moh_maya

So, if you actually read the 3-4 blog articles [1,2,3,4,5] on epigenetics that he's written, I don't interpret them as him suggesting epigenetic changes do not occur.

Rather, I think he is challenging the notion that epigenetic inheritance is the driver of / underlies behaviour change in mammals.

I disagree with your assertion that he is skeptical of epigenetic inheritance. I think he's skeptical that epigenetic inheritance can drive multi-generational neuro / psychiatric behaviour change, which is a far more nuanced position to take.

For instance, had you made the effort of actually checking his blog, [5] is a response to the article you linked / cited:

To quote him:

"So, in case I have come across as merely unpleasantly grumpy, let me spell out my general grounds for being skeptical of the claims of TGEI in mammals."

And further, in the context of behaviours and neuro disorders, and their inheritance in humans.

That's what he is commenting about. Not epigenetic inheritance in general. In as much as you didn't actually check his writings and painted his position with such a broad brush and value judgements, then yes. I would agree this was shameless and an ad-hominem attack indeed.

Now, I don't know this guy. But his arguments, especially the lots of different ways in which biologists mis-interpret and mis-apply statistics rings true. His arguments are cogent, and his analysis reasonable and conservative. Which, in science (the conservative interpretation) is an excellent thing, IMO. So yes, I do choose to consider his opinion carefully.

I think, in all this hype and buzz-wordy social media noise that appears to be driving everything including research and politics, it's important to identify and defend the voices that are saying, slow down, let's not read too much into these things yet; let's not get carried away.

Jill Escher, whose article you linked to, is a lawyer by training. This guy is a neuro-biologist and a professor at Trinity College, Dublin. Who do you think has more credibility here?

This suggests to me that you didn't even look the people you were citing up, or who you were criticising. Surely, you can do better?

[1] http://www.wiringthebrain.com/2013/01/the-trouble-with-epige...

[2] http://www.wiringthebrain.com/2013/01/the-trouble-with-epige...

[3] http://www.wiringthebrain.com/2014/04/the-trouble-with-epige...

[4] http://www.wiringthebrain.com/2018/05/grandmas-trauma-critic...

[5] http://www.wiringthebrain.com/2018/07/calibrating-scientific...

[Edit: added excerpt and replaced "crap" with "noise"]

absolutely. I would hope people don't now start doing fecal transplants for treating depression, or Alzheimers, or schizophrenia. These results, interesting though they may be, are not a cure; they may not even be diagnostic.

But clearly, diet, the gut microbiome, the immune system, at the very least, are linked, and linked tightly. So it would not be surprising at all, that there's a microbiome component. But we don't know what it is; how it affects the underlying disorder, and how to approach it for treatment as of now.

And as you alluded to with "genetic risk factor"; its well possible that though there is a component of the microbiome involved in the disease; it may not be significant enough to act as a vector for treatment. Or that it is just a comorbidity. We just don't know!

from a twitter thread [1] critiquing the paper, by a neurogeneticist [2]:

" And we can test them on a whole range of behaviours, without correction for multiple tests, without a hypothesis of which should show an effect, and again without a replication sample In this case, the ones getting a SCZ fecal transplant showed greater activity, but less anxiety and less "depressive" behaviours. Why? Who cares? You can spin these kinds of findings any way you want. We all love a good story."

Please read the cited thread.

/disclaimer: I am not a neurologist / neurobiologist. My training was in genetics & molecular biology, and I've since moved out of active research / life sciences. But bad statistics and gross over-interpretation bothers me immensely; folks read such breathless reports & then start doing all kinds of harmful stuff because it's been proven! But it's not. It may be a hypothesis (and this report may not even qualify as that). And cruel as it is, we still don't understand nearly enough about so many things in biology to be able to address these disorders.

[1] https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1095012297200844800.html

[2] https://www.kjmitchell.com/

absolutely. I think what's happening is the "let's see what sticks" approach. I'll throw every possible symptom and try to draw correlations in every possible way. We can always come up with a hypothesis later.

