a belated "thank you"

PZ Myer's recent rant about freshman biology papers brought back a slew of memories. 'Way back in 1997, during the spring semester in Amiel Jarstfer's Bio 101 course, I had to write a paper on Visualization of Gene Expression in Living Adult Drosophila, Manuel Calleja,
Eduardo Moreno, Soraya Pelaz, and Ginés Morata, Science, 274: 252-255. I was a confused English major, and was so desperate that I emailed the last author, Morata, explaining my plight.

He, quite graciously, wrote back, and summarized his work in a paragraph. Thanks to his input, and to my general ability to BS, I copped a B+.

This is a huge "gracias" to Ginés, and to all science teachers the world over.

Oh, and a couple things: my biology prof was mystified by the fact that I was earning the top grade in his class, but not majoring in biology. He also probably wondered why I didn't just take Life Science, bio for the liberal arts set. I could say that I took the high road, but the truth is I didn't know there was an easy way. D'oh.