In today’s web-connected world, we’ve come to expect instant gratification. When you select a video on Netflix, you don’t wait for the file to finish downloading. Thanks to ever-increasing bandwidth, video can stream to your computer, playing as it arrives. Thus was the concept of binge-watching born, and many a fan of “Stranger Things” went to bed exhausted, but mostly satisfied. (#justiceforbarb). As it turns out, data streaming is being used in the life sciences, too. Nature technology editor Jeffrey Perkel finds out more. … Read more
Guest post from Mark Viant, on the changes in standards and reporting for metabolomics data. Mark is Professor of Metabolomics in the School of Biosciences at the University of Birmingham, UK, and Director of both the national NERC Biomolecular Analysis Facility – Metabolomics and the Phenome Centre Birmingham. His research interests encompass the development of optimised analytical and computational workflows for high-throughput mass spectrometry based metabolomics and the application of these technologies to investigate the metabolic pathways underlying toxicity and adverse outcome pathways.