Friday 13 June 2008
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In this issue...
Editor's choice: Absinthe -- the 'green fairy' unmasked
The flamboyant Irish playwright Oscar Wilde once wrote: "After the first glass of absinthe, you see things as you wish they were… After the second you see them as they are not." Our Editor's Choice this month highlights a sobering paper from the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry that considers the controversies surrounding the claimed psychedelic effects of the potent 19th Century French liquor, by comparing the chemical composition of vintage (preban) absinthe to modern absinthe. David Triggle, a Faculty Member of the Pharmacology & Drug Discovery Faculty writes: "That the effects of absinthe, banned in France in 1915, in allegedly fostering both creativity and madness in the intellectually creative elite of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are ascribable to its ethanol content, rather than to its wormwood constituents, lays to rest yet another psychedelic myth." |
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The authors' findings go some way to refuting the commonly held belief that the drink is dangerous in its mind-altering effects, and should help to alleviate fears of "Absinthism" induced by anything other than plain old ethanol. |
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Broad Impact: Insights into early metazoan evolution
The Broad Impact article this month is highly relevant to the Cell Biology, Developmental Biology, Genomics & Genetics and Microbiology fields, being a report of the genome sequence of the microbial eukaryote Monosiga brevicollis. This species of 'choanoflagellate' is considered the closest known relative of metazoans -- the group comprising nearly all animals -- and thus its genome give us the opportunity to shed light on the evolutionary origins of this group, sparking the interest of many Faculty Members over the last few months.
Joe Heitman, a Microbiology Faculty Member, says that the studies give "robust genome-wide support for the hypothesis that the choanoflagellates are close relatives of the metazoan lineage" and highlights that "Remarkably, inspection of the genome reveals that many of the protein families typically associated with animals can be inferred to have already evolved by the last common ancestor."
Laura Landweber of the Chemical Biology Faculty explains that "phosphotyrosine-based signalling and other developmental signalling pathways, previously thought to be unique to metazoa, are present in Monosiga, suggesting that they evolved before the last common ancestor of choanoflagellates and metazoa."
Cell Biologist Charles Streuli comments on the presence of 17 integrins containing alpha, but not beta, domains in the organism. He says that "it suggests that integrins may have evolved with a different function over 600 million years ago."
The last word goes to Max Telford, a Developmental Biology Faculty Member and the first person to evaluate the paper, who concludes "Clearly, there are many differences between Metazoa and Monosiga which must have appeared in the stem of the animals' lineage, but this is a huge step forwards in our understanding of the origins of multicellularity and the Metazoa."
The Faculty of 1000 Biology structure makes it possible to identify papers of broad interest, irrespective of the journal in which they are published. You can see the full comments of all the evaluating Faculty Members on this Exceptional Broad Impact paper by visiting the Faculty of 1000 Biology website.Spotlight on: Searching PubMed using F1000
Did you know that you can search PubMed without having to leave the Faculty of 1000 site? The "PubMed on F1000" options, which can be found under the "Advanced Search" tab, allow you to search all of PubMed from within F1000 AND will highlight all papers evaluated in F1000 with a badge. You can also store any searches and have the results emailed to you. This provides you with a simple way of searching for papers on PubMed that has the added "F1000 advantage"!
Hidden Jewel: Technical advance in fungal epigenetics
This paper, evaluated by Joern Piel of the Chemical Biology Faculty and classified as a 'Technical Advance' in the field, looks at the epigenetic remodeling of fungi.
Joern says, "This excellent paper represents a significant innovation, as it reports a simple and effective way to activate cryptic natural product pathways in fungi." and notes that "The ease and economy of this method, as compared to genetic modification of fungal pathways, makes this a useful tool for drug discovery…" [see full evaluation ]
The Hidden Jewels lists are one of the most popular features on the Faculty of 1000 Biology site as they bring to scientists' attention papers they otherwise might have missed (especially in fields adjacent to their own). This list is compiled daily and includes highly viewed papers evaluated within the previous month.New Faculty of 1000 Biology leaflets
To make it even easier to let your friends and colleagues know about Faculty of 1000 Biology, we have recently developed two new Faculty of 1000 leaflets, which give more information on using the site and making the most of the various features available. Please click on the image of the leaflets below to download them in PDF format. Why not share a few copies with your colleagues and lab members?
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