生物：雞與雞的相處之道

編輯 Gene 報導

來自科景的報導

物理：關於Higgs粒子質量的最新進展

編輯 John C. H. Chen 報導

中文報導原文來源請見：科景

Long-term relationships between ecological stability and biodiversity in Phanerozoic reefs

Wolfgang Kiessling

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v433/n7024/full/nature03152.html

Although the oceans cover 70% of the Earth's surface, our knowledge of biodiversity patterns in marine phytoplankton and zooplankton is very limited compared to that of the biodiversity of plants and herbivores in the terrestrial world. Here, we present biodiversity data for marine plankton assemblages from different areas of the world ocean. Similar to terrestrial vegetation, marine phytoplankton diversity is a unimodal function of phytoplankton biomass, with maximum diversity at intermediate levels of phytoplankton biomass and minimum diversity during massive blooms. Contrary to expectation, we did not find a relation between phytoplankton diversity and zooplankton diversity. Zooplankton diversity is a unimodal function of zooplankton biomass. Most strikingly, these marine biodiversity patterns show a worldwide consistency, despite obvious differences in environmental conditions of the various oceanographic regions. These findings may serve as a new benchmark in the search for global biodiversity patterns of plants and herbivores.

果蠅的“變性手術”（Courtship in the genes）

Male-specific fruitless specifies the neural substrates of Drosophila courtship behaviour

在求偶過程中，雄性果蠅會根據特定的感官提示表現出一系列先天性的有固有套路的行為。現在，主管這一行為的神經細胞群已經被識別出來。使這些神經細胞失去活性，足以使雄性果蠅對交配失去興趣；而改變雌性果蠅的大腦、使其產生這些細胞所產生的同樣蛋白，會使雌性果蠅表現出雄性果蠅特有的求偶行為。這些神經細胞產生一組被稱為FruM的蛋白，由“無果基因”（fru）編碼，後者以前曾被發現與雄性果蠅的求偶有關。使產生FruM的神經細胞失去活性，會抑制求偶行為，但不會改變果蠅行為的其他方面。操縱雌性果蠅的神經細胞使其產生FruM，足以使它們把其他雌性果蠅當成潛在交配物件。（Letter p. 395; News and Views）

其實我只想買個數位相框

但是看來iPad和魔鬼沾相當適合在一起阿 >////<

GenGIS

http://kiwi.cs.dal.ca/GenGIS/Main_Page

很酷的東西！

Science 5 March 2010:
Vol. 327. no. 5970, pp. 1214 - 1218
DOI: 10.1126/science.1177265

Remote triggering of fault-strength changes on the San Andreas fault at Parkfield

唸數字沒邏輯 德鼓吹學華人

【聯合報╱歐洲特派員陳玉慧】

Genomic Dissection of Population Substructure of Han Chinese and Its Implication in Association Studies

http://www.cell.com/AJHG/abstract/S0002-9297(09)00470-4

To date, most genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and studies of fine-scale population structure have been conducted primarily on Europeans. Han Chinese, the largest ethnic group in the world, composing 20% of the entire global human population, is largely underrepresented in such studies. A well-recognized challenge is the fact that population structure can cause spurious associations in GWAS. In this study, we examined population substructures in a diverse set of over 1700 Han Chinese samples collected from 26 regions across China, each genotyped at ∼160K single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Our results showed that the Han Chinese population is intricately substructured, with the main observed clusters corresponding roughly to northern Han, central Han, and southern Han. However, simulated case-control studies showed that genetic differentiation among these clusters, although very small (F_ST = 0.0002 ∼0.0009), is sufficient to lead to an inflated rate of false-positive results even when the sample size is moderate. The top two SNPs with the greatest frequency differences between the northern Han and southern Han clusters (F_ST > 0.06) were found in the FADS2 gene, which associates with the fatty acid composition in phospholipids, and in the HLA complex P5 gene (HCP5), which associates with HIV infection, psoriasis, and psoriatic arthritis. Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA) showed that most differentiated genes among clusters are involved in cardiac arteriopathy (p < 10⁻¹⁰¹). These signals indicating significant differences among Han Chinese subpopulations should be carefully explained in case they are also detected in association studies, especially when sample sources are diverse.

（中央社記者康世人新加坡27日專電）新加坡科技研究局人類遺傳小組在分析6000份來自新加坡和中國大陸10個省份的基因樣本後，發現漢人的基因南、北有別，存在0.3%的差異，但無東、西的差別。

其實洪蘭教授發表在天下雜誌的文章，已經是好一陣子前的事件了，

然而這幾天來自各界的輿論，讓新聞媒體不斷重新提起洪蘭對於大學生的吶喊。

（話說連宅神朱學恆也談論此事XD）

以下是洪蘭洪教授（中央大學認知神經科學研究所所長）在天下雜誌發表的全文。

港、陸大學跨海搶人才，但台灣學生感受到國際競爭的壓力了嗎？

Applications are currently being accepted for October 2010 commencement with the Doctoral Training Centre’s three programmes: Life Sciences Interface Doctoral Training Centre; Systems Biology Doctoral Training Centre; and Systems Approaches to Biomedical Science Industrial Doctorate Centre.

2010年的入學可以開始申請了。目前有三個主要的專業項目：生命科學、系統生物學、系統整合式生醫科學

These 4-year DPhil (PhD) programmes provide comprehensive training in interdisciplinary fields and facilitate leading edge research.