Which, while its an effective way to do science when we don't know what we don't know, has to be interpreted with lots of caveats & caution, and should only be considered to be the 1st step in a long, deliberate investigative process. And that doesn't seem to be the case, particularly in how pop-sci articles communicate the results.

There is good reason to be skeptical of the claims in the article. This twitter thread [1] is a good, articulate criticism of the issues around the paper.

To quote a segment from the series of tweets by the author, Kevin Mitchell (a neurogeneticist from Trinity College, Dublin)[2] :

"1. A supposed mechanism in search of a phenomenon... (What is the microbiome supposed to explain here?)

2. No actual mechanism.

3. No actual findings. Just lots of exploratory blips, unconstrained by prior hypotheses, uncorrected for multiple tests, and unreplicated.

4. Massive hype.

Just because the genetics of complex disorders is complex and just because the neuroscience of the highest functions of the human mind is complex, doesn't mean we need to go looking for new kinds of biology to explain them"

[1] https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1095012297200844800.html

[2] https://www.kjmitchell.com/

[edit: formatting]

Its an interesting article in that it is looking at fitness (of fruit-flies, the model system used in the study), not lifespan alone.

Going in, I was expecting all of these interactions would be like the GWAS (genome wide association studies) interactions. I was expecting maybe single digit (max) percentage changes in the overall fitness / lifespan / etc.

But, if I understand the article correctly [1], different combinations of gut bacteria drove variations in lifespan by up to ~20% (which is a HUGE shift), which makes me a little skeptical.

All in all, a fascinating, if very unclear study.

They are very interesting correlations, but mapping the cause-consequence relationship is probably one of the biggest challenges in modern biological research; in this context & diseases like (many) cancers. In an ideal world, we really would like to have that degree of understanding to be able to develop effective, targeted cures (the holy grail of modern medicine?)

Finally, there's a lot of 'buzz' around microbiomes / microbiomics etc, etc. But I think one needs to be cautious in interpreting these results. This twitter thread [2], on an article / paper claiming modulation of schizophrenia by gut microbiome, is an articulate criticism(IMO) of such a claim.

In general (not the fly paper referred to in [1]), I think a significant fraction of microbiome / trait association studies, as exemplified by the schizophrenia study discussed in [2], are just throwing stuff up & seeing what sticks; and they are.. perhaps not the most rigorous of ways of doing science..

Finally, a slightly older, but still good article in NY Times that discusses some of the issues around the hype, etc. [3]

[1] https://www.pnas.org/content/115/51/E11951

[2] https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1095012297200844800.html

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/06/upshot/exciting-microbe-r...

[multiple edits to improve readability :~]

So back when I was much much younger & brasher, my email signature was "Laziness is an Optimization Protocol". I used that email for applying to my Master's programs, including some of my country's most prestigious (and ergo competitive) places.

And I think one reason I got into one of them is because my future advisor saw this, chuckled, but then proceeded to have a conversation with me about the importance of being "smart" about how we approach questions, and being efficient about resource use (including time)..

I was being cheeky; but he saw that I was kinda / sorta aware of a deeper idea, and helped me develop & identify it. It has stayed with me since.

Not really. Deep sea mining on the floor will kick up sediments, that will probably affect growth of plankton, which form one of the foundations of the ocean ecosystem. Also related to what I've quoted below, you'll probably end up releasing a lot of minerals into the ocean water that drive algal blooms.

"Bottom trawling also stirs up the sediment at the bottom of the sea. The resulting undersea plumes of “suspended solids” can drift with the current for tens of miles from the source of the trawling, introducing turbidity throughout the water that inhibits the transfer of light down to the depths where it is needed for photosynthesis in plankton, sea kelp and other undersea plants that serve as the basis for the marine food chain. Also, ocean sediments serve as natural safe resting places for many persistent organic pollutants (such as DDT and PCBs). Dredging these sediments up effectively reintroduces such toxins into the water where they are unwittingly absorbed and consumed by the fish we eat and other marine life already trying to cope with otherwise compromised undersea habitats. The sediment plumes also reintroduce nutrient solids from agricultural and other practices, increasing demand for oxygen in the water (causing algae blooms) and contributing to the outbreak of ocean “dead zones” devoid of marine life." [1]

[1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/saving-deep-ocean...

