I love your essays and I look forward to them every week. They're always thought-provoking and insightful. It immediately made me think of this study (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41587-019-0037-y) looking at differences in HeLa cells based on strain, location, and even time in culture. Studies like these definitely makes you question how much of what is "known" in the literature is actually true, or at least translatable to human health and biology. Pretty much everyone I've talked to agrees that reproducibility is a huge problem in biomedical research, but it doesn't seem like anyone has the time or ideas to do anything about it, which is a scary prospect for future research.
My wife is an enthusiastic wildlife rehabber and we've had literally a thousand or two squirrels pass through our house over the last 20 years. One thing I've learned from that is that squirrels aren't just a species, they're a collection of individuals, just like us. And if you stick a needle in a squirrel I guarantee you you're gonna get bit, and wowza!, it's quite a bite.
I love your essays and I look forward to them every week. They're always thought-provoking and insightful. It immediately made me think of this study (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41587-019-0037-y) looking at differences in HeLa cells based on strain, location, and even time in culture. Studies like these definitely makes you question how much of what is "known" in the literature is actually true, or at least translatable to human health and biology. Pretty much everyone I've talked to agrees that reproducibility is a huge problem in biomedical research, but it doesn't seem like anyone has the time or ideas to do anything about it, which is a scary prospect for future research.
My wife is an enthusiastic wildlife rehabber and we've had literally a thousand or two squirrels pass through our house over the last 20 years. One thing I've learned from that is that squirrels aren't just a species, they're a collection of individuals, just like us. And if you stick a needle in a squirrel I guarantee you you're gonna get bit, and wowza!, it's quite a bite.
Do studies done on pigs have the same drawbacks?