BioMed Central Blog

Viewpoints: contrasting opinions in Neural Development

Neural Development has published the first articles of a new review series, in which leading researchers present apparently conflicting interpretations in parallel.

The series will focus on the mechanisms of neural development for which large data sets are available, but no consensus interpretation has emerged.  By inviting the leading proponents of distinct viewpoints to present their hypotheses side-by-side, Neural Development hopes to focus and stimulate debate on the central issues involved.

The series begins with a pair of articles by Marla Feller and Leo Chalupa. They examine the idea that patterns of spontaneous electrical activity in retinal cells provide instructions required for specific connectivity of retinal axons with their targets in the lateral geniculate nucleus. The topic is an important one because this system has been an influential model for analysis of activity-dependent refinement of connectivity, a phenomenon that appears to be widespread in the developing brain.

Readers of Neural Development are invited to add to the debate by using the ‘post a comment’ feature available on the full text version of each article.

For more information please read the Editorial introducing the series. Suggestions of further topics to cover are welcome ­- please send suggestions to editorial@neuraldevelopment.com.

Posted by Ciaran O'Neill at 18:20    Comments (0)

 

Bioinformaticians show off their Sudoku skills at ISMB

Last week BioMed Central exhibited at the 17th International Conference on Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB) & 8th European Conference on Computational Biology (ECCB) in Stockholm, where 1,400 delegates descended upon Stockholm International Fairs.

ISMB/ECCB is a great opportunity for us to meet with researchers who have published in our bioinformatics journals, such as BMC Bioinformatics and BMC Systems Biology. Many delegates were excited to see our new Impact Factor of 3.71 for BMC Systems Biology and the imminent launch of our latest independent journal, Journal of Biomedical Semantics.

Perhaps the biggest highlight of our time at the conference was the Sudoku challenge on Thursday morning where delegates raced each other to finish a Sudoku puzzle in the fastest time to win a Nintendo DS. For the three days leading up to the event various delegates had guaranteed that they had what it takes to win the prize but there could only be one winner. Crowds started to gather as early as 9.30am with competitors keen to locate the best possible spot to take the challenge. By 10am a 30-strong crowd took over the BioMed Central stand all eager to win the Nintendo DS though it is fair to say that some participants (possibly students) were more interested in receiving free notepads.

10.15am and the race was underway, the atmosphere was tense and the exhibition hall deadly quiet. Five minutes into the competition and the participants were still madly scribbling away, others looking lost in thought. Two minutes later a challenger stepped forward, looking confident and relaxed, could this be our Sudoku champion? A thorough examination of his completed puzzle confirmed he was indeed the winner, finishing in seven minutes exactly. Congratulations go to Arthur Hsu (pictured) from WEHI Bioinformatics in Australia for his seriously impressive Sudoku skills.

So that concludes our time at ISMB/ECCB, it was great meeting so many of you and we look forward to seeing you again at future conferences.

Posted by Charlotte Webber at 11:37    Comments (0)