Recently, a Dutch-Flemish boy of eleven years graduated cum laude in Physics at Antwerp University. He started studying at Eindhoven University of Technology at the age of nine (Brussels Times). What does this event imply for topics like our biological clock, consciousness, epigenetics, learning vs teaching, nature vs nurture, talents, and/or the age when our brain...
Epigenetics
By Losing Genes, Life Often Evolved More Complexity (Quanta)
Quanta Magazine title: By Losing Genes, Life Often Evolved More Complexity Quanta subtitle: Recent major surveys show that reductions in genomic complexity — including the loss of key genes — have successfully shaped the evolution of life throughout history. By: Viviane Callier Date: 1 September 2020 "When Cristian Cañestro set out in the early 2000s to study...
Time, the rhythm of life
Often, time feels like a weight on our shoulders when we must get to our appointments "in time". The recent stay-at-home orders have learned us new experiences, like how to fill that vacuum of time. A subsequent new experience that we have learned is that each day is similar to the previous and the next day. Somehow, time has gotten lost upon us. Since mid 2013, I...
Why must each generation learn everything again?
Last Thursday evening, a strange question suddenly entered my mind: why must each generation learn everything again? The obvious answer would relate to biology, nature vs nurture, etc. A recent Quanta article argues that it's not that simple: Inherited Learning? It Happens, but How Is Uncertain (Saturday's blog). This booming scientific field is called...
Inherited Learning? It Happens, but How Is Uncertain (Quanta)
Quanta Magazine title: Inherited Learning? It Happens, but How Is Uncertain Quanta Magazine subtitle 1: Studies suggest that epigenetics allows some learned adaptive responses to be passed down to new generations. The question is how. Quanta Magazine subtitle 2: Memories passed down in our genes? Not exactly. But biologists have observed examples of learned...
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