Is there an increase in gap in developing clinical biomarkers for diseasome studies?

What are the pitfalls in outsourcing the genomic data for analyses? Please review the challenges

Have you used BioRuby? If so, how do you find it for Bio-programming?

Whither radiation? Whither house sparrows?

This post a-like was started some years ago. I'm sorry I hardly find house sparrows these days.

Any thoughts?

Lupus: Any Bioinformatical perspective to cure this autoimmune disorder?

Let's discuss

Can Genealogy help trace our lost genes?

Please comment!

Teaching Bioinformatics: Should online courses (and degrees) prevail?

Does patenting mean you are owning it for good? Discuss with regards to Open Access

Today, we have an option called Semi-Open Access. Right?

Whither Innovation in Biology?

Please discuss

Biologists to safe-guard environment?

What would be your role as a Biologist to oversee safe environment ( June 5 is World Environment day)

Please comment

Biologists and Bioinformaticists for Cloud

Dear All,
Do you think setting up and working in Cloud computing would be benefactor for Biologists?


What do yo think are the challenges posed?

BioWikis: should there be any consortium?

It's been often observed that many Bio-wikis are in motion now. Shouldn't there by any consortium to set up non redundancy?

Too many databases: Should there by a consortium for Bioinformatics databases?

Please opine

Mass fauna deaths: Cataclysm or contamination?

What could be the reason for recent mass fauna deaths? Please opine

what was the best bioinformatics tool/method/software you practiced in 2010

Please opine

Open Access : To what extent?

Many scientists who respect Open Access (OA) policy end up paying huge open access fee by publishing their research in OA journals. The end-user in turn reads the article for free and thereby gains knowledge. It's cyclic. To what extent the OA is/should be made open ?

Discuss!

Too many Bioinformatics software? How to choose and take home a very good tool?

Bioinformatics mesmerizes us these days. I recall there weren’t many tools a decade ago. But today there are umpteen tools all over the web that are available for the community. It’s really a daunting and a challenging task to choose the one that fits for your research. The following steps may be followed on how to choose a tool

1. Understand the algorithm and intricacies behind the functioning of tool. This will help you to understand if the tool you are to work would solve the purpose. If needed discuss with your colleagues on questions/issues pertaining to it.
2. Always try to comprehend the advantages and pitfalls; understand if the tool has a tendency of being novel.
3. Always try to use a tool that has been tested/validated/trained on various datasets. Training and testing proves very important for the tool to have a high impact.
4. Always go through the entire article corresponding to the tool. If you have too many tools across the aspect you are searching, why don’t you just end up reading abstracts and conclusions of those articles and then sort your articles?
5. Understand the fundamental algorithms besides going into pertinent details/options/categories/tools. This would enable you to make the best choices for particular research interests.
6. The tool cited in a high impact journal doesn’t always necessarily mean that it is the best. You may try to use other tools and write pros and cons of all the tools across the features.
7. Finally, if you don’t like any feature, why don’t you make a high impact on that research in developing a tool? Of course, you need to be a smart bioinformaticist for that :-)

And yet, another Nobel week coming up! Aren't you excited?

Should a graduate student be allowed to mentor students?

If so, could this be considered for the candidate's grade?

Do you enjoy attending virtual conferences with similar pace as on site conferences?

Please comment!