matterhacker

There was an interesting report (subscription required for non-academics) in Nature today about networking sites for scientists. They mentioned one really interesting site called myexperiment.org. Basically it’s like instructables.com, but for scientists. It has “workflows” that scientists can exchange and tag. These workflows detail the procedures for say protocols you might perform in a bio experiment or the steps to follow to carry out a particular data analysis technique. Pretty cool idea.  The Nature report also mentioned another site nanohub.org, a NSF funded web resource for simulation tools relating to nanotechnology.  Lots of interesting nano-related tutorials and other resources for self-study there.

BBC reports on another interesting article in Nature today.  However, I can’t seem to find it in today’s issue of Nature.  Scientists from McGill University have found a way to increase the immune system response of mice.  The work comes from the lab of Prof. Sonenberg.  From the BBC article, the researchers turned off 2 genes responsible for repressing interferon production in mice cells and thereby boosted the immune response of the mice.  However, they say that the method cannot be used in human cells for now.