“Huxley himself was inconsistent, reporting anything from nearly two to three years as the period of blindness. In some very telegraphic, unpublished biographical notes prepared for his German translator, Herbert Herlitschka, in 1929, he wrote: “Education interrupted for three years by an infection of the eyes has left me for some time nearly blind… I was much alone and thrown on my own resources.” The shorter period is more likely to be accurate if we are referring to total blindness, but it’s also true to say that for most of 1911, 1912 and 1913, Huxley’s education was indeed interrupted until October 1913 when he passed (with the aid of a magnifying glass) the entrance to Balliol College, Oxford. (

)

The goal of gene therapy is to replace, repair, augment, or manipulate a patient’s own genes in order to treat illness. In a new technique, organic molecules coating the nanoparticles’ surfaces bind to genetic payloads and protect DNA from enzymatic digestion. Investigators at the University of Buffalo have reported that, when injected into mouse brain, nanoparticles affect more than one third of targeted cells with equal or greater effectiveness than existing viral delivery systems. No adverse side effects at 1 month were observed. (

)

Unexpectedly, the AIDS virus may …