The DNA Network |
Posted: 09 Sep 2008 07:32 PM CDT ![]() |
Blogs getting a bit more respect at UC Davis [The Tree of Life] Posted: 09 Sep 2008 06:17 PM CDT Well, to go along with the FreindFeed discussions I have been having recently here is a tidbit of interest. Blogs keep getting a bit more respect at UC Davis. First, there was Egghead, a blog about research at Davis sponsored by the College of Biological Sciences. And now there is "UC Davis Blogs" a web site with details about blogs by UC Davis people. And here is the current list: Behind the Lens by Karin HigginsArts and humanities
Business and law
Science and agriculture
Social science
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The Center of Science in the Public Interest answers questions about GE crops [Tomorrow's Table] Posted: 09 Sep 2008 04:47 PM CDT I recently posted "10 things about GE crops to scratch from your worry list" Today I learned that the Center for Science Policy in the Public Interest has posted a similar list in their answers to frequently asked questions. This is the group that campaigned for a federal law requiring nutrition labeling of packaged foods and a ban on deceptive health claims. They also led the effort to win passage of a federal law defining "organic" food. CSPI does not take a dime from industry or government, so if you would like additional information, free from conflicts of interest, this list is for you. |
Are We Losing the War on Cancer? [adaptivecomplexity's column] Posted: 09 Sep 2008 04:11 PM CDT Imagine that instead of setting out to invent a better lightbulb, Thomas Edison had announced his intention to invent a light-emitting diode that you could use to illuminate your kitchen. This isn't completely far-fetched: the first examples of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) began to appear as early as 1907. But it wasn't until the 1960's and 70's that useful, visible-spectrum LEDs began to appear, and LEDs haven't been used to light kitchens until very recently. Thomas Edison, had he set out to make a useful, household LED, would have been doomed to failure beacause it would be years before basic science made the necessary technologies possible. When Richard Nixon declared the conquest of cancer "a national crusade" in 1971, cancer researchers were inevitably set up to be viewed as failures. Although at the time the recent molecular biology revolution led people to think that disease conquest was just around the corner, now we can look back and see that the War on Cancer had no hope of achieving its goals in the 1970's. Scientists are being punished for that hubris now, in the form of misguided news pieces such as Newsweek's current exposé: "We Fought Cancer...And Cancer Won". |
The "when does human life begin" debate is the wrong debate [Mary Meets Dolly] Posted: 09 Sep 2008 12:57 PM CDT It is unfortunate that I feel compelled to write this entry at all. The rhetoric surrounding Roe vs. Wade has crippled us in this discussion. It has confused biological fact with questions that cannot be answered by science. Let me be very clear. The debate IS NOT when human life begins. A new human life identifiable by his or her unique DNA is created at conception. What we are REALLY discussing is whether or not that life has VALUE. Now, that IS a question worth debating. If you think that a human embryo does not deserve protection under the law then say so. It does no one any good trying to assert that a human embryo or fetus is not a human life. Focusing on the wrong debate really gets us nowhere. |
Picking on the "genetically defective" kid [Mary Meets Dolly] Posted: 09 Sep 2008 12:24 PM CDT I have had it. The assault on Sarah Palin for her apparent crime of bringing Trig, a child with Down syndrome, into the world has gotten out of control. I was standing in line at the grocery store and was sickened by the headlines that repeated over and over again that Trig was "afflicted" with Downs. This piece by Vanity Fair is particulaly disgusting. It questions Trig's parentage, suggesting that Bristol, Palin's pregnant 17 year-old, is really Trig's mother. So much for our compassionate and inclusive society that embraces our "differences." It is apparently fine to be different as long as you are not "genetically defective." Then you are fair game. The media can say you are "afflicted" and drag your mother and sister through the mud and it is perfectly acceptable. Forget about commending the Palins for loving their child. No, that would be wrong. Because in the back of every one of these media bigots' mind is the thought that Trig should have been aborted. The only explanation I can come up with for assaulting little Trig is that in the liberal media's eyes, Trig's crime isn't that his mother is running for Vice President, it is that he was born with an extra chromosome 21. Disgusting. Has anyone even thought of Trig? What about his feelings? What about how this sickening media blitz is affecting his world, his family, his life? It is like a big bully and a group of his degenerate friends picking on the "slow" kid. Vanity Fair should hang their heads in shame. |
Posted: 09 Sep 2008 12:04 PM CDT It's been some time since we had a scatalogical post - which is odd considering how often it comes up at lunch. Last month, Adventures in Ethics and Science had a "name that poo" challenge, calling on readers to identify the feces of several circus animals. Check it out and tell us how you did. Use this flowchart if you must. Answers are here. No cheating! |
Darwin on the Wall [The Tree of Life] Posted: 09 Sep 2008 12:00 PM CDT Lots of other bloggers posting about this but I got to put it out there too. Check out the remarkable story of the Darwin Shaped Wall Stain and how it is galvanizing the evolution community - See Evolutionists Flock To Darwin-Shaped Wall Stain. It is from the Onion. One of my favorite "news" sources. Hat tip to many many people for pointing this out. |
