'Where my dad was from he was quite a respected man'.

He was my son, not a dying baby.

Conversing happily with my son we had been driving home when my mobile phone rang. Startled at the sound of my obstetrician’s voice I had pulled off to the side of the road. At 18 weeks gestation I was told in a factual tone that the results from my serum screen had come back, indicating that our baby was at increased risk of Trisomy 18. Gripping the steering wheel my head had spun as he talked...

‘My late husband Mr Anua was a hard-working man’

I was approximately 12–13 years old when Dr Carleton Gajdusek came into the Purosa Valley to do research on kuru. My late husband Mr Anua was a hard-working man. He helped Carleton and Michael Alpers in their fieldwork. Sometimes when he was asked to go to other villages to report on kuru patients, I had to accompany him and we both went out. I have seen more of the villages to the south and we...

How my genome was hacked

Where was Joseph Babinski born?

There is controversy in the neurological literature about where Joseph Babinski was born, including a myth propounded by various important authors that he was born in Lima, Peru. However, according to the most consistent biographical data, he was in fact born in Paris, France, and became a medical celebrity there and in Poland as well as around the world.

Who was that masked man?

Stephen Gaukroger’s new biography of Descartes is a major accomplishment. Gaukroger offers the reader an overview of Descartes’ life and works, with healthy doses of intellectual background thrown in for good measure. It should have a major impact on Cartesian studies, both within the history of philosophy and within the history of science. As Gaukroger’s full title makes clear, this is suppose...