Friday, August 22, 2003

For Mark

He works on sex determination in fruit flies. And it appears that some other scientists are figuring out that pathway in honey bees. Maybe Mark will understand why the scientist quoted in that article thinks his discovery is a "grail". I can kind of understand, seeing as how what makes humans male and female isn't as clear as one would think (there's a lot more to it than Xs and Ys), and the more we know about how other organisms handle sex determination, the more we can discern about us. But I don't know that I'd call it a grail. I think I'll reserve my cup of Christ comparisons for something that will cure cancer, Alzheimer's, or anything in that vein of things. Or something like this, which seems to have farther reaching implications. But I'm not and never have been a developmental biologist (and never will be). So what do I know?

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