Science is classy

When they’re not having a jamboree or bringing light to the world, Columbia faculty enjoy getting dirty in the lab. Bwog takes a moment to look back on this week in science. Headlines were compiled by our Not Bill Nye But Still a Science Guy Correspondent Ricky Raudales.

• Following the publication of the two largest studies of Alzheimer’s disease, researchers believe the disease may be linked to a failure to metabolize cholesterol. The recent findings, which lend credulity in implicating the role of the dynamic ApoE gene, have at least one Columbia researcher giddy.
  
• Columbia University scientists confirmed that the virus that killed two wild mountain gorillas in 2009 had human origins. While it’s perhaps the first of such recorded human-to-gorilla transmissions, we’re certain gorillas have stronger reasons to fear us.
• Turns out Art and Science look out for one another. Working with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a team of Columbia researchers employed immunological techniques to analyze centuries’ worth of canvas masterpieces.
• A Times Op-Ed piece entitled “Tools for Thinking” recently featured the “path dependence” theory of CU linguist John McWhorter. While useful in explaining preferences for some human conventions over others, we doubt Housing Selection will ever be explicable.

Dapper scientist via Wikimedia Commons.