Guest blog post by Monaca Noble, Marine Invasions lab, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center How do you control an invasive species? This is the question we are asking you to ponder through our thought experiment. For this experiment we have provided information about the invasive tunicate, the impacted area, and the results from a recent research… Read more »
There is a major interest in the role of the cerebellum in behavioural and cognitive tasks, and the field of cerebellar ataxias is now evolving as a clinical discipline internationally. As an exciting development – in keeping with the direction of the field – Cerebellum & Ataxias, a new open access journal from BioMed Central,… Read more »
Climate Change Responses, a new open access journal from BioMed Central focused on biotic responses to climate change, is now accepting submissions. The journal is dedicated to publishing ground-breaking work linking responses to environmental change across levels of biological organization, from individuals to ecosystems, and with an emphasis on species interactions. Co-edited by Eric Post,… Read more »
Genome Biology was sad to learn of Frederick Sanger’s death on Tuesday, November 19th. Although Sanger retired from scientific research 30 years ago, long before the journal Genome Biology ever started, it is safe to say that without his work we wouldn’t even be here. The journal was launched in 2001, the same year that… Read more »
Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys invented the technique of DNA fingerprinting in 1984, a technique that changed forensic science forever. To mark his retirement in 2012 from the University of Leicester, Investigative Genetics has published a series of articles today that discuss DNA fingerprinting, the impact it’s had in divergent fields, and the man himself. … Read more »
Written by Professor Bryan Turner, University of Birmingham, UK Histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACi) are clinically effective epigenetic drugs. Two, suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid (SAHA, Vorinostat) and a cyclic tetrapeptide (depsipeptide, Romidepsin) have been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for treatment of Cutaneous T-Cell Lymphoma. A variety of related compounds are in clinical trials… Read more »
The BMC Biology iconic image (left) [1] was devised as a representation of the breadth of content of the journal, but its phylogenetic tree enclosed in a lipid bilayer cannot do full justice to the real variety of research papers that we publish. So to celebrate the anniversary of the launch of BMC Biology –… Read more »
Wallace Marshall has been intrigued by the question of what regulated cell size since his childhood, when a book showing electron microscope images of cells showed their remarkably regular shape and structure, and led him to wonder how this could be. He returns to the question in his introduction to BMC Biology‘s Forum article on… Read more »
The theory of evolution by natural selection is unarguably the most influential in the history of biology, but it has been dogged with controversy since its inception, and not just because of ideological resistance to its implications for our ancestry. One of the more compelling obstacles to its acceptance has been the existence of extremely… Read more »
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Written by Professor Ricky Johnstone, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Australia On October 17 2013, the 10th Nikko International Symposium was held at Jichi Medical University, Japan. The theme for this year’s symposium was Translational Epigenomics, with invited speakers from throughout Japan, selected speakers from Jichi Medical University and two invited international speakers, myself and Dr… Read more »