Ripudaman K Bains is the Assistant Editor of Genome Biology, and the in-house editor of the journal’s special issue on the ‘genomics of infectious diseases’ In recent months, infectious diseases have been at the forefront of public attention. The deepening Ebola crisis in West Africa has now claimed nearly 6,000 lives, and although the international… Read more »
Hammerhead sharks, which recently received new protections from the UN Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals, have suffered drastic population declines in excess of 90% in some parts of the world. In the Gulf of California, Mexico particularly, scalloped hammerheads are susceptible to being caught by fishing nets while moving into… Read more »
A study published today in Climate Change Responses explains how the El Niño can stunt children’s growth. Heather Danysh, is a doctoral candidate in Epidemiology at the University of Texas School of Public Health and an author of this study. In this guest post, she explains what El Nino is and the affect of climate… Read more »
Dr Hayley Bennett is a researcher from the parasite genomics group at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. She is the lead author of an article published in Genome Biology which has revealed the genome of a rare tapeworm found living inside a patient’s brain. In this post she talks about new developments in genome sequencing… Read more »
Christmas seems to come earlier each year. Our thoughts turn to the exchange of gifts, time with family and friends and the inevitable office party. But you may find that you exchange more than a secret santa gift this year. A drunken kiss with a colleague could leave you with many million of their oral… Read more »
SfN 2014 starts tomorrow, and I will be there, along with several of my colleagues. It’s a big event in the neuroscience research calendar, and every year the conference is an opportunity to hear about the latest and most cutting edge research in the field. Over the last few years I’ve seen open access becomes increasingly… Read more »
Dr. Ron Larson is a retired fish and wildlife biologist and photographer based in Klamath Falls, Oregon, and a co-author of the “Common Plants of the Upper Klamath Basin” field guide. Here, Ron writes for the Aquatic Biosystems blog about the hydrologic conditions of lakes in the Basin and Range province of the western United… Read more »
Could chemical sterilization be an affordable solution to keeping stray dog populations under control? Raffaella Leoci, DVM, PhD, is a researcher at the University Bari Aldo Moro in Italy and a specialist in pet reproduction. She is the lead author of two articles published in Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica on chemical sterilization of dogs using calcium… Read more »
A study published today in BMC Biology has found that many published microbiome studies may have been contaminated. In this guest post, Susannah Salter and Alan Walker, authors on the paper, tell us more about what they found. The last decade has seen amazing developments in DNA sequencing technology. One area that has benefitted… Read more »
The international conference on Molecular and Evolutionary Oncology has been held in Saint Petersburg on 5-6 November, 2014. The meeting gathered Russian scientists (along with colleagues from Italy, France, Germany, Netherlands and US) involved in this very innovative research field focused on the discovery of new genes developed as results of evolutionary genetic processes. Such… Read more »