What kinds of genetic changes are required to evolve significant changes in body shape and size? The availability of affordable, state-of-the-art DNA sequencing and array technology has made it possible to study evolution at a level of molecular detail inaccessible just a decade ago.

Since when has systems biology been a synonym for genomics?

This is from a Perspective piece in the Oct. 2 issue of Science:

The relative value of discovery aimed at hypothesis generation versus hypothesis testing has been debated. High-profile journals publish systems biology studies, including the human genome sequence, but most papers focus on hypothesis-driven investigations.

It's not hard to find scare stories about cell phones and brain cancer. On the other hand, numerous randomized, double-blind studies have debunked extreme claims of negative health effects of EMF exposure.

So what should you believe? Is the cell phone industry, like the tobacco industry in the past, covering up evidence for the harmful effects of cells phones?

Photosynthesizing sea slugs take 'you are what you eat' to an extreme: by eating photosynthesizing algae, these "solar-powered" sea slugs are able to live off photosynthesis for months. How does this work? Is this just a straightforward case of symbiosis between algae and sea slugs?

It turns out that this is not a case of symbiosis: this is a case of the amazing and ubiquitous power of viruses to dramatically reshape the genetic landscape.

Cheap, powerful sequencing has enabled scientists to sample the viral world like never before. Our understanding of marine viruses, in particular, has exploded as researchers have sequenced whatever they can find in samples of seawater.

I've lamented multiple times the negative influence on scientific culture of some trends in the use of computational tools to analyze large datasets, particularly in biology.

Over at Nobel Intent, John Timmer brings up another issue related to computational models of complex phenomena: reproducibility: