Saturday, July 14, 2012

Insulin, Rhinoceros Beetles, and Hard Medicine

Just a little note about the big horns grown by rhinoceros beetles and some other bugs: the hormone responsible for the growth of these big structures seems to be insulin. Which is interesting because it reminds us that our key hormones do a lot of different things, and therefore that any medical treatment that involves manipulating them is going to have lots of side effects.

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