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Blog Details for "The Molecular Biology Blog"
The Molecular Biology Blog The Molecular Biology Blog Tech tips, technology updates, news and comment from the molecular biology field Articles
Political Issues and the Science Lobby
2007-12-11 18:34:00 Given the many urgent scientific and technological challenges facing America and the rest of the world, the increasing need for accurate scientific information in political decision making, and the vital role scientific innovation plays in spurring economic growth and competitiveness, we, the undersigned, call for a public debate in which the U.S. presidential candidates share ... More About: Science , News , History , Political , Issues
A Classification System For Scientists
2007-12-11 13:04:00 To the general public, scientists seem all seem pretty much the same. However, as someone who has studied these fascinating beasts up close I have found that there are in fact several distinct species within this genus. In order to promote public understanding, I propose a classification system that groups scientists together based on exhibited behaviour ... More About: System , Scientists
Thinking Microbes
2007-12-10 20:05:00 Cognition is a term frequently used in several loosely related ways to refer to a faculty for the human-like processing of information. Signal transduction networks certainly fit that bill, as the mediate adaptive changes in gene expression to specific sensory inputs. Melinda Baker and Jeffry Stock, in the recent issue of Current Biology, ... More About: Thinking , Microbes , Robe
At last - an easy backup solution
2007-12-10 13:29:00 When I was writing up my PhD thesis I was paranoid about data backup. Years of hard work - pictures, data-files, notes, publication lists not to mention the thesis manuscript itself - all stored on one hard drive. Copying onto CDs or detachable hard drives was fine, but what if I lost those, or they ... More About: Backup , Easy , Solution
Three Entertaining Molecular Biology Movies
2007-12-07 13:22:00 It’s Friday again, so nothing too heavy from me today, just a little light entertainment to ease you into the weekend. Here are three (somewhat) entertaining molecular biology-related movies from you tube. More About: Movies , Biology , Entertaining , Molecular Biology , Biol
Around the Blogs
2007-12-07 12:31:00 10 interesting posts on cell and molecular biology, and the scientists involved, starting off with… My paper in PLoS Biology is out today - The signal sequence coding region promotes nuclear export of mRNA - Alex gives us an author’s summary on his blog. Congrats on getting the paper published! More About: Blogs
There?s No Need To Be Paranoid About RNA Purification
2007-12-06 13:45:00 RNA purification may be a common procedure in molecular biology but it is by far the one that people fear most. Why? Dreaded RNase. It?s everywhere… all over your bench and pipettors, and floating in the air, waiting for the chance to creep into your prep, shred your RNA into nucleotides, and ruin a day?s work. Well, not ... More About: Paranoid
Myosin Isoforms: Duplication and Divergence
2007-12-06 12:59:00 Myosin II functions as a molecular motor which facilitates contraction of the actin cytoskeleton during migration, resides outside of protrusions at the front of motile cells, and acts at a distance to impact cell protrusion, signaling, and maturation of nascent adhesions. So clearly myosin II is a protein that is of great importance for ... More About: Duplication
Personal Genomes and Modern Eugenics
2007-12-05 16:55:00 As genetic screening becomes increasingly advanced and personal genomes become more commonplace, the potential for genetic engineering and modern eugenics is becoming a reality. “Designer babies” may not be science fiction forever, creating an ethical dilemna on the horizon. Hsein-Hsein keeps us informed on personalized sequencing companies that are coming out, including 23andMe, ... More About: News , Personal , History , Technologies , Modern
An Easy Lysis / Homogenization Method for Any Sample
2007-12-05 13:41:00 At the moment, one of my colleagues is preparing hundreds of cell-free extracts from microbes isolated from the environment to screen for interesting enzyme activities. Lysis of some microbes is easy, but for others its much more difficult - I think due to differences in the make-up of their cell wall (any microbiologists out there care ... More About: Services , Kits , Easy , Reagents , Sample
The Basics: How Ethanol Precipitation of DNA and RNA Works
2007-12-04 16:31:00 Ethanol precipitation is a commonly used technique for concentrating and de-salting nucleic acid (DNA or RNA) preparations in aqueous solution. The basic procedure is that salt and ethanol are added to the aqueous solution, which forces the nucleic acid to precipitate out of solution. The precipitated nucleic acid can then be separated from the rest ... More About: Ethanol , Works , Basics , The Basics , Reci
miRNAs Get Flipped
2007-12-04 13:12:00 On a couple other blogs, a study published in Science by Joan Steitz1 is being called “One of the biggest findings of the year,” and “If it turns out to be true, this finding just flipped the whole field on its head.” Bitesize Bio would be greatly remiss to not mention to so hot ...
