I do these occasional posts about science papers.  Some are just for fun.  But sometimes — honest! — there’s an underlying connection to the greater Crooked Timber project.

This post is one of that sort, because it’s about the limits of understanding.  Unsurprisingly, it involves biology. 

So we all learned back in high school that our nerves are sheathed in a coating, like insulation on a copper wire. The coating is made of a special substance called myelin.  If your tenth grade biology text mentioned myelin, it probably said something like “myelin allows impulses to flow along the nerves faster and more efficiently”.   Which is true!  It may also do some other things, but “myelin = faster and more efficient transmission” is what we all learned in sophomore biology back when, and it’s basically correct.



Occasionally something goes wrong, and either the myelin sheath doesn’t form right, or the body’s immune system gets confused and attacks it. This can lead to serious problems, conditions like multiple sclerosis and muscular dystrophy. Also, newborn babies haven’t finished forming their myelin sheathing yet.  That’s why newborns are so very weak and uncoordinated. That magic moment, around the three month mark, where the kid suddenly starts holding up their head, looking around, and intentionally reaching for stuff?   That’s when “myelinization” is complete.

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