculations have come to an end. Since this morning Verlinde's paper is available on arXiv.

“Respected expert and director of the institute…”

These are the words you hear as you are being introduced at a black-tie speaking engagement. You are an inventor, scientist, or artist, and this flattering introduction is music to your ears; had you seen these words written in the paper you would have saved a copy to show Mom.

Finally, you are at the place every creative mind wishes to reach. The words wash back over you. “Respected”: The members of your community appreciate you. “Expert”: Your more than twenty years of dedication to the field have not gone unnoticed. “Director”: You have powerful tools and competent personnel to support your efforts. And “Institute”: Your work has attracted the funding of government, benefactors or investors.

Perhaps it's resolution-making hangover inherent in the start of a new calendar year and simultaneous beginning of another semester, but I've felt particularly optimistic about my future in graduate school recently. But, I'm going to choose to remain optimistic here and choose to believe that it's recent intellectual discussion - of the sort I honestly thought I'd be a part of when I got to graduate school (back when I was young and innocent - and thus could potentially recapture this enthusiasm when necessary by engaging in similar discussions. 

Here is a molecular biology discovery that we can chalk up to our increasing love of lean bacon:

"ZBED6, a Novel Transcription Factor Derived from a Domesticated DNA Transposon Regulates IGF2 Expression and Muscle Growth", in PLoS Biology.

If you're a bacon lover, you may not realize how much your culinary satisfaction is intertwined with genetics. The drive to breed leaner pigs has led to the search for genetic variants that affect muscle mass and fat deposition in pigs. Some years back, in order to find such genetic variants, a Swedish research group crossed European Wild Boars and Large White domestic pigs.