31 MAY 2015 by ideonexus
Genetic Language is Abstract and Flexible
The awesome power that genetic engineering will
one day place in our hands was foreshadowed recently
by some experimenters at the University of Basel in
Switzerland. Walter Gehring and his students were
studying the effects of the eyeless gene in fruit flies. The
gene is called eyeless because its absence causes flies to
grow without eyes. The gene actually causes eyes to grow. Gehring and the students inserted the gene into
various tissues of embryonic flies, and the embryos
grew into flies ...20 JAN 2014 by ideonexus
Star Trek is About Diversity
Moses Maimonides, who lived nearly 900 years ago, wrote a book called The Guide for the Perplexed. In it, he said: "The human race contains such a variety of individuals that we cannot discover two persons exactly alike in any moral quality or external appearance. This great variety and necessity of social life are essential elements in man's nature." These are the same principles, the same philosophies, which are inherent in "Star Trek." But let's go back to what "Star Trek" really is. It...Rodenberry's philosophy was to respect and cherish diversity.