Dorian Gray, Tom Ripley, and the Queer Closet

The real Dorian Gray mouse.

Genetic variants with greatly extended lifespan are proving invaluable in uncovering signal transduction pathways that influence the rates of normal ageing. These studies have so far been confined to invertebrate models such as Caenorhabditis elegans and Drosophila, but there has been much speculation as to whether a similar approach could be applied to mammals. The recent publication of result...

Two-Dimensional Rubber-Hand Illusion: The Dorian Gray Hand Illusion.

The rubber-hand illusion provides a window into body representation and consciousness. It has been found that body-ownership extended to numerous hand-like objects. Interestingly, the vast majority of these objects were three-dimensional. We adopted this paradigm by using hand drawings to investigate whether rubber-hand illusion could be extended to two-dimensional hand samples, and we measured...

Stressed Yeast Paint a Picture of Dorian Gray

We all pass unwanted stuff on to our children—emotional baggage, peculiar habits, unfashionable furniture. Cells do the same thing when they divide; along with their newly replicated genomes and the vital cellular organelles, they also pass on a lifetime’s worth of accrued rubbish. An important component of this is the legacy of insoluble aggregated protein that the parent cell has failed to de...

Coming out, Staying in, and Stepping in and out of the Closet: Questions of Black and Minority Ethnic-Queer Identities

Coming out is a contentious issue, particularly for the Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) populations. The following questions attempt to address the three large issues here: (i) Is coming out necessary in the first place? (ii) If yes, who does the BME-Queer (BME-Q) individual come out to, and (iii) where does he/she come out (in) to? The first question is related to the sexual identities that BM...

Aestheticism, Homoeroticism, and Christian Guilt in the Picture of Dorian Gray: a Darwinian Critique