How many building blocks do you expect in a cell? [Reportergene] Posted: 09 Sep 2008 10:57 AM CDT ![]() We need to take care of our 68 players in defining conceptual frameworks for biology. We are writing our periodic table of cell's building blocks. Jamey D. Marth (2008). A unified vision of the building blocks of life Nature Cell Biology, 10 (9), 1015-1015 DOI: 10.1038/ncb0908-1015 |
Predicting the future (for molluscs) [The Tree of Life] Posted: 09 Sep 2008 08:55 AM CDT As many of you know, I spend a decent amount of my blogging time trying to come up with funny evolution or genomics related posts. Well, if you like that type of thing, you really have to check out this new site: The Molluskan Zodiac The site states "While most people are familiar with western astrology and with the Chinese zodiac, much less is known about the 'molluskan zodiac' (sometimes known as the mariners zodiac). But ask any fisherman, and they will tell you instantly which of the ten signs of the molluskan zodiac they were born under."It is very very funny. And real of course. Kudos to Keith Bradnam, who happens to be from the UC Davis Genome Center (where I work) for revealing the inner secrets of these wonderful invertebrates. And while you are checking out the Zodiac, check out Bradnam's new PLoS One paper on intron length which he authored with Ian Korf. Science humor, invertebrates, and Open Access publishing. Now what could be better than that? |
Where's my 600 dollar refund? [The Gene Sherpa: Personalized Medicine and You] Posted: 09 Sep 2008 08:07 AM CDT |
Posted: 09 Sep 2008 08:02 AM CDT ![]() |
23andMe Lowers Price to $399 and Adds More Genealogical SNPs [The Genetic Genealogist] Posted: 09 Sep 2008 06:08 AM CDT
Since 23andMe launched nearly a year ago, I’ve said that genealogists are a huge potential market for 23andMe’s services. Undoubtedly, the company has recognized the value of marketing their product to genealogists. Indeed, 23andMe’s blog, the Spittoon, announced today that the company has partnered with Ancestry.com to provide ancestry-related content from 23andMe to customers who have their DNA analyzed by Ancestry.com:
You can learn more about the partnership by reading 23andMe’s press release. As of Tuesday morning, I don’t see any press release at Ancestry.com or DNA Ancestry. This lower price is only slightly more than many current genetic genealogy tests (some of which only sequence a few thousand bases rather than the 1,000,000+ SNPs tested by 23andMe’s SNP Chip). Will this lower price spur you to sign up for 23andMe’s services? Will other companies such as deCODEme lower their prices in response? What do you think? |
Long introns delay transcriptional time [Reportergene] Posted: 09 Sep 2008 01:55 AM CDT ![]() In a negative feedback loop, does intron lenght affects gene expression? Yan Swinburne and colleagues (Harward) answered this question by engineering a gene network and modifying only intron length between clonal variants. What they observed was such network (with delayed autoinhibition) exhibiting pulses of reporter expression that were correlating with intron length. A successive simulation with mathematical models suggested that fluorescence bursting (Venus fast-maturing variant of yellow fluorescent protein) accumulated during transcription elongation. The delay of transcriptional machine by introns may be important in many contexts (somitogenesis during development, NF-kb patterns). Undoubtedly, this work further evidences that reporter genes are instrumental to the goals of system biology. I. A. Swinburne, D. G. Miguez, D. Landgraf, P. A. Silver (2008). Intron length increases oscillatory periods of gene expression in animal cells Genes & Development, 22 (17), 2342-2346 DOI: 10.1101/gad.1696108 |
Your personal health: 23andme v2 [business|bytes|genes|molecules] Posted: 09 Sep 2008 12:23 AM CDT
Update: Apparently they did A new blog post suggests that they’ve dropped prices to $399 (unless I am being completely dense and that’s an upsell). That information is part of the launch of 23andme v2.
Can anyone with a 23andme account, or in the know, tell me what the potential and scope of the “analytical platform” is.
Need to dig into this more, but just saw the post and decided to throw it out there. Related articles by Zemanta |
Collect, analyze, re-mix, re-purpose [business|bytes|genes|molecules] Posted: 08 Sep 2008 11:51 PM CDT
Science was always about mashing up, taking one result and applying it to your [work] in a different way. The question is 'Can we make that as effective [for] samples [of] data and analysis as it [is] for a map and set of addresses for a coffee shop?' That is the vision. — Cameron Neylon Those words, found on a great post at the Science Commons blog, have been stuck in my head since I saw them. I’ve talked about mashing up science many times. In my time in the bioinformatics industry, the need to do “integrative genomics” comes up again and again, yet the approaches we adopt to solve those problems are either too heavy and complex, or simply abandoned due to the inherent gaps in our data. Mashups, e.g. the ones with Google Maps that we are all used to, are not trivial. They are enabled by some very cool technology at the back end, but we’ve managed to abstract away the complexity and enable creativity and utility. We need innovators in the life sciences, people who will build the backend infrastructure and enable creativity. The Biogang and many others in the community would be so much more effective given the right tools. We end up locking too much away in proprietary software, in complexity, or in paradigms written for a different era, but I think we’re making slow progress. Increasingly people are becoming aware of what can be achieved in today’s web-scale world. There are people who are at the cutting edge, but don’t quite look as cutting edge as they might have a few years ago. I would like to throw down the challenge to commercial providers of life science software. Join the web of data. Architect for innovation. Think about new business models, cause I am not sure the traditional ones are sustainable, and innovation is limited (with some notable exceptions). Help people not only collect and analyze data, but re-mix and re-purpose. |
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