Science & Publishing

Memory is a complex neurological process, and understanding its mechanics rarely yields clear-cut answers. So far, research on the memory-implicated gene HDAC4 has been no exception—in fact, HDAC4’s effects on long-term memory seem completely contradictory. Increased HDAC4 protein in the cell nucleus causes memory deficits, and consistent with this, a human mutation that resulted in…

Guest post by Christian R. Landry. #TAGC16 Shorts are brief summaries of presentations at The Allied Genetics Conference, a combined meeting of seven genetics research communities held July 13-17, 2016 in Orlando, Florida. When building new phenotypes, evolution often draws on mutations of the intricate mechanisms that regulate gene expression. If such regulatory mutations are…

Guest post by Tyler Kent. #TAGC16 Shorts are brief summaries of presentations at The Allied Genetics Conference, a combined meeting of seven genetics research communities held July 13-17, 2016 in Orlando, Florida. Purging harmful mutations is the most common task of natural selection. In non-recombining populations this background selection process represents the “survival of the…

Guest post by Julia Kreiner. #TAGC16 Shorts are brief summaries of presentations at The Allied Genetics Conference, a combined meeting of seven genetics research communities held July 13-17, 2016 in Orlando, Florida. A common perception of evolution sees only slow and consistent genetic change over thousands of generations. But geneticists are increasingly shedding light on…

Lurking in colonies of pathogenic bacteria are drug-resistant mutants. If the colony is exposed to antibiotics, these resistant mutants may survive, but they still face the challenge of recolonizing the host. Their success in this task depends on their diversity; a diverse population is more likely to harbor mutants that can withstand a second threat,…

#TAGC16 Shorts are brief summaries of presentations at The Allied Genetics Conference, a combined meeting of seven genetics research communities held July 13-17, 2016 in Orlando, Florida. Elbows, knuckles, and the other synovial joints in your body are mobile marvels of evolution. These joints allow a huge range of possible movements thanks to the presence of…

Got a hot manuscript or a burning question for a GENETICS or G3 editor? Just want to talk about scholarly publishing in general? Here’s how you can track down an editor at The Allied Genetics Conference this week: Watch out for ribbons GENETICS and G3 Editors will be wearing silver “Editor” ribbons on their name…

For the past several decades, Shetland ponies’ collective past had caught up with them. A portion of the population of these miniature horses is affected by atavism, a phenomenon in which ancient characteristics are accidentally revived by mutations. Traits reincarnated in this way sometimes interact disastrously with the genetic background of the modern organism. For…

We hope everyone at The Allied Genetics Conference this week will take the opportunity to attend some presentations outside their “home” genetics community. But we realize that sometimes listening to talks in a new field can feel like visiting a foreign country, with its own language, unfamiliar customs, and insider jokes. If only you had…

Check out the July issue of G3! ForestPMPlot: A Flexible Tool for Visualizing Heterogeneity Between Studies in Meta-analysis Eun Yong Kang, Yurang Park, Xiao Li, Ayellet V. Segrè, Buhm Han, and Eleazar Eskin G3 July 2016 6:1793-1798; Early Online May 18, 2016 doi:10.1534/g3.116.029439 Abstract | Full Text | Full Text (PDF) Sex Differences in Drosophila…

Check out the July issue of GENETICS by looking at the highlights or the full table of contents! This Month’s Centennial Articles Alfred Sturtevant and George Beadle untangle inversions, pp. 1001-1003 R. Scott Hawley and Barry Ganetzky R. Scott Hawley and Barry Ganetzky introduce Sturtevant and Beadle’s 1936 Classic that explained why inversion heterozygosity in the Drosophila X…