I realized that my son is doomed to never find his name on any of those racks of personalized merchandise because his name doesn't even rank in the top 1000. But I love his name so much.

Not only is there a lot of sequence conservation, but there is also conserved synteny, which means that the order of the genes on a chromosome is conserved in addition to sequence.

I threw a friend of mine a Game of Thrones themed baby shower. We all came up with house words for their house, and drew on onsies the house crest. It was co-ed, and all friends. The mom-to-be picked her favorite house words and crest, and those people got prizes (I won the House Tulley prize which was a jar of…

Amanda Cohen also wrote my favorite cook book: Dirt Candy, that's part cook book, part biography about her restaurant, and part comic book. It's a really fun read, and my husband has tried some of the recipes.

I definitely get a lot of "Oh...interesting!" when I tell people my son's name. I didn't pick it because it was different (in fact the other names my husband and I were choosing between were Malcolm and Mason, and Mason is the #2 boys name in the country) but I just really liked the name.

I remember the book that dealt with her dad losing his job. And how Ramona liked having him around but was still cognizant of the stress it caused the family.

Could you tell the difference between a woman who is 5'5" and someone who is 5'6"? Just meeting them at a bar or somewhere, are you telling me that you would be able to determine that 1 inch difference? Or would you make all the women you are interested in stand against the wall to be measure before you date them? …

I adopted Marley, my black dog, because he looked just like Shamrock, the dog I had growing up. Similar in looks, not personality. Shamrock was sweet and patient and not super playful. Marley is nutty, needs attention all the time, eats everything he can (even if it's not edible) and just wants to play all the time or…

My moms Jewish but my dad is Italian-Irish Catholic. I was raised a Jew, got Bat-mitzvahed and everything but because I have an Irish last name I always had to explain to people that yes I was actually Jewish, no I'm not a "half" Jew, I was raised to be a Jew, I'm not Catholic at all.

There actually is a drug to improve cognition in Down Syndrome going through clinical trials right now, but it targets learning and memory in a different way, focusing on the long term depression and not the correction of the SHH pathway. It's also in adults, not children.

I had a grade 3 mature placenta (with calcifications) that caused me too be induced at 37+4 weeks. It was a horrible labor, 48 hours in the hospital including 4 hours of active pushing and resulting in a forceps assisted delivery. I lost 2L of blood and had to have four transfusions and couldn't even hold my baby for…

I do this too! One time I was sitting and eating lunch with my now ex-boyfriend. We weren't talking, so I dazed off and started having an imaginary conversation (don't remember who with) and he suddenly asks me "What are you saying? Your lips are moving like you are talking, but no sound. Who are you talking to?"

3 days is about my limit for guests as well. Which makes it difficult when my in-laws want to visit, because they only come once a year, so when they do visit, it's usually for a week or more. Last time it was 10 days. And I feel like I can't say no because they are my in-laws, and we don't see them often.

I've had the same problem. What's really bad is the one woman who keeps using my email for personal stuff. I've had people email me with really sensitive information (in one case about a child's medical problems) that make me really uncomfortable.

I had the opposite experience at a Monster's University showing. There were tons of kids, but aside from some light whispering which I expected, they were mostly well behaved. Much more behaved that the asshole dad who was checking Facebook on his phone and wouldn't put it away even after my husband politely asked…

I adopted my dog from a shelter 2.5 years ago, and I still remember the day, a couple months after we'd had him, when my husband took him for a walk. They hadn't been gone long, and I was standing outside waiting, and when they were about 50 feet away, my husband took the dog off the leash and he ran straight for me!…

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/…

Well there goes my Monday (good thing the boss is out of town this week).

This essay was rough to read. My brother and I are best friends, only 2.5 years apart and have a very similar relationship (he introduced me to Meet the Robinsons, I made him watch Kim Possible). He texted me the other day, mad at me for introducing him to Doctor Who because Rose is gone, and it's apparently all my…

If the siRNA is made in the lab, it is patentable. And most siRNA is lab created, so it should be exempt from this ruling.