加快知识更新、促进生命科学和生物技术的发展——记“生命科学与生物技术前沿研讨会”

生命科学和生物技术正酝酿一系列重大突破。基因科学、蛋白质科学、脑与神经生物学等已成为生命科学的热点与前沿。生命科学与信息科学、认知科学的交叉融合、孕育着重大科学突破。生命科学与生物技术在解决人类食物、保健及生态安全等方面将发挥重大作用。工业生物技术异军突起，有可能形成新兴的生物产业。     

生物信息学及其研究现状

生物信息学是采用计算机技术和信息论方法研究生命科学中各种生物信息的表达、采集、储存、传递、检索、分析和解读的科学,是现代生命科学与信息科学、计算机科学、数学、统计学、物理学、化学等学科相互渗透而高度交叉形成的一门新兴前沿学科.对生物信息学的起源、研究内容、研究热点及应用等进行了综述,并展望了其今后的发展前景.     

寻找未来科学之星 闪耀中国科学未来

由中国科学院科学时报社《科学新闻》主办的“Scopus寻找未来科学之星”活动，历经4个月的报名、选拔和评选，一大批优秀的青年科学家在纳米科学、生命科学、信息科学和环境科学4个跨学科领域脱颖而出。     

生物信息学

生物信息学是采用计算机技术和信息论方法研究生命科学中各种生物信息的表达;采集,储存,传递,检索,分析和解读的科学,是现代生命科学与信息科学,计算机科学,数学,统计学,物理学,化学等学科相互渗透和高度交叉形成的学科,本文简要介绍了现代生物信息学的主要研究领域。     

电子科技大学生命科学与技术学院

电子科技大学生命科学与技术学院依托学校在信息科学领域的综合优势,以及学院成立之前的生物医学工程学科的20年积淀,深耕信息科学与生物及医学的交叉领域,着力发展主流生命科学学科,先后建立了生物医学工程一级学科博士授权点,生物物理学、生物化学与分子生物学硕士授权点。在国家“985”和“211”工程的支持下,先后建威了“生物物理与生物电子技术”等3个省部重点实验室。     

听觉模型研究的意义与现状

当今,生命科学正以全新的姿态,渗透和影响其它领域。随着信息化社会的发展,生命科学在信息科学领域受到了最为迫切的期待,脑和神经系统的信息加工和信息处理方式已成为信息科学家们着力研究的对象。语音信息处理是信息科学的重要组成部分。这一领域的研究人员正试图将计算机语音识别逼近人类听觉,而听觉模型研究就是通往这一目标的一条途     

《激光生物学报》征订启事

正《激光生物学报》创刊于1992年,是由中国科学技术协会主管,中国遗传学会和湖南师范大学主办、华南师范大学激光生命科学研究所、中国海洋大学信息科学与工程学院、福建师范大学物理与光电信息科技学院等协办,由国内外有关专家、学者组成的《激光生物学报》编委会编辑部编辑、激光生物学报杂志社出版的学术性刊物,已逐渐     

《激光生物学报》征订启事

正《激光生物学报》创刊于1992年,是由中国科学技术协会主管,中国遗传学会和湖南师范大学主办、华南师范大学激光生命科学研究所、中国海洋大学信息科学与工程学院、福建师范大学物理与光电信息科技学院等协办,由国内外有关专家、学者组成的《激光生物学报》编委会编辑部编辑、激光生物学报杂志社出版的学术性刊物,已逐渐     

第十届郑作新鸟类科学青年研究奖评审简报

郑作新鸟类科学基金会于3月15日在北京师范大学生命科学学院召开第十届评委会,基金会主任郑光美院士主持了会议。会议对申奖人报送的论文进行了评议并经过无记名投票,评审出第十届鸟类科学青年研究奖三名:杨灿朝(海南师范大学生命科学学院);李东明(河北师范大学生命科学学院);刘阳(中山大学生命科学学院)。     

