Nathaniel Comfort
@nccomfort
Historian of science & medicine and writer @ Johns Hopkins & Berkeley. Biography of James Watson coming soonish from Basic Books. Also rock climbing, roots music, tattoos, dogs, humor. My opinions are his –>
if you’re judicious about it, it can be profoundly improving to take advice from a can. happy father’s day, dads
good morning! Mrs. Goldfinch stopped by for a snack, then went to tell the Mister there was good eats, then the feeder burst into yellow flame. #birds
lol just for grins i managed to find my notes from that 2016 conference...
Stepped outside this morning, heard a bird I didn't recognize, looked up in a big dead tree, and saw one of these handsome fellows—my first! Red-headed woodpecker. A lifer a day keeps the doctor at play. #birds
gorgeous rainbow from my front porch the other day that I am now on the other side of because I had my LAST FACULTY MEETING yesterday!!!
Right, ok. It was Bill who told me about Nick Lane, when I visited him in 2016. Just for fun, here's Bill proudly displaying his ear of maize from Barbara McClintock and one of his elaborate hand-drawn diagrams of the chemistry of AHV cells.
omg i just saw attenborough’s green planet episode 2. it’s brilliant, as always, but now all i can think of is audrey ii
true fact: Chesapeake Bay retrievers are amphibious. In Catholic Maryland, the local bishop declared them hence to be fish, hence edible during Lent. Much rejoicing. ok, 2 true facts: the Lent-edibility actually relates to #capybaras.
Watson simplified Crick's CD into his own "DNA makes RNA makes protein" (1952). MBG was so widely used that a whole generation came up mistakenly thinking an RT was impossible—including John Tooze, the author of the article! An exasperated Crick then clarified: 2/2
I appreciate the friendly explanations of this really cool bit of science. I was making perhaps an overly obscure reference to Nature's reaction to reverse transcriptase in 1970: The idea that RT violated Crick's Central Dogma stems from an error in Watson's Mol Bio of the Gene (1965). 1/2
#warblers !! heard my first northern parula today, woohoo! Usu the first warbler we get roun these parts in the great spring migration. let the onslaught of bouncy, musical, feathered, multi-colored pingpong balls begin!
What, exactly, are they building? Can you tell from the description? Right and/or wrong answers gleefully accepted.
Amen. I've followed the pile-on on this for 4 days and am saddened and embarrassed by it. Solidarity, brothers and sisters! Eating our own is too expensive a meal, Let's not let Rumpelstiltskin become the emblem of today's American Left.
More #Ecuador pix: the rim of Guagua Pinchincha, from the rim; a corunculated caracara; bromeliads; roadsign proof. #Andes #volcanoes #raptors
up on Cruz Loma today, the clouds parted and the iconic #Cotopaxi, at 5900m (19,350’) one of the highest active volcanoes in the world and surely the closest to the sun, shrugged its shoulders and shone. #Andes #Ecuador #Quito #mountains
In Quito for a conference. Today we took a break and took the 🚡 up Cruz Loma (4000m) and took a long, slow walk. The clouds would part here and there, revealing spectacular views. Cotopaxi, Ruku Pichincha, Flower of the Andes.
That is literally my trip trip. My voyage voyage. My flight fucking flight! This "journey" idiom has gone way too far. It must be quashed.
I do believe this is the most enthusiastic umlaut usage I’ve seen