Bright ideas to market your department

Nobody can do everything discussed in this article. Choose several ideas and try them. Increase your profile by letting more people in the hospital know who you are, what you do, when you do it, and how you do it. Get noticed and develop a reputation as the "go to" department. It will be worth the effort and increase your stature within the hospital. It may also help you get more staff and assume additional duties. Most of all, it will increase the respect of your department, and promote a more smoothly operating asset management system.     

Having your water and drinking it too: resource limitation modifies density regulation

Determining the interaction between extrinsic and intrinsic drivers of variation in population abundance through time continues to challenge ecologists. Chamaillé-Jammes and colleagues (this issue) examined African elephant time series to explore how water availability alters the density feedback mechanisms restricting population growth. The relationship between population growth rate and density shifted from an upward convex to a more linear form after controlling for rainfall. