Life science research increasingly runs on software. A good fraction, perhaps even most of it, is made by academics, for academics: Rough around the edges, perhaps, but effective — not to mention free. But, is it of high quality? Read more
Timothée Poisot recently travelled to London for MozFest 2017, “The world’s leading festival for the open Internet movement.” There, the quantitative and computational ecologist at the University of Montréal in Canada ran a session entitled “Scientific computing for the terabyte-less.” Here, he tells Naturejobs why life science research needn’t necessarily follow the Big Data model. Read more
Bioinformatics is notoriously complicated, what with its arcane command-line interface, complex workflows, and massive datasets. For the uninitiated, simply installing the software can present a problem. Read more
It’s no secret these days that researchers increasingly are focused on data reproducibility and transparency. Read more
For this week’s Technology Feature, Michael Eisenstein wrote about the technology, applications, and challenges of nanopore DNA sequencing. In brief, the technology involves threading intact pieces of DNA through a tiny aperture in a membrane or other barrier, through which a current flows. As each base passes, it disrupts that current in a characteristic way, allowing the sequence to be determined. Read more
Bioinformatics isn’t easy for newbies. It’s typically done on the Linux command line, where users direct the computer using text-based instructions rather than clicking a mouse. Read more
For my recent Toolbox on 3D genome visualization tools, Nils Gehlenborg at Harvard Medical School clued me into two interesting pieces of software. One, HiGlass,was included in my article; a related tool, HiPiler, was not. But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth talking about. Read more
Most coders come to bioinformatics by one of two routes. They’re either biologists skilled in programming, or programmers with an interest in biology. Mike Goodstadt, the programmer behind the genome-visualization tool TADkit, took a different approach. Read more
There’s a galaxy of tools in the Galaxy bioinformatics environment — 4,807 at last count. With them, researchers can do just about anything, computationally speaking. One thing they couldn’t do was work with their data programmatically. Now, thanks to a recent software update, that gap has been filled. Read more
With an alphabet comprising just four letters, DNA sequence isn’t much to look at. So, when sequence analysis tools want to highlight key elements, they typically do so using colour, font, or by overlaying other types of information. In the not-too-distant future, there may be another option: Audio. Read more
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