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There Once Was a Girl From ...

Mar 10, 2011

Have a silver tongue? This month's mini-Annals of Improbable Research announces a limerick contest brought to you by lumpers, splitters, and nosology. "To the extent that he pulls together the multiple features of single gene syndromes, the medical geneticist is a lumper. To the extent by various means that he identifies heterogeneity, he is a splitter," writes Victor McKusick in the 1969 paper that is the inspiration for the contest. The mini-AIR lists two rules for the contest: "Please make sure that: (1) your rhymes actually do; and (2) your poem is in classic, trills-off-the-tongue limerick form." If you win, they might send you something. Or not.

Breaking News
The Scan

Pig Organ Transplants Considered

The Wall Street Journal reports that the US Food and Drug Administration may soon allow clinical trials that involve transplanting pig organs into humans.

'Poo-Bank' Proposal

Harvard Medical School researchers suggest people should bank stool samples when they are young to transplant when they later develop age-related diseases.

Spurred to Develop Again

New Scientist reports that researchers may have uncovered why about 60 percent of in vitro fertilization embryos stop developing.

Science Papers Examine Breast Milk Cell Populations, Cerebral Cortex Cellular Diversity, Micronesia Population History

In Science this week: unique cell populations found within breast milk, 100 transcriptionally distinct cell populations uncovered in the cerebral cortex, and more.