Microarray truths and consequences

REVIEW Microarray truths and consequences

For many, analysis of a microarray experiment starts with a spreadsheet of expression levels. While great attention is duly paid to RNA extraction, preparation and hybridization, relatively little care is devoted to extraction of expression levels from the fluorescent image. By delegating this step to a click of the mouse the exact extraction process is masked and researchers may be unwittingly...

Coagulopathy in the Setting of Mild Traumatic Brain Injury: Truths and Consequences

Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) is a common, although poorly-defined clinical entity. Despite its initially mild presentation, patients with mTBI can rapidly deteriorate, often due to significant expansion of intracranial hemorrhage. TBI-associated coagulopathy is the topic of significant clinical and basic science research. Unlike trauma-induced coagulopathy (TIC), TBI-associated coagulopat...

Natural Principles and Fundamental Truths

Inaccessible truths and infinite coincidences

It is one of the salient features of an intuitionistic philosophy of mathematics that it denies the possibility that there may be infinite coincidences in mathematics: if a sentence is true, it can only be because there is a finitely expressible reason for it. The same view was expressed from a different standpoint by Hilbert in 1924 when he asserted that in mathematics there is ignorabimus. It...

Home truths from abroad.

I recently paid a visit to Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. My aim was to exchange ideas about postgraduate training with the medical teachers there. Brown is one of America’s leading universities, and I saw a great deal that challenged my preconceptions about medicine in the USA, and also made me question some of our working practices in the UK. Most of my time was spent observing...