Genome of the Electric Eel

Let’s have a tropical topic to counterattack this stunning cold snap.  Electric eels will do the trick.   Even the genus name gets right to the point:  What’s good for you is good for us–Electrophorus!  (As with the temperatures, this is a new low for the year 2013 on the WN@TL Punometer…)

The implications of Lindsay Traeger’s work are amazing because cells of all sorts–heart and nerve; microbial and plant– run by setting up voltage gradients.  And if studying examples in extremus helps us get a grip on the ordinary, then the electric eel work has some marvelous insights in store.

We are hardy folk:  despite the cold, or perhaps in defiance of it, I hope to see many of you tomorrow night.  I just don’t know whether to prepare toddies to match the temperature or Mai Tai’s to match the tropical topic.

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