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When does human life begin?

Let’s start with some basics. Prior to uniting during fertilization, a human sperm and a human egg are both alive and human. That they are both human is undeniable, based on their sourcing. That they are alive can easily be demonstrated by autoclaving them and then testing whether they can still participate in fertilization (they can’t; autoclaving kills gametes). So in a real and meaningful sense, human life precedes fertilization. Indeed, there has been no point in the history of our species when human life began, since it is a continuum. Are you with me so far? So if by “human life,” you mean human diploid life, then does it begin when the sperm head (containing the paternal haploid complement) fuses with the oocyte (containing the maternal haploid complement)? Well, no, because it takes several hours for the two pro-nuclei to fuse. Then there’s the small matter of when the zygote implants in the uterus. Without implantation, the zygote is lost. Most human conceptuses are lost that ...
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Quote of the day

“ . . . nationalism in its early eighteenth-century stages was closely aligned with liberalism. Early liberals, seeking to establish a political foundation for their countries other than monarchy, appealed to sentiments of national unity built on language and culture. This early nationalism wasn’t perfect, but at least it was a political project built on aspirations for self-determination, a better life, and respect for other peoples.   “Such liberal nationalism is connected to collective aspirations for better things and healthy pride in one’s national history, both of which are closely connected to the capacity to feel shame. A person feels shame when he recognizes that he has failed to live up to his high standards and ideals, when he has failed to demonstrate the quality of character of which he is capable. A nation feels shame when its people recognize they have failed to live up to their principles, to the image of themselves as a noble people pursuing a better future. In bot...
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Red meat isn’t the only source of dietary protein

As a professor of biochemistry, I’ve always been puzzled by the equation of red meat with dietary protein. Setting aside the fact that fish, crab, shrimp and lobster are as rich in protein as red meat and poultry, what do people think plants are made of? There’s protein in nuts, fruits and vegetables, too. “Meat is indeed packed with protein, but it comes with some well-established health drawbacks. “Saturated fat we’ve known about for decades,” said Dr. Sarah C. Hull, a cardiologist at Yale Medicine. It’s common in red meat and contributes to increasing LDL cholesterol levels, hardening the blood vessels and, in turn, raising the risk of heart attack or stroke. “Moreover, “all mammalian meat tends to be very inflammatory,” said Hull, who studies the diet-related risks of heart disease and cancer. “More recently we’ve come to understand that the many pro-inflammatory compounds found in red meat” can have other downsides, she said, including “deleterious interactions with the gut microb...
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No, Trump isn't meaner than Hitler

  I just saw a headline in the Independent that “not even Hitler attacked the pope so directly.” Well, OK but there’s a big difference: the Nazi government signed a concordat (a treaty) with the Vatican on July 20, 1933, known as the Reichskonkordat. The Church agreed to keep priests and religious orders out of political activity. There is no similar treaty between the Vatican and the Trump Administration. I’m not justifying Trump’s uncivilized behavior, but Hitler wasn’t more civilized, he just sidelined the Vatican in advance, something the Vatican agreed to in exchange for the rights of Catholic education and worship, and the protection of Catholic organizations.
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Quote of the day

It’s important to note that [Orbán] was defeated by what is essentially a center-right party, led by a defector from Orbán’s party. But from appearances, at least, it’s a center-right party that plans to operate within the structures of civic democracy. I wanted to note that, perhaps in spite of himself, Orbán, bad as he is, managed to again illustrate just what a weak and fraudulent man Donald Trump is. He managed to do what Trump has never been able to do: concede defeat. ~Josh Marshall
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What’s in a name?

When I was growing up, my dad (who was nominally Jewish) told me that our family name was German and meant Iron Mountain. I only learned decades later that both of his parents were Jewish immigrants from Ukraine. At the time my paternal grandfather arrived in New York as a child, the name was spelled “Aizenberg.” He grew up in Argentina, and when he returned to the US, had the name spelled in its current form, doubling the s to capture the soft s sound. Because my mom was Roman Catholic, my parents had to agree to raise their kids Roman Catholic in ordered to be married in the Church. Which is why I’ve had five of the seven RCC sacraments, how I came to be an altar boy at St. Mary Catholic Church, why the boy scout troop I was in was sponsored by the Knights of Columbus, and how the first date for my wife and I was an ice skating party sponsored by the CYO. While I no longer identify as Catholic, I also don’t identify as Jewish, even though Israel would consider me Jewish for the right...
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Advances in cancer diagnosis

We’re used to thinking about DNA in containers: nuclei, mitochondria, bacteria, viral particles. But there’s lots of DNA pieces flowing through our bloodstream all the time. This cell-free DNA can be captured and analyzed, just like the DNA in sewerage can be tested for COVID. “UCLA scientists have developed a simple and cost-effective blood test that, in early studies, shows promise in detecting multiple cancers, various liver conditions and organ abnormalities simultaneously by analyzing DNA fragments circulating in the bloodstream.  “The test, described in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could offer a powerful and more affordable approach to early disease detection and comprehensive health monitoring. “Early detection is crucial,” said Dr. Jasmine Zhou, the study’s senior author, a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine and investigator at the UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. “Survival rates are far higher when cancers are cau...
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