Category: Biology

Yes, it is safe to drink and breastfeed

Yes, it is safe to drink and breastfeed

After a long pregnancy, I was looking forward to my first refreshing beer. But I worried about what impact having a drink would have on my breast milk. There’s a lot of conflicting advice out there.

Lamb’s Ear, a plant you can pet

Lamb’s Ear, a plant you can pet

On a recent trip to the San Francisco Botanical Garden, I stumbled on the niftiest plant ever. It’s called Stachys byzantina or “Lamb’s Ear”, named for the softness of it’s leaves. And WOW are they soft.

Inheritance is inescapable for us animals after all

Inheritance is inescapable for us animals after all

Lateral gene transfer–grabbing genes from other individuals or even other species–plays a big role in evolution for bacteria and other single-celled organisms (prokaryotes). But the last few years have seen a string of studies supporting the idea that this mechanism might be more important than we thought for animals.