Schoalrly Sunday - Short, Sweet, and Controversial

Dear Blogosphere,

Due to my keen procrastination skills, I ended up spending an hour tonight trying to figure out/fix EndNote. Endnote just may be the worst software I have used in the past 5 years. It seems so buggy and remarkably slow for what, by all appearances, appears to be pretty simple stuff. Anywho, so spending an hour on that means I am behind on some reading. I'm hoping to get a decent amount of sleep, so I am going to keep this: Short, Sweet, and Controversial!

Here are some interesting things I've learned this past week:

1. Rosalind Franklin rocks. And I want to read a biography of her. I feel, historically, women scientists haven't been recognized (like Franklin). But if they were recognized, it was rarely in a positive light (Rachel Carson, anyone?).
2. The social sciences (psychology, sociology) are changing the routes bench sciences (genetics, biology) take. A fairly new field, called epigenetics, is blowing peoples' minds! I'm thinking about taking a class on just epigenetics next quarter... so cool. (This is a field where people look at how environment affects genes -- through methylation, "turning on/turning off," expression, etc.)
3. According to Steinberg, et al (2009), cognitively, adolescents are on par with adults, but psychosocially, adolescents are in their own place. This is why the APA issued a statement against the death penalty for minors and later issued a statement against required parental consent for minors to terminate pregnancies. If you're interested in this article, I'd be happy to pass it along (totally fascinating no matter your political views)!

Now I am going to hit the journals and read about "Association of Anxiety-Related Traits with a Polymorphism in the Serotonin Transporter Gene Regulatory Region" and "Sexual Dichotomy of an Interaction Between Early Adversity and the Serotonin Transporter Gene Promoter Variant in Rhesus Macaques." Fun, fun!

-Natalie