通识课《生物化学》教学形式多样化的探索

生物化学是生命科学和医学的基本语言和基础学科。我们曾探讨过向非生命和健康科学专业学生开设《生物化学》公选课的必要性。为了提升教学效果,我们进行了本课程教学形式多样化的探索,包括开展生命科学研究实验室参观、进行实验课及若干形式的讨论交流。我们发现,参观不同类型的生命科学实验室能够让学生对生命科学研究有较为全面的了解,构建关于生命科学的整体知识体系。实验课能够极大调动学生的兴趣,让学生对生命科学研究的具体过程有所了解,消除生命科学实验的神秘感。讨论环节能够帮助学生拓宽知识范围,启发学生思维。通过增加以上教学形式,得以让本《生物化学》课程成为非生命和健康科学专业的学生了解生命科学的平台,更大范围地向学生展示当前生命和健康科学的研究成果和发展前景,帮助学生建立关于生命科学的整体知识架构。这些策略和理念对其它公选课的教学实践也具有参考价值。     

Crisis in science: In search for new theoretical foundations

Recognition of the need for theoretical biology more than half century ago did not bring substantial progress in this direction. Recently, the need for new methods in science, including physics became clear. The breakthrough should be sought in answering the question “What is life?”, which can help to explain the mechanisms of consciousness and consequently give insight into the way we comprehend reality. This could help in the search for new methods in the study of both physical and biological phenomena. However, to achieve this, new theoretical discipline will have to be developed with a very general conceptual framework and rigor of mathematical reasoning, allowing it to assume the leading role in science. Since its foundations are in the recognition of the role of life and consciousness in the epistemic process, it could be called biomathics. The prime candidates proposed here for being the fundamental concepts for biomathics are ‘information’ and ‘information integration’, with an appropriately general mathematical formalism.     

Life sciences and biotechnology in China

Life science and biotechnology have become a top priority in research and development in many countries as the world marches into the new century. China as a developing country with a 1.3 billion population and booming economy is actively meeting the challenge of a new era in this area of research. Owing to support from the government and the scientific community, and reform to improve the infrastructure, recent years have witnessed a rapid progress in some important fields of life science and biotechnology in China, such as genomics and protein sciences, neuroscience, systematics, super-hybrid rice research, stem cell and cloning technology, gene therapy and drug/vaccine development. The planned expansion and development of innovation in related sectors and the area of bioethics are described and discussed.     

An exploratory study of student teachers’ conceptions of teaching life science outdoors

Abstract

The purpose of this exploratory qualitative study was to investigate elementary student teachers’ conceptions of teaching life science outdoors. The study involved 99 student teachers who were enrolled in an elementary science methods course at a large public university in the United States of America. The study utilised drawings, and narratives to investigate the nature of these teachers’ conceptions. Data analysis revealed that three conceptions of teaching life science were common among the participants: (1) teaching life science is predominantly conceptualised as being situated in the schoolyard, (2) teaching life science outdoors is teacher-directed, and (3) teaching life science outdoors is disconnected from in-class science instruction. Implications include the need for (1) teacher education programmes to provide reflective supports that explicate student teachers’ conceptualisation of teaching life science and thus exposing prior frameworks; and (2) teacher educators to examine student teachers’ prior frameworks for teaching life science outdoors and provide knowledgeable theory and practice platforms that will serve as frameworks for student teachers to adopt, connect and routinize outdoor life science teaching with in-school teaching of life science.     

Books for free? How can this be?— A PubMed resource you may be overlooking

The NCBI (National Center for Biotechnology Information) at the National Institutes of Health collects a wide range of molecular biological data, and develops tools and databases to analyse and disseminate this information. Many life scientists are familiar with the website maintained by the NCBI (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov), because they use it to search GenBank for homologues of their genes of interest or to search the PubMed database for scientific literature of interest. There is also a database called the Bookshelf that includes searchable popular life science textbooks, medical and research reference books and NCBI reference materials. The Bookshelf can be useful for researchers and educators to find basic biological information. This article includes a representative list of the resources currently available on the Bookshelf, as well as instructions on how to access the information in these resources.     

