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Epigenetics and sociology: A critical note
June 8, 2018
I recently read an interesting article by Michel Dubois, Catherine Guaspare and Séverine Louvel entitled “De la génétique à l’épigénétique: une révolution ‘post-génomique’ à l’usage des sociologues”, which appeared in the Revue française de sociologie, 59(1), 71-98 (2018). Dubois et al.’s ‘critical note’ is intended to introduce French readers to English works that explore the boundaries …
Brains, organoids and cultural narratives
May 4, 2018
For a while now I have been observing developments in neuroscience, stem cell research and tissue engineering, in a rather desultory fashion. Behind my back things began to happen and grow. Organoids In 1989 the journal Science reported on research into ‘organoids’ (or, as the OED defines them, the “growth of cells or tissue in culture …
Fermenting hope; fermenting hype?
March 23, 2018
When I first became involved with the Synthetic Biology Research Centre here at the University of Nottingham in 2014, I wrote a blog post in which I pointed to fermentation as one of its historical and intellectual roots. I called it ‘Fermenting thought’. Now, four years later, I have come across an article in The …
Microbiomics: Heading the bandwagon off at the pass
February 24, 2018
Epigenetics once was a new and emerging field. Although there is no scientific consensus about the correct meaning of ‘epigenetics’ and scientists are increasingly sceptical of some claims being made, one can say, following Kat Arney, that epigenetics tries to “explain how the things that happen to us during a lifetime somehow imprint on our …
Making Science Public: End of year round-up, 2017
December 15, 2017
This is my sixth end-of-year blog post for the Making Science Public blog. A lot has changed since I posted my first one at the end of 2012 (and this post is my 307th). The Making Science Public programme, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, has virtually come to an end but the topics it began …