What is it that keeps you so interested in the telomere? It's so intricate and complicated, and you want to know how it works.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the fascination with the complexity of telomeres and the desire to understand their function.
Elizabeth Blackburn's statement reflects the intrigue scientists feel towards telomeres, which are crucial for chromosome protection and cellular aging. Her pursuit to unravel the complexities of telomeres illustrates a broader theme in science: the motivation to explore and understand the intricate systems that govern life and health.
In practice
In a lecture on genetics, you might say, 'As Elizabeth Blackburn pointed out, what is it that keeps you so interested in the telomere?' to engage the audience.
Cancer cells have had so many other things go wrong with them, genetic, non-genetic changes, that those cells, one of the things they then get selected for is that they have lots of telomerase because now the telomeres in those cells get maintained.
We and other groups are seeing clear statistical links between telomere shortness and risk for a variety of diseases that are becoming very common, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and certain cancers.
Checking your telomere length is a bit like weighing yourself: you get this single number which depends on a lot of factors. Telomere length gives a sense of your underlying health.
We think there are lifestyle factors that boost telomerase naturally.
For me, arguably the story of telomeres and telomerase began thousands of years ago, in the cornfields of the Maya highlands of Central America.
If we think of our chromosomes - they carry our genetic material - as being like shoelaces, I work on the plastic tips at the end that protect them.
nd now that man's history has been for the first time systematically considered as a whole, and has been found to be, like all other phenomena, subject to invariable laws, the preparatory labours of modern Science are ended.
The range of variation in the female far exceeds the range of variation in the male.
The aim of science is to seek the simplest explanation of complex facts. We are apt to fall into the error of thinking that the facts are simple because simplicity is the goal of our quest. The guiding motto in the life of every natural philosopher should be ``Seek simplicity and distrust it.''
But science is the great instrument of social change, all the greater because its object is not change but knowledge, and its silent appropriation of this dominant function, amid the din of political and religious strife, is the most vital of all the revolutions which have marked the development of modern civilisation.
Scientific facts are often described in textbooks as if they just sort of exist, like nickels someone picked up on the street. But science at the cutting edge, conducted by sharp minds probing deep into nature, is not about self-evident facts. It is about mystery and not knowing. It is about taking huge risks.
This [climate change] is potentially so dangerous that we have to act strongly. Do we want to play Russian roulette with two bullets or one?
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