FOXP2 is known as “the language gene.” When it goes wrong, as it famously did for a family in England, it can cause severe deficits in language ability. In the “KE family" in England, for instance, several family members carry a defective mutation of the gene and have trouble with grammar and writing, and with making the right face and mouth movements for normal speech.  There’s a nice write-up on the gene at “Not Exactly Rocket Science” 

According to a recent GENETICS study, a family of genes (1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate synthase, or ACS genes) are responsible for production of ethylene and since this gas affects many aspects of plant development, it could lay the foundation for future genetic manipulation that could make plants disease resistant, able to survive and thrive in difficult terrain, increase yields, and other useful agronomical outcomes.

The discovery was made with the weed Arabidopsis thaliana but is applicable to plants used in agriculture, they say.

The Paleontologist community in China and around the world are all aflutter over a recent find in the Erlian Basin of Inner Mongolia. Known more for its heavy oil potential and favorite export - pollution, northeastern China is the preferred stomping ground for the savvy petroleum geologist.

As a complete aside, it also boasts the prettiest portion of the gene pool, or so says one of my stomping friends having explored much of Asia. So, home to pretty women today and, as it would seem, an enormous bird-like dinosaur some 70 million years ago.  Fancy that.

A nifty news story about students in a Florida classroom watching a giant squid dissected in Melbourne, Australia, led me to hunt down an article about the dissection itself. Was it really a giant squid, I wondered wearily, or merely a very large squid?

It was indeed a true giant squid! And the article is quite good, gushing alliteratively about "the museum's mollusc master" using "surgical sweeps of the scalpel" to investigate. Just a few points to clarify:

What do rock climbing, book clubs, and sci fi have in common? The answer is they all help an astrophysicist with job hunting. Read on for why and how!

Back on May 1st, 6 months ago, I decided to transition to a pure freelancer lifestyle. At the time, Stephanie P. asked "How do you transition from research to writing within NASA?" My answer was "I think I need to see what luck I get hunting, before I can speak with any credence on 'how to transition'!?!". And indeed, freelancing @NASA is still a nut to crack. Their culture doesn't encourage outside contribution as much as I think it needs to.

A key riddle surrounding the origin of biological molecules like RNA and DNA is how they first came together billions of years ago from simple precursors but a study appearing in the Journal of Biological Chemistry says researchers in Italy have reconstructed one of the earliest evolutionary steps yet; generating long chains of RNA from individual subunits using nothing but warm water. 

Many researchers believe that RNA was one of the first biological molecules present, before DNA and proteins, but there has been little success in recreating the formation on RNA from simple "prebiotic" molecules that likely were present on primordial earth billions of years ago.

It happens in the best families, so they say. Two experiments work 24/7 to produce an improved result on the Higgs search, and the result is disappointing, to say the least.

I am talking about the Tevatron, of course. For a little while longer, CDF and D0 will have the exclusive on Higgs boson searches. Last March, we all rejoyced when we saw that the Tevatron was starting to become sensitive to a high-mass Higgs, and indeed it excluded its existence in a range of masses between 160 and 170 GeV. We were waiting for more exclusions for the winter conferences of 2010, when more data would be used to produce improved results. Instead, no improvement, but actually, a retractatio. How is that possible ??

Call it contrarian stubborness, but I believe there remains that print journalism a critical aspect of American society.

That said, what's journalism?

Matt Bowden, in the October issue of The Atlantic, proposes that we are in a "post-journalistic age," created by the broadcast drive for ratings and the corporate drive for a bat bottom line, both of which are, of course, money.

"In this post-journalistic world, the model for all national debate becomes the trial, where adversaries face off, representing opposing points of view," Bowden said.

One of the basic lessons rookie reporters are taught is to follow the money. Who benefits, who pays, who receives. In Bowden's PJ world, journalists are lawyers, not recorders of facts.

Attentive readers of this blog may have noticed that those who post comments to my entries often show two interesting and complementary attitudes: a fundamental distrust of (if not downright contempt for) philosophy, coupled with an overly enthusiastic endorsement of science. Take, for instance, my recurring argument that some (but not all!) of the “new atheists” engage in scientistic attitudes by overplaying the epistemological power of science while downplaying (or even simply negating) the notion that science fundamentally depends on non-empirical (i.e., philosophical) assumptions to even get started.

According to new research conducted by scientists from the University of Maryland and the Ecole Centrale de Lyon in France, smokers may face another serious health risk from the habit and the tobacco industry may have another serious PR problem on their hands as a result.

A study appearing in the upcoming issue of Environmental Health Perspectives suggests that Cigarettes are "widely contaminated" with bacteria, including some known to cause disease in people. The research team describes the study as the first to show that "cigarettes themselves could be the direct source of exposure to a wide array of potentially pathogenic microbes among smokers and other people exposed to secondhand smoke."