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Ecological Niche Modeling And Finding Sasquatch's Range Distribution

Ecological Niche Modeling is a great tool for conservation biology, phylogeography and evolutionary...

Vaccine Wars: The Phantom Menace

It's been 9 months since I read Autism's False Prophets and participated in a discussion over at...

The Origins Of The Reductionist Program

The Origins of the Reductionist Program"How can the events in space and time which take place within...

Homo Floresiensis: Our Clown-Footed Cousins

I was fascinated by the discovery of the dwarfed hominin Homo floresiensis back in 2004 when it...

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John DennehyRSS Feed of this column.

I'm an evolutionary biologist and assistant professor at Queens College, City University of New York, who studies bacteriophage life history stochasticity and the population dynamics of host/pathogen

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Science Citation Classics: Sanger Sequencing

Science Citation Classics: Sanger Sequencing

Apr 15 2009 | comment(s)

Sanger F, Nicklen S, Coulson AR. 1977. DNA sequencing with chain-terminating inhibitors. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U S A 74: 5463-7.

This paper describes the most important (IMHO) technical breakthrough in the biological sciences:  DNA sequencing using a single-stranded DNA template, a DNA primer, a DNA polymerase, radioactively or fluorescently labeled nucleotides, and modified nucleotides that terminate DNA strand elongation.
Science Citation Classic: Beadle And Tatum

Science Citation Classic: Beadle And Tatum

Mar 27 2009 | comment(s)

Behind every major scientific effort is a story. Beadle and Tatum's story is one of persistence. They began with a hypothesis: each gene causes the production of a single enzyme, and that enzyme catalyzes a biochemical reaction within an organism.

The seeds of this hypothesis were spawned by Sir Archibald Garrod, who reported in 1909 that alkaptonuria - an inherited condition in which the urine is colored dark red by the chemical alkapton - results from a single recessive gene, which causes a deficiency in the enzyme that normally breaks down alkapton.
I Am Convinced That It Is The Light And The Way

I Am Convinced That It Is The Light And The Way

Mar 10 2009 | comment(s)

This statement about natural selection is the last sentence of Adaptation and Natural Selection, George Williams' masterpiece about evolution. George Williams is one of the unsung heroes of 20th century science. An evolutionary biologist I know (who shall remain anonymous to spare him/her public shaming) claimed not to know who was George Williams. I was/still am aghast. This anonymous evolutionary biologist is the inspiration for this post, indeed for my series of citation classics (see also here).
Classic Papers In Biology

Classic Papers In Biology

Jan 18 2009 | comment(s)

One of the things I enjoyed most about my time at Yale was the history of the place. I was pleasantly surprised to discover the famous scientists that worked there, including Lederberg, Tatum, Altman, Palade, Gilman etc.  It gave me a sense of being part of a long tradition, part of something important.
Should Scientists Blog?

Should Scientists Blog?

Dec 18 2008 | comment(s)

Two articles addressing blogging and science have appeared recently in Trends in Ecology and Evolution and in PLoS Biology.
Foundations Of Epigenetics

Foundations Of Epigenetics

Aug 05 2008 | comment(s)

Today epigenetics is all the rage, but it has its roots in a pair of papers that appeared nearly simultaneously in 1952-1953.

Luria SE and Human ML. 1952. A nonhereditary, host-induced variation of bacterial viruses. J. Bact. 64: 557-569 and also Bertani G and Weigle JJ. 1953. Host controlled variation in bacterial viruses. J. Bact. 65: 113-121. 

Luria & Human and Bertani & Weigle independently discovered that bacterial hosts can affect the growth and phenotypic properties of their bacteriophages.