Category Archives: science

Zelda (the coolest transcription factor ever) is a master regulator of embryonic adolescence

By Michael Eisen | Published: October 20, 2011

PLoS Genetics just published a paper from my lab describing our analysis of the binding and activity of a remarkable protein, known as Zelda, that appears to be a master regulator of genome activation in the earliest stages of Drosophila development, and thereby plays a major role in shaping the form and function of the mature […]

Also posted in cool science, evolution, gene regulation, genetics, My lab | Comments closed

Arsenic, quasicrystals and the myth of the science martyr

By Michael Eisen | Published: October 13, 2011

The story is straight out of Hollywood: an ambitious scientist makes a startling discovery that runs counter to everything that is supposed to be true in their field. Their initial announcement is met with near universal skepticism that quickly turned to scorn, earning them outright hostility from several prominent scientists. They are even kicked out […]

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The destructive myopia of the NIH study on grant funding and race

By Michael Eisen | Published: August 25, 2011

Last week Science published a paper describing the results of an NIH-sponsored investigation into the impact of a scientist’s race on the probability of that their grants will be funded. The findings were striking: After controlling for the applicant’s educational background, country of origin, training, previous research awards, publication record, and employer characteristics, we find […]

Also posted in politics, race, science and culture | Comments closed

The HHMI/Wellcome/MPI super journal and the triumph of open access

By Michael Eisen | Published: July 2, 2011

On Monday the world’s three most prominent private funders of scientific research – the US’s Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the UK’s Wellcome Trust and Germany’s Max Planck Society – announced plans for a new “top-tier, open access journal for biomedical and life sciences research”. Basic features of the as of yet unnamed journal (I suggest […]

Also posted in HHMI, open access, PLoS, publishing | Comments closed

Announcing The Batavia Open Genomic Data Licence

By Michael Eisen | Published: June 7, 2011

Prepublication release of genomic and other large-scale biological datasets is incredibly value to the research community. For the last decade big genome sequencing centers – backed by the NIH and other funders – have followed a set of principles outlined at a January 2003 meeting in Ft. Lauderdale sponsored by The Wellcome Trust. This so called […]

Also posted in open access, PLoS | Comments closed

Amazon’s $23,698,655.93 book about flies

By Michael Eisen | Published: April 22, 2011

A few weeks ago a postdoc in my lab logged on to Amazon to buy the lab an extra copy of Peter Lawrence’s The Making of a Fly – a classic work in developmental biology that we – and most other Drosophila developmental biologists – consult regularly. The book, published in 1992, is out of […]

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Interesting comments from Dennis Overbye about press releases

By Michael Eisen | Published: March 26, 2011

Marketing for scientists has an interview with NYT science reporter Dennis Overbye. In response to a question about whether science reporters can be manipulated, Overbye responded: The easiest way to manipulate the press is to embargo some result and then send a press release about it to a thousand different news organizations. They will cover it […]

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Press release? We don’t need no stinking press release?

By Michael Eisen | Published: March 24, 2011

I hate press releases – especially around scientific papers. They rarely explain the work clearly, almost always overstate its significance, and are often grossly dishonest. But scientists and their press offices, working in close collaboration with journals, continue churning them, hoping to earn popular press coverage of their latest findings. They go through this unseemly process […]

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Felisa Wolfe-Simon (of arsenic infamy) is no more convincing in person than in print

By Michael Eisen | Published: March 18, 2011

I went to an informal seminar today at Berkeley by Felisa Wolfe-Simon, the lead author on the much criticized 2010 Science paper “A bacterium that can grow by using arsenic instead of phosphorus”. I went because, as bad as I thought her paper was, as poorly as I thought she handled concerns expressed about the […]

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DNA testing in baseball – more silly alarmism from reporters and bioethicists

By Michael Eisen | Published: July 21, 2009

The New York Times is fronting a story that combines two of my favorite subjects – DNA and baseball. Unfortunately, the story is ridiculously alarmist, and either willfully or ignorantly conflates DNA paternity/maternity tests with tests designed to extract other information from a person’s genome. The plug for the piece is that Major League Baseball […]