After some of the blog posts that I’ve written on animal rights’ extremists and violence against animal researchers, there’s now a review of a most appropriate book on the topic available in Science - Scientists Under Siege.

Suppose you are a scientist and a finalist for the position of vice president for research at the University of South Florida (USF). Before leaving for your interview trip, you receive copies of letters sent to the university’s administration informing them of your “ignominy” and stating that you are unwelcome in the university’s town. Animal rights activists meet your plane and (because of an open meetings law) are present at most of your interviews. Activists outside the meeting room doors lobby attendees and distribute fliers that make false and preposterous claims about your research. Demonstrators wear T-shirts demanding that you not be hired. When you deny the accusations being hurled at you, a faculty member calls you a “son of a bitch” and a liar. At your hotel room, you receive threatening calls and knocks on your door in the middle of the night. Fortunately, the campus police provide you with protection. Arriving at the airport for your return trip, you are surrounded and harassed by demonstrators until airport security rescues you. At home, you find protesters standing not far from your house, shouting at you. And USF’s president now refuses to speak to you. You don’t get the job.

Now suppose that really happened.

This and more is the situation that animal rights’ extremists have placed many biomedical researchers into. I say “and more,” because P. Michael Conn didn’t actually have his house firebombed, his car blown up, or been physically assaulted.

As a result, Conn has his new book out - The Animal Research War. While I haven’t gotten the chance to read it, it purportedly aims to educate and inform the general public as to what actually happens with animal research.

As to what position to take on bioethical questions surrounding research, of course one should read available materials such as this book, guidelines addressing animal welfare concerns written by the National Academies of Science, and other resources. And then come to your own conclusions. If you disagree with the status quo, address them through appropriate channels, like bioethics committees.

But above all, arm yourself with the knowledge of the tactics of extremism and terrorism, so that you can work against such destructive elements and forge towards a better world.

For something a bit more on the fun side, at least if you enjoy a pint of beer now and then - a genomic-based study has reconstructed the origins by hybridization of the lager yeast Saccharomyces pastorianus, published in the journal Genome Research [Press release].

For thousands of years, ale-type beers have been brewed with Saccharomyces cerevisiae (brewer’s or baker’s yeast). In contrast, lager beer, which utilizes fermentations carried out at much lower temperature than for ale, is a more recently developed alcoholic beverage, appearing in Bavaria near the end of the Middle Ages. Lager beer gained worldwide popularity starting in the late 1800s, when the advent of refrigeration made year-round low-temperature fermentations possible. Saccharomyces pastorianus, the yeast used in lager brewing, is a “hybrid” organism of two yeast species, Saccharomyces bayanus and S. cerevisiae. It is thought that the contributions of both parent species resulted in an organism able to out-compete other yeasts during the cold lager fermentations.

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Following on last week’s post about the NIH and English as the Language of Science, I have another selection from Arthur Kornberg’s book For the Love of Enzymes to highlight.

Essentially, Kornberg is describing the critical elements in the relationship between scientists, industry, and innovation (page 294):

One critical ingredient must be provided by industrial management if it wishes to capture and retain creative and productive scientists. It must provide an open atmosphere which encourages the scientist to discuss ideas, progress, and failures with colleagues in and out of his organization and to publish without restraint. Such an atmosphere is conductive to a flow of students, postdoctoral fellows, and visiting professors through the company.

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Last October, Nobel laureate and biochemist Arthur Kornberg passed away, and I’ve finally gotten around to reading his book For the Love of Enzymes.

While there’s a lot in the book to talk about, for this post I’m focusing on just one passing reference that Kornberg makes (pages 129-134) on NIH and the use of English as the language of science. In it, Kornberg is describing the factors that made NIH a huge success, including 7 major policy decisions, the first four of which I think are most profound: Read more »

Two recent articles that I came across clearly illustrate ways in which cellular asymmetry is both easily established by basic factors, and provide the basis for processes like cellular polarity and aging. One cannot claim with certainty what these findings in mathematical models and yeast, respectively, impart to our understanding of human health. But they do allow us to generally describe very basic rules for the operation of eukaryotic life.
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I finally got around to purchasing and reading a copy of Carl Zimmer’s Microcosm: E.coli and the New Science of Life, and I have to chastise myself for not reading it sooner.

In Microcosm, Zimmer has eloquently condensed a century of scientific study surrounding Eschericia coli into an accurate and flowing story readable by anyone with even just a modest understanding of biology.
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My all-time favorite biology writer would, without a doubt, be Lewis Thomas. Twenty-odd years before anyone had conceived of blogging, much less blogging about science, Lewis Thomas was publishing a handful of books that were on science, creative and pithy, and little more than a collection of loosely-connected essays. Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher is the most popular of his books, and is amusing light reading that will entertain biologists of all fields.

Throughout the book, Thomas reveals truly extraordinary facts about biology and microbiology that tend to leave the reader in actual awe. Another of his books, The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher, is in the same vein. For Lives of a Cell, one Amazon reviewer gave this description: Read more »

Last week’s issue of Science has a book review that might appeal to any Bitesize Bio reader: First Adventures in Science. The book in question is Falling for Science, a collection of essays by grad students (current and former) and mentors on the crucial roles particular objects played in sparking their choice of science as a vocation.

The topic makes me think of how I chose molecular biology as a field of study, wide-eyed with thoughts of playing in the lab for a job. At the time (~1994-95), the promise of the Human genome project was big in the news, I was inspired by a great High School Biology teacher, and I was in awe of the idea of a career filled with curiosity and laboratory-based tinkering.

Of course, I quickly learned the annoying truth that a lot of molecular biology involves endless repetitions of DNA preps, running gels, etc. And the inexperienced researcher gets bogged down for long periods of time in troubleshooting.

But with focus and direction, I do get to live out my early idealized version of what it would be like to be a laboratory scientist. I work relatively independently, identifying questions (and hypotheses) of interest, and acquiring/evaluating the data to answer those questions. Curiosity and data analysis ARE my job, as corny as that sounds.

As a general rule of thumb, it is recommended to be familiar with the history of one’s scientific field, and not merely the contemporary trends of thought.

That’s generally why I liked The Birth of the Cell so much when I read it. Dissatisfied by the standard accounts of the origin of the cell doctrine, Henry Harris read the original writings of the relevant early cytologists from the first visualization of animalcules to the identification of the cell nucleus and binary fission. Although very dense reading, the result is a book that describes the slow, awkward development of a science and the rivalries of the scholars involved.
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Every major field has its leading thinkers, and the biology of cancer is no different. What makes their impact heard better is when one of those leaders writes a book about it. Given my interest in molecular biology of cancer, I naturally have my favorite such book on the topic - Robert Weinberg’s One Renegade Cell.

Weinberg’s focus is on what he knows best: the mechanisms that promote and regulate the proliferation of normal and malignant cells. And for that, his explanations are the best out there. These explanations take up the first half of the book, corresponds to the early events in the development of a tumor, and makes up a coherent story. For example, he covers oncogenes, tumor suppressors, apoptosis, and to a lesser extent DNA repair, in relatively easy-to-follow language.
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