Tue, 01 May 2001 00:00:00 GMT

Glycolysis revision, kinases, and the first "second messenger" star in these five favorite papers

1. I was first exposed to the awesome power of Drosophila genetics as a graduate student in the laboratory of John Kiger at the University of California, Davis. A 1972 paper inspired my respect for fruit fly genetics. This landmark paper exemplifies how flies can be engineered to carry chromosomes that allow the generation of segmental deficiencies and duplications throughout the genome.1 This, in turn, permitted mapping of genes by using deficiencies. 2. While at UC Davis, I was introduced

My Top 5 | Scientific Sins 1. Around 1726, professor Johann Beringer, University of Wurtzburg, Germany, published a treatise, Lithographiae Wirceburgensis, about mysterious fossils that three boys claimed they found at nearby Mount Eivelstadt. But, they were fakes--part of a hoax conceived by junior faculty members. The hoaxers later tried to warn Beringer. When he received a fossil bearing his own name, he sued his fellow professors. But his treatise already had been published. 2. In 1835

My Top 5 | The Jon Yewdell Selection Courtesy of Jon Yewdell 1. In the now distant year of 1970, the physical nature of the plasma membrane (or any membrane for that matter) was uncertain. Frye and Edidin used Sendai virus to fuse human and mouse cell, then stained the cells with fluorochrome-labeled antibodies specific for human or mouse antigens.1 They watched the unfolding drama in a fluorescent microscope as the human and mouse proteins completely mixed in real time, providing an elega

Courtesy of Joseph McPartlin 1. In the age of nanofluidics, the 24-hour urine collection may seem a curiosity, though much depends in metabolic studies on the accuracy of collecting these specimens. In an account worthy of Italian satirist Dario Fo, the authors Turner and Merlis1 recount the sources of errors during collections. They also compare working with human subjects to an enormous game of chess, and quote George Eliot's Felix Holt: Fancy what a game of chess would be if all the chess

Erica P. Johnson 1. In 1600, Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) repeatedly refused to recant his endorsement of Copernicus' sun-centered map of the galaxy. He was burned at the stake. 2. Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier (1743-1794), who explained combustion and created a system for naming chemicals, pleaded for his life during the French Revolution, citing his unfinished scientific research. "The Republic has no need of scientists," his executioners told him. The next sound was the thump of the guillotine

My Top Five | The Matthew Binns Selection I think all molecular biologists would recognize that the papers describing di-deoxy sequencing1 and Kary Mullis' PCR technique2 have changed the world of science profoundly. Mullis, a true "gonzo" scientist, includes a favorite quote in a chapter of a book he edited that describes the development of PCR: "There is a place in your brain, I think, reserved for 'the melancholy of relationships past.' It grows and prospers as life progresses, forcing