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The American Physiological Society Early Career Advocacy Fellowship: an inside view
This post is part of the Early Career Scientist Policy Subcommittee’s series on science policy fellowships. The Early Career Advocacy Fellowship (ECAF) is a two-year program to engage early career scientists (ECS) in advocacy activities while they continue their academic work. All members of the American Physiological Society who live in the US and are…
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Apply now to hone your communication skills and build your network
Join the Communication and Outreach Subcommittee of GSA’s Early Career Scientist Leadership and Professional Development Program. Are you a student or postdoc with a passion for science communication and outreach? Gain valuable experience, professional skills, portfolio pieces, and a vibrant network by applying for the Communication and Outreach Subcommittee, one of four subcommittees under the GSA’s…
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Time flies: Get ready for #Dros19
Registration is now open for the 60th Annual Drosophila Research Conference! In the fall of 1958, a handful of colleagues met to talk “more or less endlessly” for two days, mainly about the fruit fly Drosophila. Most of the dozen or so participants were members of James F. Crow’s laboratory at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.…
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Announcing GSA’s Conference Childcare Committee
The committee will assess current childcare support at GSA meetings and make recommendations for improvement. Parent scientists know firsthand that many scientific conferences fail to provide adequate support for attendees with children. Indeed, Calisi et al. discussed the “childcare-conference conundrum” in detail earlier this year, outlining the barriers parents face and making suggestions for how…
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What’s the cost of a slip in translation?
Programmed ribosomal frameshifting has translational costs that may influence codon usage bias. The genetic code has some redundancy—the same amino acid is often encoded by several codons. However, these codons are not necessarily equal in their effect, as evidenced by the codon usage bias observed in many organisms. The translation efficiency hypothesis posits that some…
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What inspired Mendel?
Newly uncovered newspaper articles shed light on Mendel’s motivations. Gregor Mendel is considered by many to be the father of genetics. Yet, because his work was not fully appreciated in its time, little is known about Mendel himself. Primary sources, such as letters he wrote, are rare; only a few dozen pieces of his correspondence…
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Why funding fruit fly research is important for the biomedical sciences
Guest post by Andreas Prokop. This blog post was originally published as an article in Open Access Government (Prokop, 2018b) to advocate for the importance of Drosophila research. It follows up on a previous piece in the same journal advocating for developmental biology (Prokop, 2018a). These articles aim to showcase how policy and decision makers…
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The Sleep Inbred Panel: flies with extreme sleep patterns
A new collection of inbred flies provides a tool for studying genetic control of sleep. Sleep is vital for a healthy life, but some of us seem to get by with less snoozing than others. This individual variation isn’t unique to humans; fruit flies also show a variety of sleep patterns. These differences could potentially…
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Nanopore sequencing of 15 Drosophila genomes
Low-cost sequencing closes gaps in fly genomes. Genetic sequencing technologies have revolutionized biological science, and regular advances in these tools continue to deliver better genomic data—more accurate and more useful—at a lower cost. In G3: Genes|Genomes|Genetics, Miller et al. report the genomes of 15 Drosophila species sequenced using Oxford Nanopore technology. Their work improves on…