I’m a little bit panicky — the semester is almost over. There’s three weeks left, but two of those are committed to an exam and student presentations, so I’ve only got ONE WEEK to cover mitochondrial inheritance and epigenetics. I’m resigned to the fact that I can only give an introduction to those topics, but otherwise, sure, would all the students like to sign up for another year of genetics so I can cover everything adequately? No? You plan to graduate instead? OK.
It hurts to shut up and stop lecturing for two weeks, but I consider it essential to give students a voice. I think this quote from a terrible movie about genetics to be relevant:
You were so preoccupied with the fact that you could that you never stopped to think if you should
So all my students are going to be discussing cool things that modern science can do with genetics, and answering the question of whether we should.
And then we stop. Last day of classes is 2 May. Then I’ve got the summer free to work in the lab, and big bonus, I get a fall sabbatical (to be spent working in the lab) and don’t come back to teaching until January 2026.
I have to get through these next few weeks, though.
The thing that tickles me about Jurassic Park is it’s Spielberg doing a soft remake of Jaws by adapting Crichton doing a soft remake of Westworld.
Somehow I don’t think the main point of the Jurassic Park was genetics.. I saw it in the cinema at the time and was blown away by it. We know better now but it is now (still) an SF classic.
Of course, they could’ve given them feathers* and used the actual Deinonychus instead of the much smaller Velociraptor and more but, hey, poetic / artistic licence, suspension of disbelief, etc… Still enjoy it now even with its scientfic & other flaws. Gather it inspired quite a few palaeontologists and other scientists and introduced a lot of people to some real if now extinct non-avian Dinos. It conveyed awe and wonder and certainly had its iconic pop culture moments and good points.
.* See this feathered “Velociraptors” redo. Different but the same. Thirty secs long.
.** Clint’s Reptiles great discussion here – Which Raptor is Actually in Jurassic Park? (Hint: It’s NOT Velociraptor) – 21 mins long.
.*** See this short summary of some uh, issues here (3 misn 37 secs)
What? I watched Jurassic Park when it first came out, and all I saw was a bad movie about bad genetics.
The real mystery is why anyone would keep going to a theme park with such an impressive visitor body count.
gijoel@4,
They voted Trump back in, and he had a much more impressive body count.