Under the snow

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/07/opinion/sunday/what-the-muck-of-walden-pond-tells-us-about-our-planet.html?_r=0  This is an article from the Sunday Review section of the NYT. It is written by a science professor about studies of the protists in the mud in Walden Pond, which is a wonderful place. A Boston University ecologist compared the dates for the Spring melt  reported in Thoreau's diaries with the current situation. The pond also freezes later than it did in Thoreau's time.


https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/09/science/dna-tads.html?_r=0
An article in the Science Times about syndactyly, a genetic defect involving the fusion of fingers, which runs in families. This mutation allows for the study of TADS, or Topologically-Associated-Domains (TADs) in which chromosomes are divided up into neighborhoods with partitions between them. This work was done at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics.




http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2017/01/19/health/ap-us-med-cancer-virus-men.html?_r=0 Article in the NYT about the prevalence of HPV infection among men. (almost 50% have genital infections caused by a sexually-transmitted virus). This report was published in JAMA Oncology and underscores the importance of having boys as well as girls vaccinated against HPV.  Of that 50% about 25% have strains that are associated with cervical cancer.  Vaccines can prevent infections but only one-third of 13 year old girls and boys are fully vaccinated.