Re: I bcc'd you on a note

okedoke

cool

You are bcc'd (blind copied) on a note to the GEM team. Just FYI. Let's see what they say.

there is a super cool theory about schizophrenia. david anderson at caltech. they have made schizophrenic mice that refuse to eat and go in circles - neat.

the idea is not that it is genetic or even environmentally acquired - rather it is that your mom (while pregnant) gets the flu during the weeks the neural tube is still open. the pathogens (either proteins or actual pathogens) get trapped in the neural tube before it closes and become a part of the structure and there is no way to get them out.

they went back and analyzed norwegian data - all the pregnant women in norway - who came in with flu virus during that critical time and then tried to link those results to adult schizophrenics. and guess what....

makes you sort of think about that being the same mechanism for fetal alcohol syndrome. clearly there's more that alcohol does due to toxicity for all migrating cells etc but toxins within the neural tube = bad news.

i wish we were better at dialysis. like instead of just having a filter for electrolytes, why not filter out all the nasty blood products you don't want?

anyway, also interesting. did you know that there is a really neat relationship between widow's peak (hair line thing) and the distance between eyes? they both are mediated by the same growth factors and structures. was talking to a geneticist.

anything new in the world of coolness?