nodalpoint.org

Finally, NCBI's dbGaP (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=gap) has started making available data from various genome wide association studies. This will be an awesome resource for understanding the causes of complex diseases.

Bio-era has just released a pretty interesting, in-depth study of the current and future impacts of sequencing and synthesis technologies and the emergence of synthetic genomics on key sectors of the US economy.

Here’s the link to the press release: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2007/2/prweb503903.htm. You can also access a podcast about the report release there.

Also, here’s the link http://www.bio-era.net/research/GenomePurchaseForm.html to the form you fill out to get either or both printed copies of the report, and/or a link to allow you to download the entire .pdf file (32 MB) for free. The link to the .pdf file will be emailed to you upon submitting the form, and is free except for the inconvenience of filling out the form. Printed copies of the report are only available for purchase (sorry, but color printing is really expensive…). Personally, I recommend getting the printed version if you can afford it, since it’s such a large file.

It is not easy being a scientist. There are the four-plus years of struggle getting your PhD only to find yourself on the postdoc treadmill dealing with lab politics, grants, PIs and the distinct possibility that your current project might end up being a total waste of time. This postdoc limbo is valuable time, that if not spent productively leads to less papers and less career opportunities. And the whole time the only people that will ever appreciate your situation are your fellow scientific competitors. Well that may be about to change with the publication of Allegra Goodman's new novel Intuition. I came across this novel via the Nature Genetics Free Association blog. Read on for a mini review of the first three chapters.

Bioinformatics Resource and Solution for Science Students

(http://www.bisa.in)

Being a student of biological science, it happens so many times that a simple bioinformatics analysis takes too long or errant results haunt you. You may be or may not be familiar with computers and bioinformatics as the concept is not so clear to your mind. But in today’s ever growing research one needs to be familiar with all the aspects of biological sciences and BIOINFORMATICS is a profound candidate.BISA (http://www.bisa.in)offers number of resources and services for free.

BISA offers

Some time ago, I mentioned that wet/dry earwax is genetic. The same group appears to have now isolated the channel responsible. A SNP (rs17822931 in ABCC11), the causative allele of which is found primarily in East Asians, alters the ability to export cGMP through this channel. Neat!

Nature has launched a new companion weblog for it's Nature Genetics journal. The blog is called Free Association. I see this as a significant move for Nature and science publications in general.

Although I have experience my usual irony in seeing these types of technologies (blogs, RSS etc.) being adopted in science. The irony being that the science community is always behind when it comes to the cutting edge of communications technology developed on the web. Or maybe it is just more science infotainment. I suspect not given that the added commentary might be a good way to keep up on Nature's advance online publications.

Are you teaching in the bioscience field? Did you ever want to put your lecture online but did not know how? Did you ever want to let your students put together projects online but did not have the means to do so? Are you looking for a site to start your own, bioscience related blog? BioScienceCourses.org may just be the site for you.

As you will see, the site right now is nearly empty. That's what community driven sites are when there is no community yet! So join on in, contribute content and ideas and become part of BioScienceCourses.org

I'm not sure "how scared we should be" - rather less than the commercial news networks would have us believe, I suspect. If you're looking to inform yourself about avian influenza (aka 'bird flu'), Flu Wiki is a good place to start.

Update: I just can't resist The Onion's Nation's Leading Alarmists Excited About Bird Flu.

Via Information Asthetics (I'm not sure how I managed to get there), an interesting visualization of haplotype blocks (Java applet warning for that link). I'm not really sure how much value there is in visualizing direct alignments of genomic sequences, but the graphics look nice. More information on Ben Fry's work is available here.

Hello World.

I Have a question for the fine people here, and I am a rank amateur, so please excuse my lack of proper vocabulary.

I've been trying to find the whole story on a case which I read about several years ago- I think it was possibly in John L. Casti's "Paradigms Lost", or possibly Stephen Pinker's "The Language Instinct".

In any case, the example refers to a "famous experiment" which is often referred to as "[so-and-so's] Monster", in which, a microorganism is placed in an extremely hospitible environment and allowed to thrive there with no enemies or inhibition. After many generations of reproduction in this safe environment, the organism was found to have a markedly less-complex genetic structure.