June 28, 2016 at 02:10AM

Today I Learned: 1) Anybody remember VDJ recombination from a TIL about a month ago? Today I learned some evidence, from a lab class, strongly suggesting that VDJ recombinase does, in fact, cut pretty strongly at VDJ recognition sites with one base pair mismatches from the canonical recognition sequence (jury's still out on whether it cuts less at all). That implies that the VDJ recombination system, which is critical for generating new antibody variants in young immune cells, should also be cutting in a few hundred of the wrong places in the genome. Which really ought to be bad. 2) The word "hermaphrodite" comes from the Greek story of Hermaphroditus, a minor god of great beauty. A naiad by the name of Salmacis fell in love with Hermaphroditus (and possibly raped him? I'm not clear on this point yet). She prayed to the gods to be "united with him forever", so the gods literally merged their two bodies into one for all of eternity. I'm glad to see that particular pun works in both ancient Greek and modern English. Also of note: the name Hermaphroditus comes from the names of the god's parents, Hermes and Aphrodite. Yeah. Thanks to Mengsha Gong for this delightful little tidbit. Not sure how she found it.... 3) ...that a teacher I've been working with for the last term studied alongside Robin Hanson as a physics student. She moved on to engineer devices for laser labs; he went on to study economics and speculate about the economics of futurist scenarios. Who knew! (well, she did, obviously.)