Biology & Genetics

Oct

2010

“Life Ascending” Wins the Royal Society’s Science Book Prize

Discover, October 22 2010.

Nick Lane’s book Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution has just won the Royal Society’s science book prize. The book chronicles the history of life on Earth through ten of evolution’s greatest achievements, from the origins of life itself to sex, eyes, and DNA. The judges said that the ease with which Lane communicates these complex scientific ideas is what makes the book shine.

“Life Ascending is a beautifully written and elegantly structured book that was a favourite with all of the judges. Nick Lane hasn’t been afraid to challenge us with some tough science, explaining it in such a way that we feel like scientists ourselves, unfolding the mysteries of life,” said Maggie Philbin, chair of the judges. Read More >

Oct

2010

Shivering Shavenbaby

The Scientist magazine, October 2010.

The paper

N. Frankel et al., “Phenotypic robustness conferred by apparently redundant transcriptional enhancers,” Nature, 466:490-93, 2010.

The finding

Are redundant copies of noncoding DNA sequences due to poor genomic housekeeping, or do they function to improve the organism’s chances of survival? David Stern at Princeton University and colleagues attacked this question by looking at duplicate or “shadow” versions of enhancers, noncoding regions that regulate and promote gene expression. Read More >

Oct

2010

Ekaterina Heldwein: Crystallizing killers

The Scientist magazine, October 2010.

Structural virologist Ekaterina Heldwein, who goes by Katya, has followed a less-than-direct path to success in science. As a Russian chemistry undergraduate with a desire to live abroad but little money, she headed to the biochemistry graduate program at Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU) in 1994. But she had to find it first.

“I was only worried she could find Portland,” said her graduate advisor, OHSU structural biologist Richard Brennan. While planning her trip, Heldwein had accidently bought a ticket to Portland, Maine, and didn’t notice her mistake until right before she boarded the plane in New York. Read More >

Oct

2010

Ig Nobel Awards Honor Pioneering Work on Bat Fellatio, Whale Snot, & More

Discover, October 1 2010.

The list of wacky science discoveries from the Ig Nobel awards announced last night includes teams who made strides in vital fields like bat fellatio and curing diseases via roller coaster rides. The awards are given out every year for discoveries that made us both laugh and think.

Here’s a full list of the winning teams and projects. Read More >

Sep

2010

Long-Lost Letters From DNA Pioneers Reveal Conflicts and Tensions

Discover, September 30 2010.

Almost 50 years after they won the Nobel Prize for defining the structure of DNA, Maurice Wilkins, James Watson, and Francis Crick are in the news again. Nine boxes of “lost” correspondence (from the days before email!) between two competing groups of researchers have been unearthed. The letters, between Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin of King’s College and Watson and Crick at Cambridge University, provide insight into the researchers’ mindsets while they were making these historic, game-changing discoveries.

“The [letters] give us much more flavor and examples illuminating the characters and the relations between them,” said study researcher Alexander Gann, editorial director at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press in New York. “They’re consistent with what we already believed, but they add important details.” Read More >

Sep

2010

Scientist Dance Styles: Glee Episode, Spanish Whodunnit, Internet Love Orgy

Discover, September 17, 2010.

In its third year, the Dance Your PhD contest is proving that maybe, just maybe, scientists can dance. From the contest’s website:

The dreaded question. “So, what’s your Ph.D. research about?” You take a deep breath and launch into the explanation. People’s eyes begin to glaze over…

At times like these, don’t you wish you could just turn to the nearest computer and show people an online video of your Ph.D. thesis interpreted in dance form? Read More >

Sep

2010

Insulin regulates translation

The Scientist, September 6, 2010.

By controlling how many ribosomes coat a certain mRNA in C. elegans, intracellular insulin signaling can regulate how many copies of a protein are made, and how quickly, giving cells more flexibility when responding to changes in the environment.

The results, published, in the September 8th issue of Cell Metabolism, hold implications for a range of fields, including aging and diabetes, in which insulin signaling is known to play a role. “We have found a new way in which insulin controls the proteins that are made, and some of those proteins are really important for the survival of the worms,” said lead author Gordon Lithgow, of the Buck Institute for Age Research. “That throws up questions as to whether insulin is doing the same in humans and that presents a whole new set of targets for potential therapies or interventions in both aging and diabetes.” Read More >

Sep

2010

Bright moves

The Scientist (print), September 2010.

The paper

X. Wang, et al., “Light-mediated activation reveals a key role for Rac in collective guidance of cell movement in vivo,” Nature Cell Biology, 12:591–98, 2010.

The finding

When Denise Montell and her team at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine engineered an actin cytoskeleton-regulating protein to be light sensitive, they discovered it could also control cellular movement in vivo. Read More >

Sep

2010

Shaping Your Postdocs

The Scientist (print), September 2010.

In 1990, fresh out of his first postdoc, David Woodland walked into his very own lab at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. All he wanted was to dive into the viral immunology that he had spent years thinking about, but found that a lot of his time was consumed by the other tasks that come with being a principal investigator (PI).

“It was difficult,” he says. “No one had given me guidance in writing grants, or [told me] that I would principally be in a management position.” Twenty years later, he uses his experience to help guide the postdocs at the Trudeau Institute, where he is the director. Read More >

Jul

2010

Tasty transgenics

The Scientist blog, July 27, 2010.

AquaBounty Technologies made big news when they announced they were getting close to approval for their fast-growing transgenic salmon, but this isn’t the only transgenic project with its eyes on our food supply. Several other projects are underway to develop transgenic animals that may eventually make their way into agriculture’s mainstream and end up in your grocery aisle. And scientists aren’t just interested in bigger animals — they’re also looking at making meat that’s more environmentally friendly, and healthier. Read More >