The scientific community is abuzz with the publication of 30 articles in Nature and other journals (Genome Research and Genome Biology) resulting from the Encode project. As Gina Kolata reports in New York Times, The human genome is packed with at least four million gene switches that

As I wrote in this blog, in early May I started on a new diet, which is misleadingly (for reasons I will come back to) called the ‘Paleo Diet.’ First, a progress report. Over the 3.5 months I lost 15 pounds, or around a pound per week. Not particularly impressive by the standards of s

If you are in North America or Western Europe and look around, on any particular day, you will find most people wearing pants. But why is it the standard item of clothing for people, especially men belonging to the Western civilization. Why not a kilt, a robe, a tunic, a sarong, or a

Cultural evolution is what created the – in many ways – wonderful societies that we live in. It created the potential to free our lives from hunger and early death, and made possible the pursuit of science and art. But cultural evolution also has a dark side, in fact, many ‘dark sides