Time to revise the biology books?

JBeukema · #1 (**permalink**) 07-04-2009, 03:39 AM

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“Our study contradicts what is written in the textbooks,” said senior study author Terry Magnuson, Ph.D., Sarah Graham Kenan Professor and chair of genetics, director of the Carolina Center for Genome Sciences and a member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. “Everybody thought that Xist triggers X-inactivation, but now we have to rethink how this important process starts.”

Quote:

“If we can figure out the mechanism that triggers X-inactivation, we can potentially apply this knowledge to diseases that have an epigenetic component,” Kalantry said. “So it can have implications not only in fundamentally understanding X-inactivation but also to gain insight into the increasing array of illnesses where the epigenetic machinery has gone awry – such as in prostate and breast cancers.”

Re-Write The Textbooks: Key Genetic Phenomenon Shown To Be Different Than Believed

aDrag · #2 (**permalink**) 07-08-2009, 05:37 PM

...Then yes, it is time to rewrite the textbooks.

You don't think they get rewritten? Ever heard of new editions? We're not reading the same science books that were used in the 1920s.

eagleseven · #3 (**permalink**) 07-09-2009, 12:51 AM

It'll likely be included in the "2010" editions of the latest textbook. Hell, my Virology and Immunology textbooks are already outdated, and they're just two years old!

And the techniques in my biochemistry textbook? Many are already obsolete.

I remember reading, that at the current rate of advancement, bleeding-edge textbooks become obsolete every three years. I had to learn things about HIV that we simply didn't know in 2008 this past spring.

**KittenKoder** · #4 (**permalink**) 07-09-2009, 12:56 AM

Science is always being fine tuned, with each new discovery comes new facts which alter our assumptions based on the older facts. Without this evolutionary process in science we wouldn't go anywhere.