Eric Lander Takes on the Internet for Reddit

February 22, 2013 | Yesterday Eric Lander, President and Founding Director of the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, spent a couple of hours on Reddit doing an AMA open Q&A session. Questions ranged from the ridiulous to the profound, but Lander was a good sport. He weighed in on what to do to increase the attractiveness of PhD programs; the current most important scientific questions; the coolest discoveries in the 21st century; immortality; his mustache; genetics in 10-20 years; and more. He even took on a version of the ever-present Reddit question: "Would you rather map the genome of 1 horse sized duck or 100 duck sized horses?" Lander's answer? "No contest: I'd rather map the genome of 100 duck-sized horses than 1 horse-sized duck! With 100, you get information about the population genetics. So you can learn cool things about why some of the duck-sized horses can fly better and others can run better. Can anyone online get us the DNA for this project?" Reddit