Monthly Archives: May 2017

Nancy Moran awarded the 2017 Molecular Ecology Prize

Posted on 31 May, 2017 by Jeremy Yoder

The 2017 Molecular Ecology Prize will go to Professor Nancy Moran of the University of Texas at Austin. The Prize is awarded by the Editorial Board of Molecular Ecology to recognize “an outstanding scientist who has made significant contributions to … Continue reading →

Posted in Coevolution, community, evolution, microbiology, Molecular Ecology, the journal | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Friday action item: An awful budget, now with detail

Posted on 26 May, 2017 by Jeremy Yoder

On Fridays while the current administration is in office we’re posting small, concrete things you can do to help make things better. Got a suggestion for an Action Item? E-mail us! There’s a detailed Federal budget proposal out this week, … Continue reading →

Posted in Action Item, funding, NIH, NSF, politics, United States | Tagged | Leave a comment

Molecular adaptation in a deep-sea alien…*ahem* amphipod

Posted on 24 May, 2017 by Kelle Freel

Space: the final frontier…or is it? I was inspired Jeremy’s post yesterday to talk about that deep dark abyss that takes up the vast majority of our mostly blue planet. For the record, I’m in agreement with the assessments for the … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, evolution, genomics, Molecular Ecology, the journal, next generation sequencing | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

The last of us, Ph.D.

Posted on 23 May, 2017 by Jeremy Yoder

I hear tell that there’s another movie in the Alien franchise in theaters, which makes this a fine opportunity to revisit the beauty and stupidity of the last one, Prometheus. In that previous instalment, we watched people who were, allegedly, … Continue reading →

Posted in fieldwork, just for fun, modest proposals | Tagged | 1 Comment

Relatively rare tropical trees all agree: avoiding the 'rain of death' seems like a good call

Posted on 5 May, 2017 by Kelle Freel

When you think of a tropical jungle, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Probably a lush green landscape with trees, vines, flowers, and let’s be real, at least one toucan. Tropical forests are made up of diverse groups … Continue reading →

Posted in genomics, Molecular Ecology, the journal, next generation sequencing, plants, transcriptomics | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Friday action item: What comes next?

Posted on 5 May, 2017 by Jeremy Yoder

On Fridays while the current administration is in office we’re posting small, concrete things you can do to help make things better. Got a suggestion for an Action Item? E-mail us! It’s been just about two weeks, now, since many … Continue reading →

Posted in Action Item, politics, United States | Leave a comment

N50 for transcriptome assemblies

Posted on 3 May, 2017 by Elin Videvall

This is the sixth in a series of posts where we explain the N50 (Nx) metric, discuss the problems surrounding it, give solutions to those problems, and suggest an alternative N50 metric for transcriptome assemblies. Transcriptome assemblies are inherently different … Continue reading →

Posted in genomics | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment