Another re-issue: James Robinson, The Story of the Bodmer Papyri

The Story of the Bodmer Papyri

From the First Monastery’s Library in Upper Egypt to Geneva and Dublin

By James M. Robinson

Re-issue: E.G. Turner, The Typology of the Early Codex

Better Late than never

An Ode to λ

 

I grew up in the phage group and spent many summers at the phage meetings in Cold Spring Harbor. Back then (late 1960s, early 1970s), the best scientists worked on bacteriophage λ (lambda) and the rest of us just tried to keep up.

A number of key insights in molecular biology came from studying this small virus that infects Escherichia coli and if you didn't know about that research you were really out of the loop.

But by 1990 it was already apparent that a new generation of students was growing up in ignorance of the fundamental concepts learned from studying bacteriophage and bacteria. I remember asking a class what they knew about the genetic switch in bacteriophage λ and getting nothing but blank looks! Everyone worked on eukaryotes by then and the knowledge acquired by the phage group was not relevant.

I tried to teach that knowledge in my classes. In my textbook I devoted 27 pages to describing the regulation of phage genes (in a chapter on "Gene Expression and Development"). Other instructors didn't care.

Here's a short list of things we learned from studying λ. How many have you learned?

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Carnival of Evolution #44

This month's Carnival of Evolution (44th version) is hosted by The Atavism, a blog written by David Winter, a PhD student in evolutionary genetics [Proceedings of the 44th Carnival of Evolution].

Welcome to the 44th monthly meeting of the Society for the Blogging of Evolution. As you can see below, we had a large number of submissions this month and, in order to have only a single track of talks and get people to the banquet with sufficient energy to enjoy themselves, some submissions have been included in a poster session following the last of the talks. Submissions were grouped purely on their subject material, and a submission included in the poster-session shouldn't be viewed as inferior to any featured as a talk.

I hope you enjoy a day's worth of reading, and remind you that a host is still required for next month's meeting. Sign up with Bjørn (bjorn[at]bjornostman.com) if you are interesting in helping out.

The next Carnival of Evolution (March) needs a host. Contact Bjørn Østman at Carnival of Evolution if you want to volunteer. Meanwhile, you can submit your articles for next month's carnival at Carnival of Evolution.

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The Arsenic Affair: No Arsenic in DNA!

The "arsenic affair" began with a NASA press conference on Dec. 2, 2010 announcing that a new species of bacteria had been discovered. The species was named GFAJ-1 (Get Felisa a Job), by the lead author Felisa Wolfe-Simon. GFAJ-1 was grown in a medium that lacked phosphate and contained high concentrations of arsenic. The paper, published that day on the Science website, claimed that arsenic was replacing phosphorus in many of the cell's molecules, including nucleic acids.

Here's a (bad) video of the press conference. The high quality version from NASA is no longer available and some other YouTube videos don't allow embedding.


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A Mormon Tale: The Romney Connection

My wife and our children are cousins of Mitt Romney. This is the story of their common ancestor James Hood and his Mormon descendants.A Mormon Tale

• Glasgow to Ontario
• Ontario to Nauvoo
• Nauvoo to Utah
• The Romney Connection

The Romney Connection

Hannah Hood Hill arrived in Salt Lake City when she was eight years old. She lived there with her father Archibald Newell Hill and his four wives. (Hannah’s mother, Isabella Hood, died at Winters Quarters in 1847.)

On May 10, 1862 Hannah Hood Hill married Miles Park Romney. Miles was born on August 18, 1843 in Nauvoo. His parents had been converted to the Church of the Latter Day Saints while living in England

Miles Romney (1806-1877) and his wife Elizabeth Gaskell (1809-1884) lived in the Liverpool area. Following their baptism, they sailed for New Orleans and made their way up the Mississippi by steamboat arriving at Nauvoo in 1841. This was a year before the Hill family arrived with Hannah Hood Hill.

The Hill family moved directly to Utah when Nauvoo was evacuated but the Romney family went to Missouri where they moved around from town to town until finally settling in St. Louis. In 1850, they were able to afford the move to Salt Lake City, Utah where they became reacquainted with the Hill family. Miles Park Romney was seven years old and Hannah Hood Hill was eight or nine.

Miles and Hannah had eleven children including Gaskell Romney (1871-1955). Miles Park Romney was sent on a mission to England Before their first child (Isabell 1863-1919) was born. While in England he preached for several years in the area around Liverpool (former home of his parents). He came back to Salt Lake City with a boatload of new English converts.

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A Mormon Tale: Navoo to Utah

My wife and our children are cousins of Mitt Romney. This is the story of their common ancestor James Hood and his Mormon descendants.A Mormon Tale

• Glasgow to Ontario
• Ontario to Nauvoo
• Nauvoo to Utah
• The Romney Connection

Nauvoo to Utah

It was 1846 and the Mormons were preparing to leave Nauvoo for Utah. Many of them had crossed the Mississippi the previous year to prepare for the trip west. The Mormon town of Montrose, Iowa, had been settled some years earlier but now its population swelled to several thousand. Many blacksmiths, carpenters, and wainwrights set up shops to build wagons and carts.

The main exodus from Nauvoo began on February 4, 1846 with an advance party under Brigham Young. Archibald Newell Hood and his brother, Alexander Hill, were part of this advance party. The plan was to make it to Utah and establish a colony to receive the main body that would arrive later in the year. Here’s the description of what happened from the Wikipedia article on The Mormon Trail.

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