Are bacteria individuals? Does it matter? I'm planning to pose (and answer) these questions for my upcoming talk at PBUK2014 in Cambridge.
A biofilm is a structured, surface attached colony of millions of bacterial cells. Recent biology conferences have been full of people detailing the ways in which biofilms are analagous to multicellular organisms. They demonstrate complex systems of intercellular signalling, describe intricate and variable colony architectures and propose various adaptive hypotheses at the whole biofilm level. It is clear that the analogy has captured the biological imagination (one paper is titled 'Biofilm: City of microbes') and fuelled much research.
But what turns on it? I have found three decent arguments presented in the literature.
Friday, 28 March 2014
Tuesday, 11 March 2014
Ten months: second week
Not that I'm counting the weeks any more but I signed up to these annoying baby-centric apps that send out weekly updates about 'what your baby is up to this week' so I know I'm in month ten, second week. I'll tell you what my baby is up to this week: smearing his dinner in his hair, chewing on power cables and smashing his face into all available surfaces. Oh and not sleeping. Did I mention the not-sleeping?
I've just given my last lecture of the term
I've just given my last lecture of the term
Thursday, 6 March 2014
Baby must-haves
Several pregnant couples have asked me to name my one must-have item once a baby arrives. And at first I said, ah you don't really have to have anything much, except some boobs and a couple of nappies.
But now I have a better answer. A dishwasher.
If you are expecting a baby, or thinking you might one day have kids, this is my heartfelt advice: Get a dishwasher.
But now I have a better answer. A dishwasher.
If you are expecting a baby, or thinking you might one day have kids, this is my heartfelt advice: Get a dishwasher.
Who remembers playing Myst?
Am I showing my age there?
Well I've decided that being a baby is just like playing Myst V: End of Ages, on a pc, in 2005. With my little brother.
When you start out the controls are really difficult, so you spend ages going in circles and stuff. Once you've got movement figured out you wander around in a pleasant, but basically inert background, until one time you accidentally bump into an object and it moves and this is hugely exciting, so you spend ages figuring out how you did it, and then moving it again and again.
Then you walk round the background again searching for more things you can move (I believe the philosophical term for these is 'affordances'. One day you accidentally hit upon a key combination that performs some action on an object, like picking it up and shitbag, that's a good day. So then you go back round and pick everything up.
It basically goes on like this, you discover new actions and try them out on all the things you can see, every now and again accidentally opening a door or finding a hidden portal.
I hope Orson doesn't just get bored and give up on about level three like I did.
Well I've decided that being a baby is just like playing Myst V: End of Ages, on a pc, in 2005. With my little brother.
When you start out the controls are really difficult, so you spend ages going in circles and stuff. Once you've got movement figured out you wander around in a pleasant, but basically inert background, until one time you accidentally bump into an object and it moves and this is hugely exciting, so you spend ages figuring out how you did it, and then moving it again and again.
Then you walk round the background again searching for more things you can move (I believe the philosophical term for these is 'affordances'. One day you accidentally hit upon a key combination that performs some action on an object, like picking it up and shitbag, that's a good day. So then you go back round and pick everything up.
It basically goes on like this, you discover new actions and try them out on all the things you can see, every now and again accidentally opening a door or finding a hidden portal.
I hope Orson doesn't just get bored and give up on about level three like I did.
Friday, 21 February 2014
And the LSE too!
Congratulations to Jonathan Birch, who is awesome and who will be fighting the good philosophical fight as assistant professor at LSE!
Macquarie is on the up
I'm delighted that Rachael Brown, one of the best young philosophers of biology around, has been appointed lecturer at Macquarie in Sydney.
Monday, 17 February 2014
On posh cowboys, and other subject-specific heros
Peter Godfrey-Smith writes in Theory and Reality that scientists love Karl Popper because they enjoy the image he paints of them as "hard-headed cowboys, out on the range, with a stradivarius tucked into their saddlebags."
I remember well when I was scraping pennies as a grad student by invigilating at undergraduate exams,
Thursday, 30 January 2014
Papers!
Thanks to the inevitable journal processing time, it *looks* like I've been most busy during this maternity leave, with two papers out recently : )
'Origins of Evolutionary Transitions' is my first ever paper in a science journal, which I'm happy about. You can now read it here.
'The Multiple Realizability of Biological Individuals' was a long time coming. I wrote it the summer of 2011 when I was working in Vienna, although the actual ideas were in place two years or more before that. Curiously, its ended up with an August 2013 publication date although I was still fiddling with proofs in November. Anyway, its all worth it in the end to see it find a home at JPhil : ) You can read it here.
'Origins of Evolutionary Transitions' is my first ever paper in a science journal, which I'm happy about. You can now read it here.
'The Multiple Realizability of Biological Individuals' was a long time coming. I wrote it the summer of 2011 when I was working in Vienna, although the actual ideas were in place two years or more before that. Curiously, its ended up with an August 2013 publication date although I was still fiddling with proofs in November. Anyway, its all worth it in the end to see it find a home at JPhil : ) You can read it here.
Wednesday, 29 January 2014
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