Why It’s Tough to Accept New Scientific Data that Conflicts With our Learned Beliefs

Check out this absolutely amazing review in Science magazine:

Abstract

If you cannot get the full text let me know and I’ll send it out individually.

Btw, these psychologists cite Francis Crick.  Amazing.  The guy was an absolute giant.

Virus Research Paper

The course website has been updated so that the Research Paper hyperlink works.  Read the document to get an idea of what is expected of you.
Trustworthy sources — the best is PubMed, although our library’s subscription list is spotty at best so many of the papers you will try and access will be unavailable.  But that shouldn’t stop you from trying as most everything on PubMed is infinitely more trustworthy than standard Google fare.

If the lack of subscriptions is annoying you can go to PubMed Central, an online repository of public-accessible journal articles.  It’s basically PubMed without some of the newest articles.

You want to stick with reviews, at least at first (click the tab titled “Review” or include the word “review” in your search parameter, e.g. “smallpox review vaccine” or “HIV AZT review”).  Find a couple of review titles that interest you and then sit down and read them.  The danger here is that many of these reviews are very well written and you might find yourself adopting phrases and sentences rather than just adopting the ideas presented and fashioning your own interpretation and presentation of the material.

Also think of figures that you might generate to help describe the virus, the cell biology, and the biochemistry involved with that virus.  You might also choose to concentrate on therapeutics for a particular virus.  What are they?  What is the mechanism?  What is the target?  Give us molecular details.

Hope this helps.

Nucleic Acids crew: In vitro selection and SELEX and your next papers

Some links to get you started:

Ensure you understand PCR.  Here are some resources:

• DNA PCR Tutorial (Click on Amplification Tutorial)
• Here’s a great YouTube video of PCR

Famalouk’s page on SELEX: http://www.lmb.uni-muenchen.de/groups/famulok/SELEX.html

SELEX wiki

The next review paper you need to read (it’s more digest-able than the Breaker review).  Click on PDF.

The next data paper you need to read.  It involves the reselection of a known ATP aptamer for high affinity and specificity. Click on PDF.

Bacteria cytoskeleton

Yes, Virginia. There is a bacterial cytoskeleton.

CH385 Lessons 1 and 2

The heart of this 2-class block is learning some of the terminology to distinguish between the major classes of cells. We have Prokaryotes (eubacteria and archae) and Eukaryotes (protozoans, or single-cell euks and metazoans, or multi-cellular euks).