By Diana Gitig, Ars Technica

Anyone who’s passed basic biology knows that we get one copy of a gene from our mother, a second from our father. But few people realize that not all of these genes end up being treated equally. Imprinted genes are expressed from only the maternal or paternal allele, rather than both. And, when this process goes wrong, it can actually lead to diseases. Now, researchers have identified a possible way to treat imprinting errors.

Some data-center operators are happy to feel a chill in the air. Photo: Scootie/Flickr

There’s an old vaudeville joke about a man who walks into a doctor’s office. And it goes something like this:

“Doctor,” the man says, “it hurts when I do this.”

“Then don’t do that,” the doctor replies.

Amazon data-center guru James Hamilton alluded to this gag at a recent event in New York, using it to explain how data centers should treat power-sapping water chillers and air-conditioning units. If you’re running a data center, air conditioning hurts, he said, so you shouldn’t do it. Air conditioning is exp...