I sing the praises of Escherichia coli, bean-shaped bacterium, inhabitant of the human intestine, best understood (as I shall soon reveal) of all God’s creatures.
Biology
Escherichia coli • NIAID (CC BY 2.0)
Red and white blood cells • National Cancer Institute (Public Domain)
The human body’s ‘cell wars’ defense
Two stories have dominated the medical news lately: a promising new development in the war on cancer, and the increasing prevalence of the disease AIDS. The stories are closely related, and both focus our attention on the strategic defenses of the human body.
Photo by Ying Wu on Unsplash
Giant panda’s a bear after all
Here is a surprise. The giant panda is a bear, and not — as many zoologists supposed — a raccoon. But wait, I am getting ahead of myself.
The A, B, and Z DNA in cross-section, modeled on computer (Public Domain)
The shapes of life
In his autobiographical book The Double Helix, James Watson, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, tells how he came to think of the helix as the fundamental structure for that molecule. “The idea (of the helix) was so simple,” he says, “that it had to be right.”