So I don't know if you are being sarcastic or if you are being matter of fact. But I'd wager that disrupting deep sea floors would have detrimental effects on

a) commerical fishing, since you are disrupting the ocean ecosystem in a big way

b) probably accelerate global warming by leading to CO2 release from carbon sequestered on the floor [1]

The first point is easy to explain to anyone, even if they don't believe in anthropogenic climate change and refuse to see the dangers implied by the 2nd..

[1] https://serc.carleton.edu/eslabs/carbon/6a.html

This, in effect, is already happening in the city. The centre lanes / dividers of some of the major roads are now being used to construct an elevated metro system.

Not the OP, but if you haven't,

Alastair Reynolds comes to mind.

And there's always Iain Banks and the Culture series (though very very very different style and outlook!)

Ars technica covered this in a well written, well explained article [1] yesterday. Worth a read for folks who don't necessarily have the right background to understand the significance and / or importance.

To quote one of the many good excerpts:

"They looked at siblings-in-law, and first-cousins-in-law, and then further afield, at relationships like “the sibling of a sibling’s spouse" (your brother’s wife’s sister) and "the spouse of a spouse’s sibling” (your husband’s sister’s husband). Even at these distant relationships, lifespans were correlated—if your spouse’s sibling’s spouse lived to a ripe old age, that means you’re a bit more likely to do the same."

Worth reading, IMHO.

[1] https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/11/genetics-play-less-o...

Hey, thanks for the reply. I'm browsing on my smartphone (android 8 / chrome), and all I see are 3 navigation cues on the screen: 1) feed 2) products 3) an "up" arrow floating at the bottom right to take me up.

Clicking on the logo takes me to the feed page. So I can't seem to find the left panel at all..or get to the main page (unless the main page is the feed page)?

Appreciate your reply! :)

I'm lost. What is this site about? What is the feed page showing me and what am I supposed to do?

I couldn't find the "about us" page, which normally helps me understand what the site is about, and what I should look for. It may be helpful to include that (and a menu button / menu bar at the bottom..?)

It's probably me, but this is too minimalist and context-free for me to actually get anything out of it. Maybe I'm not part of the target audience?

I wonder what the effects will be of learning to read a "new" language, in addition to ones that we already know. Would that result in detectable changes?

Would the type of "new" language matter? Say, Someone who knows English, learning to read French, v/s the same person learning to read Mandarin, which has a very different structure?

Just a tangential headsup for others if they are paying for vimovo (out of pocket, or significant co-pay).

Vimovo is a combination of two generics (naproxen & esomeprezol) delayed release. You can probably get OTC versions of the two pills for much cheaper than what Vimovo charges.

This drug falls into (IMO) ethically grey area in terms of drug pricing & marketing; on the one hand, it is (was?) priced much higher than the individual generics that are part of the combination; on the other hand, it is a convenience.

Horizon pharma, which markets the drug, is not the cleanest of the bunch either [1,2] .. They have a really good understanding of the healthcare market, and know exactly how to game it.

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-04-06/when-thes...

[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnlamattina/2018/03/15/physic...

(edit: added 2nd link)

Umm, the Indian Supreme Court legally recognized the "third gender"; quoting from the article [1]:

"When the Indian Supreme Court acknowledged that gender is a non-binary form of identity that goes beyond male and female, the victory came as a nice surprise to many."

[2]:

"India's Supreme Court has recognised transgender people as a third gender, in a landmark ruling that may offer gay people a glimmer of hope. It is the right of every human being to choose their gender," the court said in granting rights to those who identify themselves as neither male nor female. The court ordered the government to provide transgender people with quotas in jobs and education in line with other minorities, as well as key amenities."

