Geneticists lay plans for rationalized rodents

L1-associated diseases: clinical geneticists divide, molecular geneticists unite.

The neuronal cell adhesion molecule L1 (L1CAM) is a transmembrane glycoprotein belonging to the immunoglobulin superfamily and is essential in the development of the nervous system. It is mainly expressed on neurons and Schwann cells, and plays a key role in axon outgrowth and pathfinding through interactions with various extracellular ligands and intracellular second messenger systems. Mutatio...

Special Majorities Rationalized

Complaints are common about the arbitrary and conservative bias of special-majority rules. Such complaints, however, apply to asymmetrical versions of those rules alone. Symmetrical special-majority rules remedy that defect, albeit at the cost of often rendering no determinate verdict. Here what is formally at stake, both procedurally and epistemically, is explored in the choice between those t...

Quarreling geneticists and a diplomat.

I N the 1950s the hydrogen bomb was new; it was also fearsome. Some of the test explosions produced debris that was dispersed by high-altitude winds, dropping radioactive fallout over an entire hemisphere. Some geneticists feared that mutations induced by the radiation would constitute a significant genetic hazard to future generations. Other people argued that the tests were a necessary part o...

Training of medical geneticists.

Canadian College of Medical Geneticists