In the meantime...

I haven´t had the time to blog a lot this week due to the setting up of several experiments and undergrad mentoring (I feel like the guy on the picture). In fact, Picks of the Week wasn´t published this week. I apologize to all my readers.... the two of you :)

There are, however, some great blog posts in preparation (many of which are guest posts) and will be posted here soon.

In the meantime, there are several fascinating molbio research articles you can check out at "Around the Journals".

Go there now!

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(Image credit)

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A little redecoration...

You may notice that a lot from the left sidebar is missing. I'm doing some moving around, changing some things, trying to make use of Blogger's new feature "The Blogger Template Designer" to give MolBio Research Highlights a new look.

You may also have noticed that there are a couple of buttons on the top: they may stay there after everything settles down, but I'm still testing it. Do you think they are useful?

Things may be a little weird during the next few days, but all content will still be available.

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What does Spring Break mean to grad students?

This?

Not quite.

To us, spring break, is just that time of the year when:

1) we don't have to wait in line at the University cafeteria
2) we can park wherever we want
3) we can sit wherever we want at the library
4) your PI spends more time at his/her office and thus, pops up in the lab asking how experiments are going, more frequently

(From Phd Comics)

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(Top Image credit)

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Yes we can! (work in a developing country)

(...) We showed unequivocally that working in a developing nation is no bar to doing excellent science. (...) Our key strategy was to work as a team with an innovative horizontal philosophy that involved people from different areas of research in various countries.

Such multinational collaborations are crucial to the success of science, technology and innovation in developing nations.¹

Exactly. Multinational collaborations are indeed required and not only in the context discussed in the article, but in general. Collaborations are, in my opinion, our best approach to the advancement of science.

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¹ From Nature 464, 486 (25 March 2010) | doi:10.1038/464486c

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With respect to 'epigenomics'....

Be sure to check this recent Correspondance over at Nature expressing reservations regarding a recent Editorial on the International Human Epigenome Consortium.

I've commented before on the loose use of the word "Epigenetics" [What is Epigenetics? An operational definition], so I found this quote particularly interesting:

With respect to 'epigenomics', we wish to stress that chromatin 'marks' and local chemical modifications of DNA, such as methylation, are the consequences of DNA-sequence-specific interactions of proteins (and RNA) that recruit modifying enzymes to specific targets. They are thus directly dependent on the genomic sequence. Such marks are the effects of sequence-specific regulatory interactions, not the causes of cell-type-specific gene expression.

The authors also direct the reader to a letter by eight prominent scientists expressing serious reservations about the scientific basis of the epigenome project (which you can access here)

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I won!!

Richard Grant, Information Architect at F1000, organized a fascinating Twitter contest. The idea was to "post your most embarrassing scientific error or egregious lab-based manipulation to Twitter with the #scifubar hashtag".

I read about it last night and decided to enter with two funny stories from my Department (remember you can post up to 140 characters in Twitter):

1) I saw someone try to melt agarose by adding a magnetic bar and placing the bottle on a magnetic stirrer #scifubar

and

2) Undergrad said he couldn't "paint" the black lines on the autoclave tape as good as his supervisor (he even bought a black marker) #scifubar

Today, the winners where announced through Twitter (by @f1000) , and to my amazement, I won!!:

We have a #scifubar winner! @aemonten for autoclave tape shenanigans http://bit.ly/bakPy9 ^rpg

A bag of F1000 swag, including the much-coveted laser-stylus-pen-torch thingy, is on its way to Chile!

Thank you "anonymous" undergrad, and thank you Richard!

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Dominant transposases, becoming famous for your lab mistakes and more, in my Picks of the Week from RB.

Another week has gone by and some very interesting molbio blog posts have been aggregated to Researchblogging.org. Every week [see my opening post on the matter], I'll select some blog posts I consider particularly interesting in the field of molecular biology [see here to get a sense of the criteria that will be used], briefly describe them and list them here for you to check out.

Note that I'm only taking into consideration the molbio-related blog posts aggregated under "Biology".

