How do cells know what shape they are?

Do researchers know what they are doing?

Progenitor cells: What do they know and when do they know it?

In the cerebral cortex, cell-fate specification and migration depend on both extrinsic and intrinsic regulation, but recent studies raise the possibility that much of the information needed to generate distinct cell types and specific migratory patterns is intrinsic to progenitor cells at early stages of development.

How General are our Generalizations? What Speakers Actually Know and What They Actually Do

In this paper I bring several perspectives from languagechange and diachronic linguistics more generally to bear on thequestion of how broad linguists’ generalizations about speakers’linguistic behavior should be, and the extent to which they correspondto what speakers actually do themselves. Examples are drawn from thedevelopment of Greek, of English, and of Slavic, and fro...

Do animals know what they know ?

Using well-established paradigms for studying animal perception and memory, researchers have begun to ask whether animals can monitor the status of their knowledge in a behaviour al task whether they know what they know. Generally, such metacognitive ability is tested by giving animals the opportunity to avoid (or ‘escape’) a test of memory or perceptual discrimination. The pattern of escapes c...

Nutrition epidemiology: how do we know what they ate?

It is generally believed but difficult to prove that diet plays a role in the risk of various diseases. This paper reviews strengths and deficiencies of select diet-assessment methods used in epidemiologic studies with particular reference to their use in the study of osteoporosis. Direct observation or weighed food records are useful primarily as validation for less intrusive methods. Complete...