The existence of functional, non-protein-coding DNA is all too frequently portrayed as a great surprise uncovered by genome sequencing projects, both in large media outlets and in scientific publications that should have better quality control in place. Eric Lander, writing a Human Genome Project 10th anniversary retrospective in Nature, explains the real surprise about non-coding DNA that was revealed by big omics projects.
The monthly book club here at Adaptive Complexity has been on hiatus for the summer, and its revival is long overdue. Join me here on the second Sunday of each month to discuss a great (hopefully) science read. I don't limit my book reviews to Sundays or once per month, but the Sunday Science Book Club is set up so that you can read along and put in your thoughts, in the comments or on your own blog.
So here is the schedule through December:
October 11 - The Strangest Man, a new biography of physics giant Paul Dirac
If I could do it all over again, I would forget genomics and specialize in the chemistry of Scotch. You may scoff, dear reader, but there are employment opportunities out there (not to mention alcoholic fringe benefits), such as the Scotch Whisky Research Institute (SWRI). Few pleasures (note that it's few, not no pleasures - you know what I mean) are greater than the delicate, intricate taste and aroma of a good single malt Scotch, and the SWRI's mission is to scientifically understand the production and enjoyment of Scotch.Here is the kind of excitement that you can find in a career in Scotch chemistry:
Antioxidants cause cancer. Or at least that is the headline you may read in some less reputable sources of science news, reporting this study out this week in Nature. Before you go rushing off to toss out your Teavana supercharged antioxidant green tea and your expensive GNC herbal supplements, let's take a closer look at what the research shows. (Well, to be frank, you can go throw out those supplements, and only keep your tea if you enjoy drinking it.)
Do you ever wonder how many harmful mutations you carry in your genome? Even if you've never worried about how much of a mutant you are, geneticists have spent a lot of time thinking about this issue. They are interested in a) how much genetic variation is out there, and b) how much of that is potentially harmful and connected to disease? This month's issue of Genome Research has some new research on an individual's personal mutational load.
After earning the ire of computational biologists and network theorists last week, it's time to get to the positive side of networks and systems biology. If you hadn't guessed it before, the name of this blog reflects my interest in complex biological systems. When I rant about networks and comp. bio., it's tough love, and I really have the best interests of the field at heart.
I've been mean to computational/network/systems biologists recently (twice). Real soon here I'm going to get into some positive aspects of these fields, but before that, I have to slam systems biology one more time.Guess which blurb was written within the last 5 years, and which one was written more than 30 years ago:#1:
Craig Venter says that in a few months, his team will have created the first genuine artificial life form. As you may recall, Venter's team did the first whole genome transplant a few years back, which involved taking the genome of one species of bacteria and putting it into the genome-free cell of another closely related species. The new hybrid species was able to reboot with the new genome. According to The Times:Artificial life will be created within four months, a controversial scientist has predicted. Craig Venter, who led a private project to sequence the human genome, told The Times that his team had cleared a critical hurdle to creating man-made organisms in a laboratory.
Here's a little exercise in scientific thinking. What's wrong the approach to science described in the following passage? (This passage, about applying network analysis to counterterrorism, is taken from the complex systems special feature in the July 24th issue of Science.)
The Pacific Region of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS, "the world's largest general scientific society") includes some of the best universities in the world, located on the Pacific coast of the US. So it was with great excitement that I flew out to San Francisco to attend the 90th Pacific Regional Meeting of the AAAS at San Francisco State University (SFSU), where I was slated to give a talk on science blogging.
Michael Massing at The NY Review of Books weighs in on the future of news organizations in the era of blogs:
Garter snakes like to eat newts. Newts don't like to be eaten, and to deter snakes from eating them, they have evolved a seriously lethal neurotoxin. This toxin, called tetrodotoxin (TTX), is chemically similar to that found in pufferfish, and a few milligrams is enough to take out a hefty adult human.But some garter snakes really like newts, and instead of searching for other prey, several species of garter snakes have managed develop resistance to newt neurotoxins.
Talk to any molecular biologist, and you'll find that most of them feel that there is something that we're missing when we analyze complex biological systems. These systems are often too difficult to reason about verbally in any sort of detailed or rigorous way. So we build mathematical models, sometimes going to great effort to perform very precise measurements so that we can properly parameterize our models.
