Word: petri
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...seminars when I talk about my work," says Snyder, "somebody will ask me whether the introduction of these stem cells will alter memory." Do the newly generated cells distort or erase old memories? Or will the transplanted stem cells bring with them memories of their upbringing in a Petri dish...
...useful but doesn't quite believe it's a science. Nor does he accept the nest-of-memes view of consciousness. "To be honest, I don't even know what that means," admits Pinker. The problem, he says, is that memetics assumes the brain is essentially passive, like a Petri dish awaiting infection. It doesn't account for the self that responds subjectively, that feels sensations such as love, envy and pain. "Babies are conscious," he points out. "That's why we don't operate on them without anesthesia. And their minds have not been infected by memes...
...years ago, my husband and I were blessed with our own test-tube babies--beautiful girl twins who are equally delightful but totally different. One looks just like me; the other bears little resemblance. Are they both mine? Were my eggs placed in the right drawer? In the right Petri dish? Fertilized by the right sperm? Is someone else raising one of my children? Is ignorance bliss...
...virus is nothing more than a tiny strip of DNA or RNA crammed into a protein envelope. Using the tools of molecular biology, scientists render the virus harmless by deleting some or all of its genes, splicing the therapeutic gene into the remaining genetic material and, in a laboratory Petri dish, mixing it with human cells. The altered virus, now called a carrier or vector, can deliver the therapeutic gene into the nucleus with great dispatch...
That scenario is not as farfetched as it sounds. Talk to anyone in the pharmaceutical industry, and you'll soon discover that genetics is the biggest thing to hit drug research since a penicillium mold floated into Alexander Fleming's petri dish. Sure, scientists have long known genes play a role in almost every ailment from Alzheimer's to yellow fever. But it is only in the past few years that they've learned how to use that information to identify a multitude of new targets and pathways for drug design. Let's count the ways...