http://www.cshblogs.org/cshprotocols Fri, 09 May 2008 18:25:19 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I'm giving a talk as part of a forum on blogging for science publishers later this month and have been digging through the usage numbers for this blog. I was surprised at what I found. From my subjective point of view, I would have assumed that the various ... http://www.cshblogs.org/cshprotocols/2008/05/09/do-blog-commenters-reflect-the-general-readership/ The May issue of CSH Protocols is now live, and in it you'll find featured articles on classic techniques for the analysis of chromosomes. With the leaps and bounds being made in epigenetics these days, knowing your way around chromatin becomes even more valuable. This month's freely accessible ... http://www.cshblogs.org/cshprotocols/2008/05/01/chromosomes-are-featured-in-the-may-issue/ Before April's issue moves to the archives and we welcome in May, I wanted to highlight one of our featured articles for the month, David Mount's piece on Choosing a Method for Phylogenetic Prediction (freely available as one of our monthly featured articles). The April issue provides three phylogenetic ... http://www.cshblogs.org/cshprotocols/2008/04/28/phylogenetic-methods/ John Sack, director of Stanford's Highwire Press recently speculated that we may be reaching a tipping point in the hype cycle of Web 2.0, where we're actually starting to see some practical consideration and thoughtful critical analysis of these technologies, rather than the usual constant stream of evangelism and cheerleading. ... http://www.cshblogs.org/cshprotocols/2008/04/21/web-20-a-digitized-echo-chamber/ This month's issue of CSH Protocols features an article by Andrew Salinger and Monica Justice, detailing a technique for Mouse Mutagenesis Using N-Ethyl-N-Nitrosourea (ENU) (article is freely available as one of our featured protocols). Back in the ancient days of my graduate school work, the idea of doing large ... http://www.cshblogs.org/cshprotocols/2008/04/15/forward-genetics-in-the-mouse/ Continuing along in the quest to evaluate Web 2.0 tools for biologists, I came across two recent articles, one by web usability guru Jacob Nielsen and one featuring an interview with him. Some valuable points found within: He offers some cautionary advice on the actual patterns of user involvement on ... http://www.cshblogs.org/cshprotocols/2008/04/11/jacob-nielsen-on-web-20/ April's issue of CSH Protocols features a set of articles on the production and use of retroviral vectors for gene transfer from Kenneth Cornetta, Karen Pollok and Dusty Miller. Retroviral Vectors for Gene Transfer provides an overview of the subject, drawing on the more than twenty years of experience ... http://www.cshblogs.org/cshprotocols/2008/04/07/retroviral-vectors/ Ran into a few very interesting (and very different) articles last week, which I wanted to comment on (more posts to follow). First up is a blog posting on Sciencebase that quotes chemist (and blogger) Joerg Kurt Wegner, with a proposal that the solution for information overload is to do away ... http://www.cshblogs.org/cshprotocols/2008/04/07/web-20-in-defense-of-editors/ This is a presentation I gave last weekend at the Southwest Regional Society for Developmental Biology Meeting. It's an updated version of an earlier talk posted here. It's kind of a 180 degrees turn from the previous talk, in that the first one was delivered to publishers, and ... http://www.cshblogs.org/cshprotocols/2008/04/03/web-20-for-biologists-are-any-of-the-current-tools-worth-using/ Really nice article by Jonah Lehrer on "The Illusion of Streaks" that ties in well both with an earlier post I'd written here, and with an argument I was trying to make in a bar this weekend. The basic premise is that the human brain has evolved in a ... http://www.cshblogs.org/cshprotocols/2008/03/31/the-human-brain-versus-science-part-two/