Editorial / Analysis
Surfing the preprint wave
The team of Editors
Many scientists feel trapped in a rat race these days. There is very high competition for limited resources and the time devoted to red tape activities is growing and growing. It is hard to get away from the feeling that scientists’ top priority is to secure funding, and that this can only be achieved by publishing papers. Otherwise, you’re out of business. Indeed, we tend to forget that our main goal is instead making discoveries and producing scientific and technical advances.…
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beyond Biophysics
Biochemistry and Biophysics: A conversation with Félix Goñi
Vadim Frolov
BIOFISIKA UPV/EHU, CSIC, Leioa (Spain).
It is natural, for a biophysicist, to reflect upon what biophysics is, here and now. These meditations occur mostly over a beer, as the subject is old, almost classical, dating back to the emergence of the term biophysics in Pearson´s musing, in 1892, where it replaced etiology, emphasizing the primacy of physics laws over capricious and complex living matter. Though the word stays, its meaning keeps evolving…
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cool Biophysics
Ancestral proteins: How and why
Jose M. Sánchez-Ruiz & Valeria A. Risso
Univ. Granada, Granada (Spain).
Strictly speaking, ancestral proteins are proteins from extinct organisms. However, neither extinct organisms nor their proteins exist any more, which raises two questions. First, can we bring ancient proteins back? De-extinction of, for instance, the woolly mammoth or the passenger pigeon, is being discussed as a real possibility for a not too distant future. A protein is certainly a much simpler system than a whole animal.…
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