Connection Between Epigenome, Selective Mutability, Evolution, and Human Disease
Li, Harris et al., PLoS Genetics
Researchers at the Baylor College of Medicine and elsewhere propose a "connection between the epigenome, selective mutability, evolution, and human disease" based on the findings of their study on associations of structural mutability with germline DNA methylation and with non-allelic homologous recombination mediated by low-copy repeats. "Combined evidence from four human sperm methylome maps, human genome evolution, structural polymorphisms in the human population, and previous genomic and disease studies consistently points to a strong association of germline hypomethylation and genomic instability," the Baylor-led team writes.
Research Bloggers Honor Their Own
ResearchBlogging.org has announced the winners of their 2010 Research Blogging Awards selected from a pool of 400 nominees. Registered bloggers on the site chose the 21 winners from 150 finalists, "so the best bloggers about peer-reviewed research were selected by their own peers." Top honors went to Ed Yong, science journalist and blogger at Not Exactly Rocket Science, for "Research Blog of the Year." Yong was also awarded "Blog Post of the Year," for a piece he wrote on a researcher's work with Muscovy drakes. Bora Zivkovic was named "Research Twitterer of the Year," by voters - no surprise there; he also received top honors in the Biology blog category. A graduate student blogger at Culturing Science was named best new blog of the year (Daily Scan featured her blog post defending Darwin's theory in light of a recent article in The Guardian here).