Ariel Bleicher in Quanta:
Like many proud parents, David Ginty has decorated his office with pictures of his genetic creations. There’s the prickly one sporting a spiked collar and the wannabe cowboy twirling a lasso. There’s the dramatic one, always reacting to the slightest provocation; the observant one that notices every detail; the golden child Ginty loves to boast about. “They’re like a family,” he said. “Each one has its own quirks and individual characteristics.”
They’re not really a family and, anyway, they’re not his children. They have evolved over millions of years to give humans and other mammals an interface with the physical world around us. But Ginty, who heads the neurobiology department at Harvard Medical School, has been studying this quirky cast of characters — the sensory neurons of touch — for more than two decades, and has gotten to know them better than anyone else ever has.
More here.
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