Rock stars of science

Here is a site that I was surprised to discover. There aren't a whole lot of places on the web where you can find biographies of Harold Varmus and Anthony Fauci alongside those of Sheryl Crow and Seal.

So what's the goal of "Rock Stars of Science"? The mission, as stated on the site, has four parts.

• Make investment in medical research a national priority
• Accelerate therapies across diseases: cancer, Alzheimer's, heart and HIV/AIDS
• Inspire the next generation to careers in science
• Stand together and refuse to accept "no cure" as an answer

The featured scientists are mostly rock stars in the metaphorical sense. However, Francis Collins (of Human Genome Project fame) can be seen and heard playing songs such as The Times They Are A-Changin' with Joe Perry of Aerosmith.

Given the many scientific fields not represented in this group, a more accurate name for the initiative might be "Rock Stars of Biomedical Research on Diseases Prominent in the Developed World." In any case, we here at Sing About Science certainly agree that researchers should be recognized for their achievements and that young people should be encouraged to consider careers in science. Rock on, guys!

Science Song of the Week #16: "The Light Wave Equation"

I'm short on time this week, so I'm grabbing the SSotW from the archives of a veteran science songster, Lynda Williams, also known as the Physics Chanteuse. This one is called "The Light Wave Equation." It's completely baffling to me, but Williams has taught physics at the college level and presumably knows her stuff.

Science music minus the music

I've written a series of posts on my favorite enzymes at my other blog. They have nothing to do with music, but feel free to read them anyway! Here are the links:
* My favorite enzymes, part 1: S-adenosylmethionine decarboxylase from Trypanosoma brucei
* My favorite enzymes, parts 2 and 3
* My favorite enzymes, part 4: RuBisCO

A rant about media coverage of genome sequencing

"Apple genome is cracked by geneticists," BBC News declared on August 30th. The article states, "Scientists from 20 institutions took two years to unravel the apple's code."

While I applaud achievements such as this one, I wish news organizations would stop portraying the latest sequencing of a genome as the cracking of a code. (So do T. Ryan Gregory and Larry Moran.)

Genomes do indeed use a code to specify how proteins should be made. But that code, in which each group of three nucleotides (such as ATG or CCA) corresponds to a single amino acid, was deciphered decades ago. The people who determined how this works -- Robert Holley, H. Gobind Khorana, and Marshall Nirenberg -- were awarded the 1968 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Each organism's genome can also be considered a code in the more trivial sense of "something that represents or symbolizes something else." An apple's genome is a genetic representation of an apple, so you can call it the "code" for an apple if you really want to. But I submit that sequencing a genome is not much like cracking a code. As Katrin Weigmann says in a 2004 essay for EMBO Reports, "It is not genes but intricate protein networks that constantly survey the environment outside the cell, monitor metabolic processes and integrate this information into physical function. Simply deciphering the text as laid down in the genome therefore does not necessarily predict how life works at the cellular, let alone at the organismal, level."

Or, as I once wrote in a parody of the song "I Don't Know How to Love Him":

Yes, now we have their genome,
But I don’t see what it tells us.
It’s the genes; it’s just the genes.
And the genes don’t change
When the fuels do,
So how do the cells respond?
We need more clues!

Science Song of the Week #15: "Biochemistry Operetta" by Dr. Chordate

If last week's featured song was reminiscent of Timbuk3 and The Cars, this week's offering reminds me of Don McLean's "American Pie" or Meatloaf's "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" trilogy. That's right -- it's a ballad, and it's long! It's by Dr. Chordate, a.k.a. Jeff Moran, who really is a doctor (of the Ph.D. variety).

To hear this newly recorded song -- all 8 minutes and 58 seconds of it -- go to www.myspace.com/drchordate and click on "Biochemistry Operetta."