There are many issues that need to be fixed in India. But there are also many areas where India is far far more progressive than the US, at the very least.

And this change has been accompanied by a social movement; should be faster, but change is happening.

[1]https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-history-of-indias-t...

[2]https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/04/16/india-transgende...

That's not really true. Take a look at the experiments performed all the way back in the 18th century [1], where mimosa plants followed a rhythm even when they were kept in an absolutely dark room.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_d%27Ortous_de_Mai...

More work since then extends this idea. Pubmed has a ton of good papers.

Umm. I hope I'm not misinterpreting your comment, but time keeping is innate to the body. It does not need any "conscious effort". And almost all multicellular life on earth does it. Most unicellular organisms also have (I think) some equivalent of a circadian rhythm. [1] There's a large body of evidence that the circadian rhythm is self generated, starting from this classic self experiment in 1938 [2].

Sure, you need external cues to synchronise / entrain it, but the body does keep its own time. As do animals, plants, insects..

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circadian_rhythm

[2] https://www.google.co.in/amp/s/www.the-scientist.com/foundat...

Can you share a link, if possible? The only one I found was an hour long talk hosted on youtube [1].

Thank you!

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=84&v=ZTC_RxWN_xo

What are the politicians there for then?

I'm not being facetious here. Politics is one of the primary avenues of bringing about social change. Ditto civil service.

A PhD should be about novel contributions that increase the sum total of human knowledge.

Previous discussion, about 8 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15684225

It's a little more nuanced than that though.

The babies were delivered. This wasn't a fetus dying in the womb.

From the article:

"The hospital said: “An interim analysis by Amsterdam UMC, location AMC, showed that sildenafil may be detrimental to the baby after birth. The chance of a disease of the blood vessels of the lungs appears to be greater and the chance of death after birth seems to have increased.

“The researchers found no positive effect for the children on other outcomes. All adverse effects occurred after birth … "

Further, the incidence was much higher in the test group compared to the control group.

It was a last ditch attempt, where the prognosis for the fetus was perhaps already poor. But it is still heart breaking. There is so much we don't know about fetal development that there may be no alternatives to doing such tests. But still..:/

I feel for the parents and the scientists involved. It is a terrible burden. But perhaps that's just the nature of working with such high risk populations. I hope they find the strength to continue testing other alternatives.

[1] suggests, even if it were possible for life to exist on such a planet, it may not be conducive for a civilization such as ours..

[1] https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a19032/how-life-could...

An interview with Kip Thorne [1] (who recently won the Nobel Prize for physics [2]) on the science in the movie and a book about the science in the movie that he has written [3]

And a slightly breathless account of how working on developing the visuals for the film drove development of new code and led to new insights [4]

Needless to say, I'm a fan of the film.. :D

[1] https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/parsing-th...

[2] https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/20...

[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Science_of_Interstellar

[4] https://www.wired.com/2014/10/astrophysics-interstellar-blac...

Ah; thank you for the reply; I understand what you were trying to say. I'll leave my original comment in place for context for other readers. :)

I'm not sure I completely understand your comment. Are you suggesting this is not a significant advance in the field?

I am not an EM expert; but the fact that its been through peer review & gotten published in Nature seems to suggest scientists in the field think it is a significant advance. And from what I do know of microscopy, it is still not trivial to image (sub?) atomic size structures.

Extending the quoted paragraph:

"The basic principle of the technique was proposed almost 50 years ago by the physicist Walter Hoppe, who reasoned that there should be enough information in the diffraction data to work backwards to produce an image of the diffracting object.

However, it was many years before computer algorithms were developed that could do this reverse calculation easily and reliably. The pictures produced by ptychographic methods are generated using a computer from a vast amount of indirect scattering data."

The news & views article does not claim that this is a basic sciences advance; they are claiming its an engineering / methodology / procedural advance. And those are as important, IMO.

