<story><title>Senescent cells stop producing nucleotides: new research</title><url>https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190725151018.htm</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dekhn</author><text>To the computer hackers who read these things: biology is a complex system.  So complex that the most complicated system you have ever worked on seems very simple compared to it.  WHen you read articles like this, be aware the scientists have extensive training in working with complex systems, and publish exciting sounding coherent narratives that are, at best, incorrect but useful working models (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Not_even_wrong&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Not_even_wrong&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s fun to speculate but to prove your case and make a real dent in human health problems is a lot harder than coming in late and saying &amp;quot;But wait, why don&amp;#x27;t you just...&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I heartily recommend going back to the great textbooks of these fields and reading them, rather than trying to understand things by dropping into the state of the art research (which is usually wrong, and hard to understand in detail).&lt;p&gt;Some books I recommend:
The Biology of Cancer (Weinberg).  After you read this book you&amp;#x27;ll have a better understanding of why doctors and scientists cringe when people say &amp;quot;cure cancer&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Molecular Biology the Cell (Alberts, etc).  After you read this book you&amp;#x27;ll have a much better understanding of the full complexity that scientists have to deal with in complex cellular systems.&lt;p&gt;Molecular Biology of the Gene (watson, etc).  Can&amp;#x27;t say much about this book except that&amp;#x27;s it&amp;#x27;s a classic reference.&lt;p&gt;What makes these three books exception is that they support all their factual claims with direct links to the papers that established the facts.  And they provide you with the skills to evaluate modern research.  But nothing compares to actually going to grad school and participating in the research- once you see how the grants are made, the experiments are, and the papers are written, you&amp;#x27;ll understand why trying to understand biology by press release is like trying to understand assembly language by watching a Steve Jobs product announcement.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>breck</author><text>&amp;gt; To the computer hackers who read these things: biology is a complex system. So complex that the most complicated system you have ever worked on seems very simple compared to it.&lt;p&gt;I had this exact experience, when I transitioned from working in big tech to working at a cancer research center. The scales are wildly different. In the time it’s taken me to write this comment, my body has generated nearly a billion new cells at 20GB of data per cell, or about 100 google web indexes worth of data. Very humbling. But also very fun!</text></comment>
<story><title>Senescent cells stop producing nucleotides: new research</title><url>https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190725151018.htm</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dekhn</author><text>To the computer hackers who read these things: biology is a complex system.  So complex that the most complicated system you have ever worked on seems very simple compared to it.  WHen you read articles like this, be aware the scientists have extensive training in working with complex systems, and publish exciting sounding coherent narratives that are, at best, incorrect but useful working models (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Not_even_wrong&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Not_even_wrong&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s fun to speculate but to prove your case and make a real dent in human health problems is a lot harder than coming in late and saying &amp;quot;But wait, why don&amp;#x27;t you just...&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I heartily recommend going back to the great textbooks of these fields and reading them, rather than trying to understand things by dropping into the state of the art research (which is usually wrong, and hard to understand in detail).&lt;p&gt;Some books I recommend:
The Biology of Cancer (Weinberg).  After you read this book you&amp;#x27;ll have a better understanding of why doctors and scientists cringe when people say &amp;quot;cure cancer&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Molecular Biology the Cell (Alberts, etc).  After you read this book you&amp;#x27;ll have a much better understanding of the full complexity that scientists have to deal with in complex cellular systems.&lt;p&gt;Molecular Biology of the Gene (watson, etc).  Can&amp;#x27;t say much about this book except that&amp;#x27;s it&amp;#x27;s a classic reference.&lt;p&gt;What makes these three books exception is that they support all their factual claims with direct links to the papers that established the facts.  And they provide you with the skills to evaluate modern research.  But nothing compares to actually going to grad school and participating in the research- once you see how the grants are made, the experiments are, and the papers are written, you&amp;#x27;ll understand why trying to understand biology by press release is like trying to understand assembly language by watching a Steve Jobs product announcement.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>cgiles</author><text>This is not bad advice, especially for people lacking the fundamentals, but these books are often way out of date and only cover topics that have been solidly established 20 years ago.&lt;p&gt;I would suggest, especially for people interested in a relatively niche field like aging, that a good compromise is to read review articles. You can go to PubMed and filter by review articles to find them.&lt;p&gt;But I wholeheartedly concur that for non-experts to read primary research articles will cause much more confusion than clarity. And doubly so for press releases on those articles.</text></comment>