Another German University carries his name, but his tombstone is here in Munich: Alter Südlichen Friedhof, Thalkirchner Str. 240, Eingang Kapuzinerstr., D-80469 München.

What I always feared, but couldn’t believe, is now confirmed by renowned experts in a new Cell editorial

Historically, the word “epigenetics” was used to describe events that could not be explained by genetic principles.

It goes back to Conrad Waddington – and describes now such bizarre and inexplicable features like paramutation in maize, position effetc variegation in Drosophila and methylation in humans. There is a nice analogy of the classical 1957 epigenetic landscape figure of Waddington where the course of the ball is influenced by hillls and valleys where it finally arrives – the Pinball arcade game

known factors that may regulate epigenetic phenomena are shown direcing the complex movements of pinballs (cells) across the elegant landscape … no specific order of molecular events is implied; as such a sequence remains unknown. Effector proteins recognize specific histone modifications…

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Do you know how a mechanical clock works? Here is my attempt to explain this to my children:

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The power (the white solid wheel at 4 o’clock) is attached to a series of wheels (black, green, pink) that finally carry the hands.

The clock would run as fast as possible if the power wheel would not limited by a second set of wheels (blue, yellow, red) leading to white escapement, that is leading to a periodic repetitive action allowing the power to escape in small bursts rather than drain away all at once.

The trick is with the special form of the white escapement wheel at 12 o’clock which lifts up the pallet arbor periodically. The pallet arbor has 2 pallets, which enter the spaces between the wheel teeth; it rocks back and forth in a consistent way is it also connected to a pendulum. As each tooth moves in and out of the teeth, it allows the wheel to turn in repetitive actions.

More clocks photos at human clock; we will need this principle at a later stage.

I have recently read about a round-table discussion on “so called experts” – a frequent topic in environmental circles. Have to say that I do not fear so much half-way baked knowledge – even renowned experts are occasionally slipping to a closely related field where they are no expert at all. Or do you believe that a Nobel prize winner in physics has any primacy in ethics?

In the same vein, there is comment in nature medicine about Wikipedia – complaining that a 4th year medical student (“who is barely old enough to buy beer”) has such a large influence on medical writing at Wikipedia. As there doesn´t follow any details of his major errors or misunderstandings, I conclude that this comment is more about the beer drinking habits of the author Brandom Keim.

Anyway, there are quite interesting new sites by medical doctors like Gantyd (“get a note from your doctor”, so far 3000 topic pages, 200 editors from 6 countries) or Ask Dr. Wiki (4 editors, clinical notes, pearls, ECGs, X-ray images and coronary angiograms) all worth a look.