One of the first and most important things a neophyte scientist learns–or at least, is taught–is the importance of keeping a comprehensive and accurate record. We all know it’s a good thing, and yet I’d wager most of us struggle with it. Who hasn’t scribbled a calculation or a measurement on a handy paper towel,…
You might have seen that the UK government has released its Select Committee’s report on peer review in science. The chair of the committee, Andrew Miller MP, says that the “general oversight of research integrity in the UK [is] unsatisfactory and complacent.” Note that he doesn’t say that the research is unsatisfactory–simply the oversight. I…
Dystrophin is the largest known human gene, covering about 2.4 million basepairs. The gene has 79 exons, which when spliced together yield a relatively modest relatively modest 425 kDa protein–still huge, but perhaps less than one might expect given its genomic sequence. It connects the actin-based cytoskeleton of muscle fibres, through the cell membrane, to…
News like this always warms my heart. The Royal Society has announced this year’s awards, and there are three from the Nobel Factory(cite). Greg Winter receives the Royal Medal for interdisciplinary sciences (and perhaps also for surviving the LMB for nearly 40 years); Brad Amos has been invited to deliver the 2012 Leeuwenhoek Lecture in…
Michael Lappe is an F1000 Member in Structural Genomics, and runs an independent group at the Max Planck in Berlin. Michael has just evaluated a very interesting paper on something that has occurred to most of us who have anything at all to do with biological datasets–‘Sciencenet’–towards a global search and share engine for all…
Over at The Scientist we’ve got a Culture Friday piece on the Royal Society’s Summer Science Exhibition. On Monday I bumped into Sir Paul Nurse, President of the Royal Society, and asked what, for him, would make a successful exhibition. It’s already successful… science is exciting
Did you catch the vaccine issue of The Scientist? It features F1000 Members Robin Weiss and Gene Shearer (with Adriano Boasso), writing about the history and future of vaccination and an unusual but potentially effective alternative vaccination strategy.
“Research is one of the most exciting ways to spend your time” — Jo Handelsman How do you study the genomes of organisms that can’t be grown in the lab? Jo Handelsman at Yale is interested in the impact of small molecules produced by microbes, or their hosts, on the nature and robustness of microbial…
A piece of basic research made it into even mainstream news sites yesterday: the finding that the peptide thymosin ß4 can prime adult cardiac epithelium to produce new muscle cells after a heart attack. Getting the heart to regenerate itself after injury is a goal of the British Heart Foundation’s campaign to ‘Mend Broken Hearts’,…
Imagine there was a disease, with often devastating consequences, the causative agent of which remains elusive. Then, a paper is published identifying such a potential virus, causing great rejoicing especially among patient advocacy groups, who have struggled to convince medics that the disease is a real one–that is, not only psychosomatic. They have hope now…
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