Sunday, February 5th, 2012
Substantial evidence now indicates that vitamin D may enhance the innate immune response and protect against respiratory infection. The human cathelicidin hCAP- 18 appears to have a particularly important role in the vitamin D–mediated mechanism against infection. Additionally, early evidence suggests that vitamin D modulates regulatory T-cell activity and IL-10 production, which are critical to the Th1–Th2 balance. These findings may be particularly important in the pathogenesis, control, and severity of asthma. However, (Show me more…)
Having seen so nice pictures of Erasmus this week at “Dürer, Cranach, Holbein, Die Entdeckung des Menschen: Das deutsche Portrait um 1500” I had to look his famous quote
Utcumque de me vulgo mortales loquuntur – neque enim sum nescia, quam male audiatur STVLTITIA etiam apud stultissimos – tamen hanc esse, hanc, inquam, esse unam, quae meo numine Deos atque homines exhilaro. Vel illud abunde magnum est argumentum, quod simulatque in hunc coetum frequentissimum dictura prodii, sic repente omnium vultus nova quadam atque insolita hilaritate enituerunt: Sic subito frontem exporrexistis, sic laeto quodam et amabili applausistis risu, ut mihi profecto – quotquot undique praesentes intueor – pariter deorum Homericorum nectare non sine νεπενθη temulenti esse videamini, cum antehac tristes ac solliciti sederitis.
Undoubtly, there is an avalanche of poor research – as the Chronicle wrote last June, “we must stop the avalanche of low-quality research” the amount of redundant, inconsequential, and outright poor research has swelled in recent decades, filling countless pages in journals and monographs. Consider this tally from Science two decades ago: Only 45 percent [...]
Leo at zenhabits has a great new piece: Why I don’t care about success. ‘Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.’ (Albert Einstein) A lot of people in my field write about how to be successful, but I try to avoid it. It’s just not [...]
Mutation accumulation in the human genome is a largely neglected research field. Most mutations have a very small effect (if any) and may be compensated by environmental improvements. I have already argued in that way in the 2003 Triple T paper and will reiterate it soon in PLOS medicine (just found that James Crow 1997 [...]
I do not want to discuss here the rather polemic view of Daniel Dennetts “Breaking the spell” and other books as the new secularism is “suddenly hip” as the Guardian digital edition writes on 29th Oct 2006 Secularism is suddenly hip, at least in the publishing world. A glut of popular science books making a [...]