Around the Bioblogosphere

Ever wonder what biobloggers are blogging about on their blogs? Here's what:

  • Razib posts part of a paper by Jerry Coyne and others (which I can't seem to track down) which questions the role cis regulatory elements play in adaptive phenotypic evolution. This all part of Coyne's war on evo-devo.
  • Another post at GNXP (this one by p-ter) describes a polymorphic deletion that is associated with resistance to retroviral infection. P-ter tries to throw me a bone by mentioning the relevance of Drosophila research, but ends up shooting himself in the foot (how's that for mixed metaphors?).
  • Orac's got a long post (Orac's not good with concise, me not good with grammar) on a Scientific American article by Peter Duesberg about chromosomal aberrations and cancers. Interestingly, the article is written by a guy who doubts the connection between HIV and AIDS. Also interesting is how Duesberg toots his own horn on the connection between screwed up chromosomes and cancer even though it's not his idea (despite the way he presents it), it's not a minority viewpoint, and he neglects a fair bit of literature on other causes of cancers. Like I said to Orac, this stuff can't be all that revolutionary if I -- a dude who doesn't know jack about cancer -- know about the connection between aberrations and cancer.
  • P-ter has also blogged on constraint of gene expression profiles. He also tells us that human populations differ genetically.
  • Jacob is clipping toes and writing about it at Salamander Candy.
  • The worst science news article ever, and it doesn't even mention junk DNA (via Neil).
  • And, finally, ScienceBlogger "Shelly Bats" (sic) was threatened by an Editorial Assistant from the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture. The junior editor emailed Shelley that lawyers from John Wiley & Sons would pursue legal action against her if she did not remove a table and part of a figure from an article published in the Journal that she included in a post about that article.

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Hopi Hoekstra is the other author of the Evolution paper by Jerry Coyne. I wouldn't characterize their main objective as an attack on evo-devo, but rather being the voices of caution. They are saying that it is too early to say that most adaptive change is due to cis-regulatory as opposed to structural changes.

By Norman Johnson (not verified) on 26 Apr 2007 #permalink

Orac's not good with concise, me not good with grammar

Sure I am; I simply choose not to be concise.

At least, that's what I tell myself. ;-)