December days: Cool science

jack asked about Moar cool science (stuff that's obvious to you as well as stuff that's new to you). So for the old stuff I want to introduce the idea of apoptosis, because that's the thing so cool that it made up my mind I was actually going to study science to high level, when I was dithering about it in my late teens, and I do in fact work on it now. And because when I was babbling about transcription factors I clarified a few points in the comment discussion, and silveradept mentioned I had no idea there was a self-destruct button for cells, so maybe this is something other people also don't know.

And for the new stuff, I know I've been babbling about it already to some people, especially if you were at our Christmas party at the weekend, but I came across a guy recently who is basically making a piece of kit which is very nearly a Star Trek medical tricorder.

( sciiiiiience )

[December Days masterpost]