Congratulations to everyone who got their post selected.

Transposable elements can greatly influence the structure and dynamics of the genomes they populate. Class 2 transposable elements or DNA transposons, are mobile genetic units that move using a single or double-stranded DNA intermediate. Moselio Schaechter at Small Things Considered comments on a recent Nucleic Acids Research paper reporting that transposases, enzymes involved in the movement of these genetic units, appear to be the most prevalent and abundant set of genes in nature (or at least in our genomic databases).

Everyone has made mistakes at the lab. In fact, you can check hundreds of them in Twitter under #scienceconfessions or #scifubar. Setting things on fire and throwing nasty solutions down the sink are part of the history of every lab. But what if a particular “mistake” turns out to have a tremendous influence on your field? Michele Arduengo at Promega Connections talks about “Sloppy Technicians and the Progress of Science” using the history of Hela cells and cytogenetics as an example.

(Image credit)

In addition to these posts, this week I’m launching “honorable mentions” for Picks of the Week. Posts under this category will only be linked to and quoted, but not summarized.

This week’s honorable mention goes to Lucas Brouwers at Thoughtomics, for his post entitled “On the Origin of Animals”.

“In a Nature paper published last month, a team of researchers used the conserved expression of microRNAs to piece together some information about a great-great grandmother of animals”

That's it for this week. Stay tuned for more MolBio Research Highlights!

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Some of the articles discussed in this week's selected posts:

Aziz RK, Breitbart M, & Edwards RA (2010). Transposases are the most abundant, most ubiquitous genes in nature. Nucleic acids research PMID: 20215432

Christodoulou, F., Raible, F., Tomer, R., Simakov, O., Trachana, K., Klaus, S., Snyman, H., Hannon, G., Bork, P., & Arendt, D. (2010). Ancient animal microRNAs and the evolution of tissue identity Nature, 463 (7284), 1084-1088 DOI: 10.1038/nature08744

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A new kind of periodic table

The famous science writer David Bradley (@sciencebase in Twitter) has created the Periodic Table of Science Bloggers. In that table you'll find very interesting blogs on a variety of science topics. Each element's abbreviated name comes close to the blog or blogger's name, twitter account, etc.

If you’ve got a chemistry/science blog and your initials or its initials fit one of the elements that I haven’t used for my own stuff, let me know and I’ll add you to my PT.

Our blog is under Tm (for The Molbio Research Highlights).

Check it out here!

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Surveying the gut microbiota, cross dressing chickens and more, in my Picks of the Week, from RB

Another week has gone by and some very interesting molbio blog posts have been aggregated to Researchblogging.org. Every week [see my opening post on the matter], I'll select some blog posts I consider particularly interesting in the field of molecular biology [see here to get a sense of the criteria that will be used], briefly describe them and list them here for you to check out.

Note that I'm only taking into consideration the molbio-related blog posts aggregated under "Biology".

Congratulations to everyone who got their post selected.

It has been estimated that the number of microorganisms in our body exceeds the number of human cells by a factor of ~10. The vast majority of these microbes reside in our gut. With the ultimate goal of “understanding and exploiting the impact of the gut microbes on human health and well-being” and to get a broader overview of the human gut microbial genes, a huge Illumina-based metagenomic approach has recently been published in Nature, reporting “3.3 million non-redundant microbial genes, derived from 576.7 gigabases of sequence, from faecal samples of 124 European individuals”.

Geek! discusses some of the fascinating results derived from this study.

(Image source)

This huge microbial community has a profound influence on our metabolism and nutrition and its alteration may be associated with a number of diseases. Tim Sampson at The Times Microbial discusses a fascinating new article reporting that mice deficient in Toll-like Receptor 5 (a component of the innate immune system expressed in the gut mucosa), develop “hallmark features of metabolic syndrome, including hyperlipidemia, hypertension, insulin resistance, and increased adiposity”. Notably, these alterations are correlated with changes in the composition of the gut microbiota and… (wait for it…)

“transfer of the gut microbiota from TLR5-deficient mice to wild-type germ-free mice conferred many features of metabolic syndrome to the recipients”.

How cool is that?

OK, enough with microorganisms. GrrlScientist at Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted), brings us a fascinating post discussing in detail a recent article in which the authors examined three lateral gynandromorph chickens (a rare, naturally occurring phenomenon in which one side of the animal appears male and the other female -see image-) to investigate the sex-determining mechanism in birds. It seems that the underlying mechanism differs greatly from its mammalian counterpart.

Image of gynandromorph bird (Image credit)

And for the grand finale, human genomics!

Daniel MacArthur at Genetic Future comments on two recent papers representing the first ever studies to “employ whole-genome sequencing for disease gene discovery”.

Daniel comments on the importance of these papers for clinical genetics, but also raises an interesting issue regarding personal genomics:

“The key message here is that sequencing technology is still moving far faster than our ability to interpret the resulting data.”

That's it for this week. Stay tuned for more MolBio Research Highlights!

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Some of the articles discussed in this week's selected posts:

Qin, J., Li, R., Raes, J., Arumugam, M., Burgdorf, K., Manichanh, C., Nielsen, T., Pons, N., Levenez, F., Yamada, T., Mende, D., Li, J., Xu, J., Li, S., Li, D., Cao, J., Wang, B., Liang, H., Zheng, H., Xie, Y., Tap, J., Lepage, P., Bertalan, M., Batto, J., Hansen, T., Le Paslier, D., Linneberg, A., Nielsen, H., Pelletier, E., Renault, P., Sicheritz-Ponten, T., Turner, K., Zhu, H., Yu, C., Li, S., Jian, M., Zhou, Y., Li, Y., Zhang, X., Li, S., Qin, N., Yang, H., Wang, J., Brunak, S., Doré, J., Guarner, F., Kristiansen, K., Pedersen, O., Parkhill, J., Weissenbach, J., Antolin, M., Artiguenave, F., Blottiere, H., Borruel, N., Bruls, T., Casellas, F., Chervaux, C., Cultrone, A., Delorme, C., Denariaz, G., Dervyn, R., Forte, M., Friss, C., van de Guchte, M., Guedon, E., Haimet, F., Jamet, A., Juste, C., Kaci, G., Kleerebezem, M., Knol, J., Kristensen, M., Layec, S., Le Roux, K., Leclerc, M., Maguin, E., Melo Minardi, R., Oozeer, R., Rescigno, M., Sanchez, N., Tims, S., Torrejon, T., Varela, E., de Vos, W., Winogradsky, Y., Zoetendal, E., Bork, P., Ehrlich, S., & Wang, J. (2010). A human gut microbial gene catalogue established by metagenomic sequencing Nature, 464 (7285), 59-65 DOI: 10.1038/nature08821

Vijay-Kumar, M., Aitken, J., Carvalho, F., Cullender, T., Mwangi, S., Srinivasan, S., Sitaraman, S., Knight, R., Ley, R., & Gewirtz, A. (2010). Metabolic Syndrome and Altered Gut Microbiota in Mice Lacking Toll-Like Receptor 5 Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1179721

Zhao, D., McBride, D., Nandi, S., McQueen, H., McGrew, M., Hocking, P., Lewis, P., Sang, H., & Clinton, M. (2010). Somatic sex identity is cell autonomous in the chicken Nature, 464 (7286), 237-242 DOI: 10.1038/nature08852

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10 Web tools, programs and applications that keep me sane

The very first thing I do every morning when I get to the lab is turn on my laptop (this is unless I did a bacterial transformation the day before, in which case the first thing I’ll do is check the incubator). Then, I usually review a number of things: I check my email, check the latest updates from my favorite journals/blogs, manage my PDF library, etc., in addition to organizing my lab day (although I usually do this the night before). To keep track of all this (which can be a lot) I use several tools and applications without which I would be a mess. Here’s a list of some of my favorites.

Let’s start with the Google stuff:

1) Gmail. OK, this is fairly obvious. I did try some alternatives, but let’s face it: Gmail rules.

I have customized my Gmail homepage though, using some gadgets from “Gmail Labs” (check for this logo () in you Gmail page):

a) Right-side chat: Moves the chat box to the right side of the inbox. This gives you some extra space on your left sidebar to put other things, for example:

b) Google Calendar gadget: Adds a box in the left column which shows your Google Calendar. See upcoming events, locations, and details (See image on the left and #4)

c) Google Docs gadget: Adds a box in the left column which displays your Google Docs. Shows recent docs, starred docs, and has fast search (See image on the left and #2).

d) You can add other stuff, by using “Add any gadget by URL”: adds a "Gadgets" tab to Settings, where you'll be able to specify the URL of any gadget. This gadget will show in a box in the left column. There are several third-party applications that you can add.

e) And finally, “Navbar drag and drop”: Allows you to reorder the items in your navbar using drag and drop.

2) Google Docs. As you can “create and edit web-based documents, spreadsheets, and presentations and store them online so that they can be accessed from any computer”, it is ideal for documents that are frequently used and updated by all lab members. Be sure to back-up frequently: you never know.

3) Google Reader. Fantastic web-based aggregator to keep track of all your favorite journals, blogs, news, etc. You can easily add subscriptions, email content to colleagues, add tags, share with friends, organize using folders, etc. You should definitely use this or some other sort of RSS aggregator/organizer (if you don’t even know what RSS is, see here).

4) Google Calendar. I use it to schedule meetings, appointments, etc. A great thing about Google calendar is its very customizable “Notification” system. You can ask for pop-ups, emails and even free SMS to be sent to you at any time you specify before a scheduled event.

Note that all of these fantastic tools and many other Google applications work on phones (and not only iPhones). Check Google Mobile for more info.

OK, enough with the Google stuff. What other tools and applications do I use?

5) Remember the Milk (RTM) A great customizable task manager (like a to-do list). Normally I’d simply use pencil and paper to organize my daily tasks (e.g. Neurospora transformation, colony PCR, etc), but this has worked great for me: no risk of losing the sheet of paper.

A cool thing about it is that you can add your list as a gadget to your Gmail homepage (see image on the right and #1d), so you can check and manage your tasks, email, calendar and access your shared docs all in the same place (your Gmail page). Some may argue that this is the same idea behind iGoogle, but the gadgets in iGoogle, particularly Gmail, are very limited. You can also access RTM through your phone and it's compatible with Google Calendar.

RTM is free, but you can pay for some additional functions.

6) Tweetdeck. I really like this (free) software for managing my Twitter account. It has a multiple columns format, an in-built URL shortener, and many cool features. Further, I like the interface. It’s also available for the iPhone.

7) Mendeley. Free reference management program. I only use it to manage my (huge) PDF library and access the articles quickly (like “Papers”, but for Windows PC). Its MS Word plugin for managing references in a document isn’t quite there yet: it still can’t manage journal abbreviations, so, for example, it won’t give you a bibliography in Nature’s format. For managing references in documents I use Endnote (and Endnote Web), although I may try CiteSmart soon: it seems simpler and quicker (both Endnote and CiteSmart are non-free).

Note, however, that the “Journal abbreviation” feature has already been suggested at Mendeley’s website.

8) Foxit Reader. A (free) small, fast and rich PDF reader (there's also a paid version with more functions).

9) Mozy. An online backup service. You can select what folders to back up (backup your lab folder!), and the software will do that on their servers automatically. If you have more than one computer and need backup and syncing, you may find DropBox more useful.
Free and paid plans.

10) Microsoft OneNote. For those ready to make the jump to a digital lab notebook, this is a very good choice. I must admit that there are several other alternatives out there that I haven't tried yet, but this works fine.

You may find many more useful tips, tools and applications over at ProfHacker (which you can also follow on twitter @ProfHacker), Lifehacker and Hackademe.

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(Image sources: RTM Gmail Gadget, Calendar and Docs gadgets)

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Non-inherited antibiotic resistance, jumping viruses and more, in my Picks of the Week from RB

Another week has gone by and some very interesting molbio blog posts have been aggregated to Researchblogging.org. Every week [see my opening post on the matter], I'll select some blog posts I consider particularly interesting in the field of molecular biology [see here to get a sense of the criteria that will be used], briefly describe them and list them here for you to check out.

Note that I'm only taking into consideration the molbio-related blog posts aggregated under "Biology".

Congratulations to everyone who got their post selected.

1) As I’ve stated before, the different steps in gene expression are stochastic biochemical events and this randomness can lead to substantial cell-to-cell variability in RNA and protein levels and have phenotypic consequences even within a clonal population of cells. Tim Sampson over at "The Times Microbial” brings us the second part of his 2-part series on “Noisy and Bistable Gene Expression” now commenting on the observation of “non inherited antibiotic resistance”.

2) Just how tough is to survive on Mars? Greg Fish at Weird Things discusses a recent article in which the Martian environment was simulated to perform experiments with different bacterial strains and concludes that:

Mars is not necessarily the most hostile place to life as we know it, but only when we’re talking about its unexplored underground world.

3) In some (few) cases, viruses are able to cross the species barrier effectively and cause disease. In fact, “this is one of the ways that ‘emerging infections’ get started”. Ian York at Mystery Rays from Outer Space comments on a paper suggesting several recent host shifts among members of the genus Ranavirus, major viral pathogens of cold-blooded vertebrates.

Frogs: A Chorus of Colors (Image source)

4) Last week, I selected a post by Lucas Brouwers in which he discussed an interesting paper reporting the use of protein transport machines in mitochondria as a model system to study how sophisticated molecular machines can evolve from simpler components [See Molecular machines and memorable African genomes in my Picks of the Week from RB]. As a sort of sister post to that one, LabRat now discusses the evolution of the import mechanism in chloroplasts.

From the post:

The only thing that seems clear is that like the mitochondrial import system, this was clearly pulled together from bits of old machinery lying around.

That's it for this week. Stay tuned for more MolBio Research Highlights!

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Some of the articles discussed in this week's selected posts:

Balaban NQ, Merrin J, Chait R, Kowalik L, & Leibler S (2004). Bacterial persistence as a phenotypic switch. Science (New York, N.Y.), 305 (5690), 1622-5 PMID: 15308767

Jancovich, J., Bremont, M., Touchman, J., & Jacobs, B. (2009). Evidence for Multiple Recent Host Species Shifts among the Ranaviruses (Family Iridoviridae) Journal of Virology, 84 (6), 2636-2647 DOI: 10.1128/JVI.01991-09

Gross J, & Bhattacharya D (2009). Revaluating the evolution of the Toc and Tic protein translocons. Trends in plant science, 14 (1), 13-20 PMID: 19042148

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Quotes from the science blogosphere

(...) but it struck me that if this candidate were to have a piano land on his head tomorrow, there would still be plenty of people pursuing the types of questions that he plans to pursue.

Dr. Jekyll and Mrs. Hyde in a post arguing that candidates to fill a position at their Department, have not "carved out a scientific niche for him or herself that seems distinct from the territory occupied by other people in the field".

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On why you should vote for us in the 2010 Research Blogging Awards

Research Blogging (RB), "a system for identifying the best, most thoughtful blog posts about peer-reviewed research", aggregates posts that discuss research literature on a variety of topics.

As a molbio blog, created by scientists and directed to scientists (particularly molecular biologists) in which we discuss articles in the field, many of our posts have been aggregated to RB in our ~1 year of existence.

Our hard work has recently been recognized by two nominations to the "2010 Research Blogging Awards", in the "Best New Blog" and "Best Expert-level Blog" categories (we were selected within several nominees by a panel of judges). On a personal note, I'm also among the finalists for "Research Twitterer of the Year".

Regrettably, a few days ago I was notified that due to 3 links posted on the last fews days of December 2008, the panel of judges decided to take us out of the race towards "best new blog", as it only considers blogs launched in 2009. In any case, we feel that making the cut into the finalists in that category was already a huge accomplishment, particularly due to the nature of our blog which is not directed to the general audience (and the judges are not molecular biologists).

This is badge that finalists can proudly display in the blogs

Who will decide who wins these awards? Notably, the bloggers themselves. Bloggers who are part of the RB community will vote for their favorite blogs in each of the 20 categories.

So, if you are a RB blogger and you are here wondering whether you should vote for MolBio Research Highlights for "Best-expert level blog" for the "2010 Research Blogging Awards" (and for me in the "Research Twitterer of the Year" category) , the answer is a resounding yes! :) . Let me tell you a few reasons why:

1) Since day one, this blog has stood aside from most science blogs: it is written by scientists (molecular biologists, with a background in fungi and plant molecular biology, RNA processing, human genetics and cancer), and (here's the twist), FOR scientists: for molecular biologists looking for a place to read about interesting articles, news, tools and websites in the field.

2) Want to know about recent notable articles in molecular biology? Then be sure to check "Around the Journals", a Google-reader based system, in which we aggregate what we consider are interesting articles in the field. You can follow it by RSS and many of them are tweeted about.

3) Our posts discussing primary research literature are generally well received in the RB community and in Twitter, where I promote our posts. Our posts have been featured in the Cancer Research Blog Carnival (which we once hosted) and get many "views" at RB.

Some of our most-viewed blog posts, aggregated to RB, include:

Cancer Stem Cells: the root of all evil?
An alternative cloning strategy: yeast recombinational cloning
Targeting cancer stem cells: chemical style
Fourth time is the charm: the quest for the final plasmid
What is Epigenetics? An operational definition
Are we training pit bulls to review our manuscripts?

Also see:
A few ideas for grad students in the life sciences to keep in mind

4) We noticed that even though there are several blog carnivals, one in Molecular Biology was missing (See here). I started a very successful series of posts entitled "Picks of the Week", in which, every week, I select notable posts in the field, aggregated to RB the week before. These posts are generally among the top-viewed at RB every week.

"Picks of the Week" has even had Guest Hosts, including "Best New Blog" nominee, Lucas Brouwers (See here and here)

5) Due to my post on yeast recombinational cloning (An alternative cloning strategy: yeast recombinational cloning), I was invited to write a article for the european life science magazine Lab Times. This journal is "one of the most popular Life Science journals in Europe and is recognized as a grassroots magazine produced by scientists for scientists"

6) I was invited to write a post for the popular blog Benchfly for the "Model Organism Week" series. This post, on the fascinating fungus Neurospora crassa and its importance on the history of molecular biology (The Almighty Fungi: The Revolutionary Neurospora crassa), has accumulated many visits, and is among the favorite articles at that blog. Recently, it was permanently added to Benchfly's toolbar.

7) We have a lot of new ideas and projects for this year (I don't want to get into the details, as they are a surprise), but some involve more guest posts, as the idea is to make more grad students participate in this blog, so they can contribute with their expertise in areas in which we are lacking, so that MolBio Research Highlights can be of use to more and more molecular biologists worldwide, working on a variety of topics.


I hope this brief overview of what has been our ~1st year behind MolBio Research Highlights encourages you to follow, and importantly, participate in our blog, and also, to vote for us for "Best Expert-Level blog" in the 2010 Research Blogging Awards and for me as "Research Twitterer of the Year". Remember to follow me on Twitter.


We want this project to become a useful tool for fellow researchers.

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A new way to fund Science: Search for Research

Fascinating. That's how I would describe the newest initiative at Benchfly, directed at raising funds for Scientists!

There's a video explaining everything (funny, check it out), but if you are super super busy, then here's a summary:

1) You download and install a browser toolbar from Benchfly (here)
2) Every time you use the toolbar, you help raise a little money which goes into a pot (courtesy of search engines, which benefit from the additional search traffic)
3) All the money raised is then doubled by Sigma, and the whole pot is given away to scientists!

But how? And to whom?

4) Benchfly will give away "Microgrants". If you are a scientist and would like a piece of that money to partly fund your research, you have to go to Benchfly's Facebook Page and describe you research in 100 words or less.

Who selects the winners? Notably, anyone with an internet connection. People vote at Benchfly's Facebook page based on the research descriptions provided.

The more toolbars downloaded, the more searches performed, the more money raised, the more microgrants can be awarded.

Get the toolbar and "search for research"!

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Molecular machines and memorable African genomes in my Picks of the Week from RB

Another week has gone by and some very interesting molbio blog posts have been aggregated to Researchblogging.org. Every week [see my opening post on the matter], I'll select some blog posts I consider particularly interesting in the field of molecular biology [see here to get a sense of the criteria that will be used], briefly describe them and list them here for you to check out.

Note that I'm only taking into consideration the molbio-related blog posts aggregated under "Biology".

Congratulations to everyone who got their post selected.

1) Molecular machines participate in several biological processes and their evolution is a fascinating and fundamental question. The mitochondria, organelle derived from an α-proteobacterial endosymbiont, relies on such assemblies for correct functioning. For example, many genes coding for important mitochondrial proteins have been transferred to the nuclear genome and are synthesized in the cytoplasm: the importing of these proteins into this organelle is mediated by the action of the 4 membrane-embedded molecular machines.

(…) how could these molecular import machines evolve? No bacteria have protein complexes that import proteins over their double membrane, so where did these complexes come from and how did they acquire the functionality that they have now? (From the selected post)

Lucas Brouwers at Thoughtomics discusses an interesting paper reporting the use of protein transport machines in mitochondria as a model system to study how sophisticated molecular machines can evolve from simpler components.

From the paper:

We proposed that simple “core” machines were established in the first eukaryotes by drawing on pre-existing bacterial proteins that had previously provided distinct functions.

2) The genomes of an indigenous hunter-gatherer from the Kalahari Desert and a Bantu from southern Africa have recently been reported.

Modern humans arose in Africa about 250 000 years ago and only spread out to Europe and the rest of the world in the last 60 000 years, displacing Homo erectus in the process. The migrants that founded the modern European, Asian and American populations would have carried with them only fraction of humanity's genetic diversity when they left Africa but until recently genomics has focused on those populations. (from the selected post)

The indigenous hunter-gatherer people of southern Africa represent one of the oldest known lineages of modern humans. The genetic structure of these individuals, then, is important for understanding human diversity. David at The Atavism comments on the article and its implications.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Bantu individual selected (Image source)

That's it for this week. Stay tuned for more MolBio Research Highlights!

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Some of the articles discussed in this week's selected posts:

Clements, A., Bursac, D., Gatsos, X., Perry, A., Civciristov, S., Celik, N., Likic, V., Poggio, S., Jacobs-Wagner, C., Strugnell, R., & Lithgow, T. (2009). The reducible complexity of a mitochondrial molecular machine Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106 (37), 15791-15795 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0908264106

Schuster SC, Miller W, Ratan A, Tomsho LP, Giardine B, Kasson LR, Harris RS, Petersen DC, Zhao F, Qi J, Alkan C, Kidd JM, Sun Y, Drautz DI, Bouffard P, Muzny DM, Reid JG, Nazareth LV, Wang Q, Burhans R, Riemer C, Wittekindt NE, Moorjani P, Tindall EA, Danko CG, Teo WS, Buboltz AM, Zhang Z, Ma Q, Oosthuysen A, Steenkamp AW, Oostuisen H, Venter P, Gajewski J, Zhang Y, Pugh BF, Makova KD, Nekrutenko A, Mardis ER, Patterson N, Pringle TH, Chiaromonte F, Mullikin JC, Eichler EE, Hardison RC, Gibbs RA, Harkins TT, & Hayes VM (2010). Complete Khoisan and Bantu genomes from southern Africa. Nature, 463 (7283), 943-7 PMID: 20164927

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