4 posts · 2,949 views
Mad rantings about politics, evolution, and microbiology.
Mike
4 posts
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- August 31, 2010
- 11:02 AM
- 786 views
The Price of Sequencing Versus the Cost
by Mike in Mike the Mad Biologist
So, Nature Reviews Genetics has an article, "Computational solutions to large-scale data management and analysis", which claims the following in the abstract (italics mine):
Today we can generate hundreds of gigabases of DNA and RNA sequencing data in a week for less than US$5,000. The astonishing rate of data generation by these low-cost, high-throughput technologies in genomics is being matched by that of other technologies, such as real-time imaging and mass spectrometry-based flow cytomet........ Read more »
Schadt EE, Linderman MD, Sorenson J, Lee L, & Nolan GP. (2010) Computational solutions to large-scale data management and analysis. Nature reviews. Genetics, 11(9), 647-57. PMID: 20717155
- August 10, 2010
- 11:13 AM
- 702 views
Some Thoughts About the Statistics of the Human Microbiome
by Mike in Mike the Mad Biologist
Reporting on the human microbiome--the microorganisms that live on and in us--is quite the rage these days. As someone who is involved in NIH's Human Microbiome Project, it's a pretty exciting time because the size and scale of the data we're able to generate is unprecedented.
This also means we have to figure out how to not only generate, but also analyze these data. One of the kinds of data we generate are 16S rRNA sequences, which are found in all bacteria and can be used as a 'barcode' ........ Read more »
De Filippo C, Cavalieri D, Di Paola M, Ramazzotti M, Poullet JB, Massart S, Collini S, Pieraccini G, & Lionetti P. (2010) Impact of diet in shaping gut microbiota revealed by a comparative study in children from Europe and rural Africa. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. PMID: 20679230
- July 22, 2010
- 10:20 AM
- 660 views
Dogs and Adaption to Humans
by Mike in Mike the Mad Biologist
In a good post about puppy mills, Amanda Marcotte made a good point about domesticated versus undomesticated pets (italics mine):
This would probably mean that people couldn't get exotic pets, and that isn't really the sort of thing that would keep me up at night, either. I understand the urge to have something like a pet ferret, but like with smoking, it's an understandable urge that probably is best not indulged. Cats and dogs evolved to be our pets and want nothing more than to be our pet........ Read more »
UDELL, M., DOREY, N., & WYNNE, C. (2008) Wolves outperform dogs in following human social cues. Animal Behaviour, 76(6), 1767-1773. DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2008.07.028
Gácsi M, Györi B, Virányi Z, Kubinyi E, Range F, Belényi B, & Miklósi A. (2009) Explaining dog wolf differences in utilizing human pointing gestures: selection for synergistic shifts in the development of some social skills. PloS one, 4(8). PMID: 19714197
- July 13, 2010
- 10:35 AM
- 801 views
MR-CoNS: A Reservoir of Resistance for MRSA?
by Mike in Mike the Mad Biologist
No, MR-CoNS isn't some kind of crazy new conservative, it stands for methicillin resistant coagulase-negative staphylococci. CoNS are relatives of the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus (the 'SA' in MRSA), and are common human commensals--they typically live on us and in us without causing disease.
One of the important things, from a health perspective, about CoNS is that many are resistant to methicillin (methicillin resistance is the "MR" in MRSA). In fact, the resistance mechanism, know........ Read more »
Barbier, F., Ruppé, E., Hernandez, D., Lebeaux, D., Francois, P., Felix, B., Desprez, A., Maiga, A., Woerther, P., Gaillard, K.... (2010) Methicillin‐Resistant Coagulase‐Negative Staphylococci in the Community: High Homology of SCCmec IVa between and Major Clones of Methicillin‐Resistant . The Journal of Infectious Diseases, 202(2), 270-281. DOI: 10.1086/653483
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