Charles Dickens' favourite child and a new kind of ray

Overview

Rous Sarcoma virus or RSV was discovered by F. Peyton Rous in the year 1911 as a filterable transmissible agent that could cause tumors in chickens. He won a Nobel Prize for this discovery in 1966. His experiments clearly demonstrated that some cancers could be caused by infectious agents and led to the discovery of many more cancer-causing viruses in animals as well as humans.
RSV is a retrovirus that contains two copies of a plus-strand  RNA genome. Its genome consists of four main open...

Deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, is the genetic material responsible for passing traits from generation to generation in all organisms and most viruses. DNA is composed of two strands of nucleotides that wind around each other to form a spring-like structure called a double helix. However, the double helix is not perfectly symmetrical. Instead, there are regularly occurring grooves in the structure. The major groove occurs where the sugar-phosphate backbones are relatively far apart. This space...

German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen (1845–1923) was experimenting with electrical current when he discovered that a mysterious and invisible "ray" would pass through his flesh but leave an outline of his bones on a screen coated with a metal compound. In 1895, Röntgen made the first durable record of the internal parts of a living human: an "X-ray" image (as it came to be called) of his wife’s hand. Scientists worldwide quickly began their own experiments with X-rays, and by 1900, X-ray was widely...

Alfred Adler, a prominent figure in psychology, founded the school of individual psychology. In contrast to Freud's emphasis on sexual or aggressive motives, Adler suggested that individuals are primarily motivated by their purposes and goals. He believed that people strive for perfection rather than pleasure. Adler argued that individuals could creatively act upon their genetic inheritance and environmental experiences to shape their own lives, emphasizing conscious motivation over unconscious...

Other adult family members and siblings play a crucial role in shaping children’s social and emotional development. While parents or primary caregivers are often the central figures in early attachment and socialization, other adults in a child’s life, such as grandparents, aunts, and uncles, can significantly influence developmental outcomes. These influences depend on each adult’s personality and may help compensate when a primary caregiver is emotionally distant or inconsistent. For...