20 Ways to Increase your Productivity
2007-12-03 13:05:00 No matter how efficient you are, it’s always possible to improve your productivity and improving your productivity means that you get more of the rewards you are trying to obtain: results, publications… or dare I say it, money. Here are 20 ways to improve your productivity. Some are focussed toward improving the productivity of bench research, ... More About: Productivity
Entosis: Cellular Canabalism
2007-12-03 12:44:00 There might be more to cell death besides apoptosis and necrosis. In a paper that sounded a bit fishy to me, Michael Overholtzer, Joan Brugge and coworkers1 introduce “Entosis”: A non-apoptotic cell death process, that occurs by cell-in-cell invasion. As Eileen White2 described: Upon examination of mammary epithelial cell lines in suspension, Overholtzer et ... More About: Cellular
The Limits of Horizontal Gene Transfer
2007-11-30 17:17:00 Looking at the tree of life, descent with modification is an obvious theme, where genes are passed on through ‘vertical’ lines of ancestry. It so happens though that genes can jump from one lineage to another, by a process called ‘horizontal gene transfer’ (HGT). Naked DNA uptake (transformation), viruses (transduction), and plasmids (conjugation) ... More About: Transfer , Limits , Gene , Tran , Horizon
Around the Blogs
2007-11-30 13:52:00 Here are the highlights of what I’ve been reading around the blogs this week: More About: Blogs
Electroporation on a (96 well) Plate
2007-11-29 13:30:00 I just came across a neat device now being offered by BioRad that may interest those of you who do a lot of electroporation of difficult-to-transfect mammalian cells, where tedious optimization of the electroporation protocol itself is required. More About: Services , Kits , Reagents
Science, Ethics and Controversies
2007-11-29 13:02:00 An essay in today’s issue of Nature struck a contentious cord at the intersection of modern science and politics: that of the ethical regulation of science. The context of ethics and science was succinctly summed up: When in 1978 the first baby was born by in vitro fertilization (IVF) it was inevitable that there would ... More About: Science , News , History , Ethics , Controversies
Enzyme Commission (EC) Numbers
2007-11-28 13:14:00 In the early 1950’s so many new enzymes were being discovered in the burgeoning field of biochemistry that enzyme nomenclature was in danger of getting out of hand. With no guidelines on how to name enzymes, researchers simply chose their own. Some enzymes were given names, like diaphorase or Zwischenferment, that conveyed nothing about the ... More About: News , History , Numbers , Commission , The Basics
Please, don?t take Bitesize Bio ?on Faith?
2007-11-28 12:53:00 Science is an endlessly fascinating, challenging, and intellectually-satisfying endeavor. So it saddens me any time that I see someone mistakingly make claims about taking science on faith. This isn’t the forum for taking on religion - if you want that, more of my thoughts on that can be found at Migrations. I ... More About: Faith , Bite
10 Simple Rules For Doing Your Best Research
2007-11-27 13:24:00 Last month, Thomas C. Erren and colleagues published an editorial in PLoS Computational Biology entitled 10 simple rules for doing your best research, according to Hamming. The article provides some great philosophical guidance on setting out to do great research, drawing on advice given by the mathematician Richard Hamming during a Bell Communications Research ... More About: Careers , Rules , Simple
The Biased Choices of Cells
2007-11-27 13:24:00 Here’s one of my favorite journal articles from the past year - an elegant study by Natalie Andrew and Robert Insall published in Nature Cell Biology: Chemotaxis in shallow gradients is mediated independently of PtdIns 3-kinase by biased choices between random protrusions. From the introduction: We have made detailed, quantitative observations of Dictyostelium cells chemotaxing ... More About: Choices
Ribosomal Paralogs not Redundant Afterall
2007-11-26 13:14:00 In the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, 59 of the 79 cytoplasmic ribosomal proteins are encoded by two genes, stemming from an ancient genome duplication event. Komili et al. (2007) now report that these paralogous genes are not functionally equivalent, suggesting the possible existence of a ?ribosome code.?1 Yeast and mammalian genomes are riddled with apparently duplicated ...
Newborn Screening. Saving Lives the Molecular Way
2007-11-26 13:07:00 As a product manager, one of my responsibilities is to exhibit at various scientific conferences to promote and advertise products for genomic DNA extraction. Less than three months into the job, I attended the American College of Medical Genetics (ACMG) conference to promote a new product we had just launched for DNA extraction from blood ... More About: Technologies , Lives , Saving , Newb , The Mole
Around the Blogs
2007-11-23 13:23:00 A few articles from around the blogosphere, relating to the molecular biology of the cell and the conduct of science. Confocal Image of Cochlea Wins Art Prize - Stunning micrography! Microbial Sociology - Detailed post on the molecular mechanisms of microbial communication. The Selfish Gene Drives an Operon - What does horizontal gene transfer look like from the ... More About: Blogs
Get Involved With Bitesize Bio
2007-11-22 14:46:00 We’d like to invite you, our wonderful, talented readers to get more involved with this blog. Here’s a few ways you can do so: Suggest a topic you’d like us to write an article on (click here to do this) Share your knowledge… write an article for the blog. Whether have one technical tip you are ... More About: News , History , Bite
The Best of: Tech Tips
2007-11-22 13:16:00 Bitesize Bio has gained a lot of new readers over the past few months so I thought it would be a good idea to highlight some of the articles newer readers may have missed. I’ll do this periodically to make sure none of our readers miss any of our great content. So, here are the ... More About: Tips , Tech , The Best Of
Free, Publication Quality Plasmid Annotation
2007-11-21 13:29:00 I just came across an extremely nice piece of plasmid mapping and annotation software that I’d like to share with you. PlasMapper is a web-based application, created by staff from the University of Alberta, that automatically generates fully annotated plasmid maps from your raw sequence input. Using a database containing the sequences of hundreds of ... More About: Software , Free , Quality , Publication , Anno
Microtubules at the Membrane in Apoptosis
2007-11-21 01:15:00 Apoptosis, or programmed cell death, is an evolutionarily conserved and neatly orchestrated process important for tissue remodeling and safe elimination of severely damaged cells. Conducted by a caspase-mediated proteolytic cascade, the cell death program results in a series of cellular changes distinct from cellular necrosis. And one of the critical aspects that distinguish ... More About: Membrane
Microtubules at the Membrane in Apoptosis
More articles from this author:2007-11-20 23:27:00 Apoptosis, or programmed cell death, is an evolutionarily conserved and neatly orchestrated process important for tissue remodeling and safe elimination of severely damaged cells. Conducted by a caspase-mediated proteolytic cascade, the cell death program results in a series of cellular changes distinct from cellular necrosis. And one of the critical aspects that distinguish ... More About: Membrane 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 |
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