Twenty-four years ago today, our paper “A forkhead-domain gene is mutated in a severe speech and language disorder” was published: www.nature.com/articles/350....
A personal thread about the ups & downs of the journey we took to get to that point....1/n
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My favorite historical figure is officially Peter the Great. Yes, he tortured his own son to death and went to parties in the same week, but did you know about his modernization policies? And how he hacked everyone's beards off? And his little gap year to Holland to become a shipyard worker?

Novel song, cool band, geeky (awesome) name.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ijk4...

Listen to Oasis when you're feeling down. Thanks Liam and Noel.

Was playing Scattergories, and for "O" all my brain could think of is "Octavian". I don't know what it is.

Sometimes working towards the expectations is more important than working towards perfection. I think. It's a tad annoying though.

Been reading about the French Revolution lately. The life story of Saint-Just is simply amazing. He was the youngest member of the Committee of Public Safety, being barely 27 when he died in Thermidor. And he showed little sign of precociousness as a child - his mother got him arrested due to theft.

I think that the SciAm article on the newly discovered role of mitochondria is a bit misleading. I like that the author is attempting to appeal to a layman audience, but mitochondria isn't "living" just because they communicate with each other. Almost every cell does that.

My favorite TV show is Only Connect, hosted by Victoria Coren Mitchell. Truly brilliant. Did I mention that she's also a two-time European poker champion?