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Category Archives: transcriptomics
Serendipitous history in the microbial making
It’s been over 100 years since the Dutch Microbiologist Martinus Willem Beijerinck theorized that microbes could oxidize manganese to generate energy for growth. Last week, the first evidence for this theory was published, and you might be surprised about from … Continue reading
Posted in bioinformatics, ecology, genomics, microbiology, transcriptomics
Tagged cultivation, manganese oxidation, serindipity
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Asteroids and Pandemics
For whatever reason, viral disease and pandemics have been on my mind, so it’s no surprise that a recent paper in Molecular Ecology caught my attention. It blends the existential dread of global pandemics with the increasing panic concerning the … Continue reading
The world through the senses of a pangolin
This Saturday, February 15, is World Pangolin Day, and thus it is a good time to do some PR for these fascinating animals. Continue reading
Posted in ecology, evolution, genomics, mammals, RNAseq, transcriptomics
Tagged pangolin, senses, transcriptomics
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One Thousand Plant Transcriptomes and Not a Single to Spare
What is the weight of a transcriptome? How about a thousand? Every day new sequencing machines are purring away, base pair by base pair, producing novel insights into the genomes of our favorite organisms. As technology improves, costs come down, and opportunities … Continue reading
Posted in phylogenetics, plants, RNAseq, transcriptomics
Tagged Gene duplication, Gene family, polyploidy
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Conference catch-up: The many colors of snow
Red snow … watermelon snow … green snow … did you know that snow came in so many different colors? I had never heard of watermelon ice (#🍉❄) until a talk given by Robin Kodner from Western Washington University at … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, bioinformatics, citizen science, community ecology, evolution, fieldwork, mating system, microbiology, natural history, phylogenetics, phylogeography, population genetics, selection, speciation, transcriptomics
Tagged biogeochemistry, Chlamydomonas nivalis, clonality, conference, ecology, Evolution, genetics, genomics, geoecology, life cycles, Snow algae, species, workshop
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Racing Against the Climate
Sarah Livett wrote this post as a final project for Stacy Krueger-Hadfield’s Introduction to Evolutionary Processes course at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Sarah was a 5th year MS student at UAB in Dr. Thane Wibbel‘s lab. She worked … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, blogging, evolution, natural history, Science Communication, transcriptomics
Tagged climate change, Evolution, Hsps, scicomm, Science Communication, turtles
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Transcriptome sequencing catches bats' immune systems napping
Populations of multiple North American bat species have been more than decimated by white-nose syndrome, a fungal disease that spreads within roosting colonies and becomes deadly during hibernation. A paper just released online early at Molecular Ecology adds support to a hypothesis … Continue reading
They joy of genome sequencing: when genomics meets natural history
When I have a massive pile of papers that I need to read, I can’t help but look at the ones with interesting natural history first. There’s something exceptionally satisfying about using modern tools to dig deeper into the features … Continue reading
Posted in evolution, genomics, RNAseq, transcriptomics
Tagged natural history, whole-genome sequencing
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Found in translation: The evolutionary history of RNA viruses in vertebrates
I have to admit, viruses aren’t normally my thing, but this is pretty darn cool. In a study out by Shi and colleagues this week, researchers identified 214 new viruses that, as the authors so succinctly state, reveal “diverse virus-host … Continue reading
Posted in bioinformatics, Coevolution, evolution, transcriptomics
Tagged Evolution, host evolution, RNA viruses
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