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I was notified of this review in PLoS-Biology by Richard Robinson. It gives a nice outline of the current thought in the field and delineates the genes first vs. metabolism first views (although in my not-to-much-of-an-expert opinion, I don't think that the "metabolism first" theory is likely ...…
When I teach BIO101 I usually give at least one assignment that entails finding a biology-related article, writing a short summary of it and explaining the gist of it to the rest of the class. We did that this Monday and the students picked, as usual, some interesting topics (including some that…
Chad asked a fun question last week, and I just got around to finding it yesterday:
What items should be on the list for a scavenger hunt through an academic physics department?
Let's now ask: what items should be on a list for a scavenger hunt through a biology department? Taking some hints from…
One of the big questions in circadian research is how does the transcription/translation feedback loop manage to get stretched to such a long time-frame: 24 hours. If one took into account the normal dynamics of transcription and translation, the cycle would last a couple of hours at best. The…
I think "plane reading material!" because I have zero time now, but I LOVE networks, so I will read this at some point.
Very interesting article - I hope you don't mind, but I chose to express my thoughts on it on my own blog. :o)
Thanks for sharing it!
Usually I try to be the voice of reason when commenting on Science Blogs. But I'm in a bad mood over being subpoenaed early tomorrow morning as an eyewitness in a criminal trial tomorrow morning. So, here's a very snarky first impression of the paper cited.
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Catchy title by someone I never heard of.
Hey, we got big bucks from DARPA by using the good name of Princeton.
Networks, buzzword, buzzword, buzzword, buzzword, buzzword, buzzword, buzzword, buzzword. But some biologists think it's nonsense. Non-networkologists = neologisms. Why should they care? Why should we care?
Name-drop, bow to Darwin, this way, that way, can we dream up a third way?
Wish we were mathematicians. Wish we were physicists. I can't get no respect.
Networks, buzzword, buzzword, buzzword, buzzword, buzzword, buzzword, buzzword, buzzword.
Handwave towards someone else who might have actual data, which may or may not relate to our buzzword.
Paradigm, paradigm, paradigm, paradigm, may well reflect.
Wish-list, wish-list, wish-list, wish-list.
Networks, buzzword, buzzword, buzzword, buzzword, buzzword, buzzword, buzzword, buzzword.
Question, question, question, question, question, we ran out of money before we got an answer. Can we have another grant?
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That looks nastier than I really am. Maybe I'm just giving a template for all the articles I had to referee from an interdisciplinary conference. Maybe I'm giving a review template for a dynamic robust network of ecosystem-level cross-disciplinary synthesis. Choose a buzzword from column A. Choose a buzzword from column B. Crossover, inversion, point mutation, handwave, optimization, network.
Maybe my feelings are still hurt by my having had two papers rejected from the same conference in a pretty part of Italy, where I was making essentially the same main points which were, as I recall:
He says paradigm is static, she says paradigm is static, it says paradigm is static, I think it is dynamic. Consequently: evolution, optimization, multidimensional, nonlinear, genetic algorithm, phenotype, genotype, ensemble, granularity, structure, function, pathway, complex interactions, scale-free, fractal, power-law, growth, change, selection, central organizing principle, complex system, heterogeneous, vary widely, patterns emerge, properties emerge, questions emerge, answers still hide.
Yeah, my feelings were hurt when the referees said "This isn't really a scientific paper. It's more of a personal narrative."
Did I say "network"? Oh.
Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander, heterogeneous network of sauce.
That's my first impression. If the paper actually makde sense, I'm sorry. No I'm not. Yes I am. Is Colin Fergusson on TV yet?
Okay. Goodnight.
p.s. Hey, guys, if I'm ever at Princeton or Georgia or Duke, you know this was all in good fun. Right. Guys?