The second speaker was Eric Davidson who talked about gene regulatory networks.
He works on sea urchins and showed us this amazing diagram that looked like a computer chip. The diagram describes the inputs and outputs of 50 genes during the first 30 hours of development.
And, it convinced me that systems biologists are developing their […]

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The first talk was by Irving Weissman, one of the pioneers in immunology and stem cell research. He talked about the stem cells that form blood, also known as HSCs or hematopoietic stem cells.
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On the last day of the Science Blogs Book Club discussion about Dr. Paul A. Offit’s recently published Autism’s False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure, I’ll start by quoting the last paragraph of the book:

The science is largely complete. Ten epidemiological studies have shown MMR vaccine doesn’t cause autism; […]

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How Fatty Foods Curb Hunger:
Fatty foods may not be the healthiest diet choice, but those rich in unsaturated fats - such as avocados, nuts and olive oil - have been found to play a pivotal role in sending this important message to your brain: stop eating, you’re full.
The broad point is probably known to you, […]

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I’ve written quite a bit about diabetes here and at my old blog, and I’ve explained to you how controlling blood pressure and cholesterol in diabetics prevents macrovascular disease, such as heart attack and stroke. I’ve also explained how controlling blood sugar prevents microvascular disease such as kidney failure and blindness. In type II diabetics, […]

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There are 9 new articles in PLoS ONE today (as well as another 3 articles published last night). As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites:
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I get so tired of comments like this:

The Grim Reaper is taking a rest, and inherited differences in the ability to withstand cold, starvation or disease no longer power Darwin’s machine. Those who die from such killers do so when they are so old that natural selection has lost interest.

Right. Tell the folk in Darfur […]

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Today’s NYT describes a new strategy for Down Syndrome screening. The new test, developed by a company called Sequenom, screens the mother’s blood sample for fragments of RNA produced from fetal chromosomes.

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I said I was going to introduce the participants at ScienceOnline09 in non-daily but larger batches. So, today, I introduce a large contingent of people coming from the National Institute of Environemental Health Sciences (NIEHS):
NIEHS News Director Robin Mackar
Web Manager Cheryl Thompson
Biomedical Librarian Stephanie Holmgren
Signal Transduction researcher Ren Rongqin
Signal Transduction researcher Danielle Duma
Signal Transduction researcher […]

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An article in The Straits Times from newswire Associated Press (AP) drew my attention to a festering disagreement between proponents of an innovative global sharing initiative for influenza information and the World Health Organization, the official UN Agency that has run the global influenza surveillance system for more than a half century. The new system, […]

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