A conversation about neuroscience
Nature research journal editors speak with Eric Nestler and Robert Greene about neurobiology and the Society for Neuroscience (SfN) 2017 annual meeting. Read more
Nature research journal editors speak with Eric Nestler and Robert Greene about neurobiology and the Society for Neuroscience (SfN) 2017 annual meeting. Read more
As of September 1, the European X-ray free-electron laser (EuXFEL) is ready for the research community’s experiments; the user page is here. Read more
As glycoscience advances, labs will increasingly want to ask questions about glycosylation sites on a protein or the structure of a sugar, says Raja Mazumder, a bioinformatician at George Washington University. They might ask for example: are there glycosyltransferases that are expressed in liver but not in the heart, or, which ones are overexpressed by a factor of three in more than two cancers. Such questions require infrastructure building, he says, because right now there is no mechanism to allow such queries. But he and others are building such capabilities. Mazumder along with William York at the University of Georgia are starting to build a glycoscience informatics portal. Read more
To study a primordial nervous system, Leonid Moroz brings the tools of biology to the open sea. Nature Methods spoke with the neurobiologist turned sea adventurer. Meet neurobiologist Leonid Moroz of the University of Florida, the inventor of Ship-Seq. His hair is not always this wild, although his ideas tend to be. Read more
In single cell experiments, each well in a 384-well plate can spout a fountain of information. Chris Bakal at the Institute of Cancer Research, which is part of the University of London, practices “high content in high throughput” as he extracts hundreds of different features from single cells in his lab. In this month’s technology feature on single cell analysis, Bakal explains where his work leads and what he looks for in an imaging system. Read more
For the last few years Nature Methods has published the winning image of the Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition on our cover. This year I was lucky enough to serve on the competition judging panel alongside three other judges chosen by the competition organizers. The competition was fierce but the image below was chosen as the winner. Read more
In our June issue scientists from Pacific Bioscience describe a method for direct sequencing of methylated DNA. To find an artistic expression for their work the authors put the sequenced DNA to music. Hugh Ash converted it into a trumpet solo. Read more
What wasn’t to like when people started talking about ‘next-generation’ sequencing? It sounds so cutting edge and futuristic. But now what? Read more
The idea of tracing the structure of stained neurons to obtain functional insights into in situ neural networks isn’t new and dates back over 100 years to Ramón y Cajal. Just recently I discovered that copies of his books have been digitized by Google and the illustrations are incredible. See for example Studien über die Hirnrinde des Menschen. Read more
Every year Nikon treats people to some of the most spectacular images the microscopic world has to offer when they unveal the winners of their annual Small World Photomicrography Competition. Last year Nature Methods highlighted the winning image on the cover of our November issue. Read more