At the dawn of a new revolution in life sciences

In a recently published article Sydney Brenner argued that the most relevant scientific revolution in biology at his time was the breakthrough of the role of "information" in biology.The fundamental concept that integrates this new biological "information" with matter and energy is the universal Turing machine and von Neumann's self-reproducing machines.In this article we demonstrate that in contrast to Turing/von Neumann machines living cells can really reproduce themselves.Additionally current knowledge on the roles of noncoding RNAs indicates a radical violation of the central dogma of molecular biology and opens the way to a new revolution in life sciences.     

实验动物学教学内容及方法的探索与改进

实验动物学是生命科学研究的基础和支撑条件之一。在医学院校实验动物学的教学中,应以实验动物与动物实验标准化为中心,增加和完善动物模型、分子遗传、胚胎工程及转基因动物等理论内容,紧跟生命科学的发展趋势;同时注重理论教学与实验教学的相互结合,充分利用现代先进的教育技术,以基本实验、综合实验和自主设计实验培养学生的操作能力和创新思维。这些改革措施将对改进实验动物学的教学质量,提高医学院学生的科研水平有重要意义。     

2015年中国植物科学若干领域重要研究进展

2015年中国植物科学研究处于飞速发展的态势, 主要表现在中国植物生命科学家在国际顶级学术刊物发表文章的数量呈现出明显的优势。中国科学家在植物学诸多领域取得了骄人的成果, 如高等植物PSI与捕光天线的超分子复合物晶体结构的解析、水稻感知和耐受寒害机制、乙烯信号转导分子机制研究等。2015年中国生命科学领域十大进展中, 植物科学领域有两项成果入选。值得一提的是, 中国本土科学家因青蒿素的发现与抗疟疾药物新疗法的开创首次获得自然科学领域的诺贝尔奖, 标志着中国植物化学和中药学对人类健康事业的巨大贡献受到国际高度关注, 也标志着中国科学家围绕国家重大需求开展科学技术问题研究模式的有效性和影响力。中国植物科学从跟踪、并行, 逐渐迈入领跑学科发展的方阵。该文对2015年中国本土植物科学若干领域取得的重要研究成果进行了概括性评述, 旨在全面追踪当前中国植物科学领域发展的最新前沿和热点事件, 并与国内读者分享我国科学家所取得的杰出成就。     

Bridging the Gap: How Can Information Access and Exchange Between Conservation Biologists and Field Practitioners be Improved for Better Conservation Outcomes?

It is widely accepted that there is a considerable gap between the science of conservation biology and the design and execution of biodiversity conservation projects in the field and science is failing to inform the practice of conservation. There are many reasons why this implementation gap exists. A high proportion of papers published in scientific journals by conservation biologists are seldom read outside of the academic world and there are few incentives for academics to convert their science into practice. In turn, field practitioners rarely document their field experiences and experiments in a manner that can meaningfully inform conservation scientists. Issues related to access to scientific literature, scientific relevance in multidisciplinary environments, donor expectations and a lack of critical analysis at all levels of conservation theory and practice are factors that exacerbate the divide. The contexts in which conservation biologists and field practitioners operate are also often highly dissimilar, and each has differing professional responsibilities and expectations that compromise the ability to learn from each other's expertise. Building on recent debate in the literature, and using case studies to illustrate the issues that characterize the divide, this paper draws on the authors' experiences of project management as well as academic research. We identify five key issues related to information exchange: access to scientific literature, levels of scientific literacy, lack of interdisciplinarity, questions of relevance and lack of sharing of conservation-related experiences and suggest new ways of working that could assist in bridging the gap between conservation scientists and field practitioners.     

组学技术及其在食品科学中应用的研究进展

后基因组时代的主要研究任务即是组学(转录组学、蛋白质组学及代谢组学)研究,其发展迅速,有望成为解决生命科学领域诸如食品品质与安全等科学问题的有力工具.组学研究为食品科学相关研究提供了新的思路和技术,在食品加工、贮藏、营养素检测、食品安全以及食品鉴伪等领域中已有广泛的应用.综述转录组学、蛋白质组学及代谢组学研究的核心技术,以及组学技术在食品科学研究中的研究进展,并对其应用前景进行展望.