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Allergy, Genetics

Hygiene hypothesis – dead or alive?

It seems that I am not alone here to think that the hygiene hypothesis has thrown back allergy research for 20 years – despite the desperate attempts of journalists and scientists. Here is an an excerpt of Hygiene hypothesis: wanted—dead or alive

When it comes down to all, the best evidence to prove or dispute the hygiene hypothesis will probably come from ongoing and future randomized trials of interventions, e.g. treatment with probiotics and microbial products, that have been developed in the light of the hygiene hypothesis. In the mean time, we must prepare ourselves to face the results of these trials as well as of other types of evidence. It is a possibility that it may turn out that the hygiene hypothesis is more dead than alive, or at the least needs another revision.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 18.01.2026
Allergy, Genetics

The largest study so far on serum cytokines

We just published the largest study so far of human serum cytokines providing for the first time reference values.

In this study we investigated serum samples from 944 individuals of 218 asthma-affected families by a multiplex, microsphere based system detecting at high sensitivity eleven asthma associated mediators: eotaxin (CCL11), granulocyte macrophage stimulating factor (GM-CSF), interferon gamma (IFNγ), interleukin-4 (IL-4), IL-5, IL-8, IL-10, IL-12 (p40), IL-13, IL-17 and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFα). Continue reading The largest study so far on serum cytokines →

 

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Philosophy

Science – a belief system

I haven’t followed up most recent developments in philosophy and was therefore quite intrigued by a lecture of Hannes Leitgeb last week about “Reducing belief simpliciter to degrees of belief” – or should I say degrees of probability? Details about the lecture in my notes. While common sense would put belief more to the theology department, modern philosophers have a quite different position as he further explained me (and which are excellently summarized at plato.stanford.edu)

contemporary analytic philosophers of mind generally use the term “belief” to refer to the attitude we have, roughly, whenever we take something to be the case or regard it as true. To believe something, in this sense, needn’t involve actively reflecting on it: Of the vast number of things ordinary adults believe, only a few can be at the fore of the mind at any single time. Nor does the term “belief”, in standard philosophical usage, imply any uncertainty or any extended reflection about the matter in question (as it sometimes does in ordinary English usage). Many of the things we believe, in the relevant sense, are quite mundane: that we have heads, that it’s the 21st century, that a coffee mug is on the desk. Forming beliefs is thus one of the most basic and important features of the mind, and the concept of belief plays a crucial role in both philosophy of mind and epistemology.

Philosophers target a universal definition Continue reading Science – a belief system →

 

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Philosophy

Getting most out of your money

Funding strategies are seldom reviewed. But note, there is a new paper in Nature “Follow the money” with an result that I find plausible:

In general, we find that sponsors who concentrate funds in fewer institutions have lower research impact as measured by early-citation counts. It may well be that when groups from multiple institutions vie for funding, competition increases, review processes become less partial and more promising projects are selected.

So, funding should not be concentrated too much (and together with an earlier finding here from the Ig Noble prize 2010) it even doesn’t matter whom to fund ;-)

 

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Philosophy

A CV without failure?

There is a great new proposal (although it will be never accepted in the scientific community)

Compile an ‘alternative’ CV of failures. Log every unsuccessful application, refused grant proposal and rejected paper. Don’t dwell on it for hours, just keep a running, up-to-date tally. If you dare — and can afford to — make it public. It will be six times as long as your normal CV.

tbc…

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 18.01.2026
Genetics

What’s wrong with these genotypes?

During a correspondence with a colleague about the validity of genotyping rare variants I became aware of a paper in Science that I missed initially. It is about genetic signatures in longevity:

Using these data, we built a genetic model that includes 150 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and found that it could predict EL with 77% accuracy in an independent set of centenarians and controls.

That’s an extremely difficult enterprise given our recent results of the heritability of life span. But that’s not the point, reading now the editorial expression of concern by Bruce Alberts.

In their study, Sebastiani et al. used a number of different genotyping platforms and neglected to perform data quality-control steps, which resulted in their reporting several false-positive single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) associations. In particular, one of the platforms used in their work, the Illumina 610-Quad array, has been shown in unpublished studies by other investigators to produce artifactual genotype data at a subset of SNPs.

No idea, what’s bad with the Illumina Continue reading What’s wrong with these genotypes? →

 

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Philosophy, Theology

Bridging science and religion

That’s something that I just read in the DHV newsletter 11/2010 – teaching science in the church :-)

Studierende der Universität Kassel lernen auch auf Kirchenbänken. 20.616 Studierende sind derzeit eingeschrieben. Das sind 1.000 mehr als zu Beginn des vergangenen Wintersemesters und damit mehr als je zuvor. Hörsäle, Mensen und Seminarräume platzen aus den Nähten. Die Hochschulleitung hat daher zusätzliche Räume im Stadtgebiet angemietet. Hierzu gehören ein Hörsaal im Klinikum, Räume in Schulen und zwei Kirchen.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 18.01.2026
Noteworthy, Philosophy

Science success sucks (sometimes)

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 something I believe is important. Now, that might seem weird: what kind of loser doesn’t want to be successful?
Me. I’m that loser. Continue reading Science success sucks (sometimes) →

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 18.01.2026