Unless you are suggesting that, once the basic sciences are known, any engineering advance is trivial. If so, then you & I have very a different impression of how easy / difficult it is to build new "things" :)

So, based off the article, I don't agree with the idea of letting children at that age choose to drop topics because they aren't interested.

a) Interest often is triggered as you learn more about the subject.

If the argument is, it is the teachers responsibility to make topics interesting, I'd buy it. But allowing children at that age to drop topics seems like (to me) a disservice to the child

b) There are topics like history, geography, civics that (I believe) every child should learn. School is not just for trade skills, it's for learning to function as a part of the society, and these subjects are indispensable for understanding the larger world.

Having to run an "economy" or work in groups is not a suitable replacement for these "ideas" and skills.

In addition, at the risk of coming across as a traditional disciplinarian, I think there is merit in teaching children the discipline of forcing oneself to learn even when one is not interested in a topic. Ignoring the "it builds character" nonsense, the initial steps in most new things can seem tedious. But learning the basics allows one to explore a much larger world and choose what to develop mastery in.

Allowing such subject choice at such an young age, eliminating large parts of social sciences, etc. deprives children of these vital perspectives and opportunities, IMO. And being comfortable with tedium is important in its own right. That should not be the only thing one learns in a school (and I know that thats unfortunately too common in most schools), but doing away with it altogether is equally counter productive..

Student choice and voice can be incorporated in multiple ways, without eliminating entire subjects altogether..

Plugging one of my mentors here:

https://www.ted.com/speakers/kiran_sethi

What she has accomplished I think is a far more valuable contribution.

(Disclosure: I worked with her and designed the school's middle school (primary & middle school) science curriculum. )

Edit: added link to TED talk and subsequent disclaimer.

So, imo, cognitive biases, that you mention, are distinct from 'critical thinking'.

One needs to be aware of the implicit & explicit biases, but that's not the same as the ability to think critically.

I would argue the first step is to understand how people in general think, and in particular, how one thinks.

For understanding "how" we think, with a clear focus on the biases and pitfalls, one very useful reference is "thinking fast and slow" [1]

Critical thinking requires logical / rational thinking (not necessarily the same thing) and (I think) also requires one to think of the issue from multiple perspectives and try to identify all the factors / drivers.

That, I think, would come from empathy and a deliberate attempt to systematically identify all variables. So, at some level, the skills one picks up as a scientist. But I don't know of any single book that lists them..

So, at some level, a lot of business model analysis frameworks maybe useful; for instance, Porters 5 forces [2], SWOT analysis, etc.

Finally, to be able to think critically, one also needs to be self aware. Perhaps meditation can help with that, but reading & digesting some of the philosophy classics may also help (Seneca, Bhagvat Gita & Upanishads, Kant). But these become tasks for a lifetime!

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11468377-thinking-fast-a...

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porter%27s_five_forces_analy...

(Edit: added last 2 paragraphs on business analysis frameworks and self awareness, and links)

Reminds me of Snowcrash & Bob Rife:

""I deal in information," he says to the smarmy, toadying pseudojournalist who "interviews" him. He's sitting in his office in Houston, looking slicker than normal. "All television going out to Consumers throughout the world goes through me. Most of the information transmitted to and from the CIC database passes through my networks. The Metaverse -- -the entire Street -- exists by virtue of a network that I own and control.

"But that means, if you'll just follow my reasoning for a bit, that when I have a programmer working under me who is working with that information, he is wielding enormous power. Information is going into his brain. And it's staying there. It travels with him when he goes home at night. It gets all tangled up into his dreams, for Christ's sake. He talks to his wife about it. And, goddamn it, he doesn't have any right to that information. If I was running a car factory, I wouldn't let workers drive the cars home or borrow tools. But that's what I do at five o'clock each day, all over the world, when my hackers go home from work.

......

So we're working on refining our management techniques so that we can control that information no matter where it is -- on our hard disks or even inside the programmers' heads. Now, I can't say more because I got competition to worry about. But it is my fervent hope that in five or ten years, this kind of thing won't even be an issue." "

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/830.Snow_Crash