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Archives for July, 2006
Comparative Genomics without Evolution
Posted by RPM on July 20, 2006 The National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI, sorry no clever acronym) has announced the next primate genome to be sequenced: the white cheeked gibbon (pictured right). This genome is of particular interest due to the large amount of segmental duplications, which are of both medical and evolutionary interest. Here is Francis Collins, the NHGRI Director,…
Drosophila Condiment Preferences
Posted by RPM on July 20, 2006 A few months ago I promised that I would publish some original research on this blog. I managed to churn out some background, but I still haven’t gotten around to presenting any results. Even though I wasn’t able to get my original research out, it doesn’t mean that no one is publishing research on Drosophila…
Tangled Bank #58
Posted by RPM on July 19, 2006 The 58th edition of Tangled Bank has been posted at Salto sobrius. Go read some stuff people have written about science.
Decoding the $1000 Genome
Posted by RPM on July 18, 2006 The NY Times has chimed in on cheap DNA sequencing with this article from Nicholas Wade. Wade’s article deals with medical applications of affordable whole genome sequencing technologies (with the goal being the $1000 genome). The article, however, is cringe-inducing because Wade has decided that ‘sequencing’ and ‘decoding’ are synonyms (I hate it when people…
Molecular Evolution for the Masses
Posted by RPM on July 18, 2006 Jacob at Salamander Candy has written the post that I have been meaning to write. With so much freely available sequence data in GenBank and loads of free software with which to analyze it, we should encourage the general public to start looking for ‘interesting things’ (building phylogenies, comparing rates of evolution along lineages, testing…
Joe Morgan the Creationist
Posted by RPM on July 18, 2006 Joe Morgan is a Hall of Fame baseball player and a former member of the Cincinnati’s Big Red Machine. He is also a commentator for ESPN and a strong opponent of all the new fangled baseball statistics. Anyone who has listened to an ESPN broadcast of Major League Baseball has heard Morgan criticize the Moneyball…
Support Stem Cell Research
Posted by RPM on July 17, 2006 Click here to send an e-mail to your Senator telling him or her to support biomedical research by voting YES on H.R. 810.
What’s the Hardest Thing about being a Science Reporter?
Posted by RPM on July 17, 2006 Besides coming up with catchy titles or getting the facts, terminology and statistics wrong? Apparently obtaining crappy Excel graphs is pretty tough according to a survey of science reporters. Am I too hard on science reporters? There are some really good ones (this one comes to mind), but there are also some really poorly written…
Rejecting the Neutral Model
Posted by RPM on July 17, 2006 Last September, Bruce Lahn and colleagues published a couple of papers on the evolution of two genes responsible for brain development in humans (ASPM and Microcephalin). A group led by Sally Otto published a criticism of the analysis performed by Lahn’s group in last week’s issue of Science (JP has written a good summary on…
The Academic Integrity of Toothpaste
Posted by RPM on July 17, 2006 I haven’t posted any comic strips in over a month, so I figured I was due for one. This one comes from the poorly drawn, but always insightful, Toothpaste for Dinner: