After last month's special issue, Genome Biology has spent November in epigenomics detox. Instead we've been answering questions such as: How does your skin microbiome respond to a wound? If all those bits of the genome that spawn non-coding RNAs really aren't junk, then what is their function? And, how do CpG island promoters relate… Read more »
2Coriander leaves (Coriandrum sativum), also known as Cilantro, arouse strong emotions. Eaters are divided into those who find the flavour citrusy, fresh and pleasant against those who insist it is soapy, dirty and foul. A genetic role has long been suspected, from previous studies published in Flavour and other journals. Mauer and El-Sohemy showed that… Read more »
For biofuels to become more sustainable, lignocellulosic biomass from trees, grasses and plant stems is an appealing alternative to resource-heavy energy crops such as canola and maize. However, the high lignin content of second generation feedstocks makes them naturally recalcitrant to processing into fuel. While chemical engineers, microbiologists and enzymologists have made strides to overcome… Read more »
For biofuels to become more sustainable, lignocellulosic biomass from trees, grasses and plant stems is an appealing alternative to resource-heavy energy crops such as canola and maize. However, the high lignin content of second generation feedstocks makes them naturally recalcitrant to processing into fuel. While chemical engineers, microbiologists and enzymologists have made strides to overcome… Read more »
We are all prisoners of our own genomes, but our genomes are cages that we cannot see. What if you were given a magic wand that could extract your genome from its shroud of invisibility? Would you choose to use it? And, if you did, would you be any less the prisoner? Well, such a… Read more »
With the current data revolution, what are the tools we have to interpret the vast amounts of -omics data generated daily? Can we build a model to understand what is happening in a cell? In an Opinion article in BMC Biology, Michael Blinov and Ion Moraru present the case for logic-derived modeling to meet this… Read more »
There are now less than 2 weeks left to submit your entries to the BMC Ecology Image Competition! More than 100 images have now been submitted from all over the world, so be sure to send in yours before Saturday 1st December to be in with a chance of winning. The competition is open to… Read more »
BioMed Central, in conjunction with its journals Malaria Journal and Parasites & Vectors, hosted the second malaria conference “Challenges in Malaria Research: Progress Towards Elimination” in Basel, Switzerland from 10 – 12 October 2012.
Movement phenomena are among the most basic characteristics of life, playing a key role in determining evolutionary and ecological processes including major global environmental concerns. Understanding movement of organisms requires merging tools and ideas across different disciplines. Thus, a new BioMed Central journal, Movement Ecology, is borne out of the awareness that an integrative paradigm… Read more »
A series of articles in the BMC series and GigaScience accompany the publication of the swine genome sequence Today sees the publication of the genome sequence of the domestic pig in Nature by the Swine Genome Sequencing Consortium and sequencing of the Wuzhishan miniature pig in GigaScience . Accompanying these publications are a litter of companion… Read more »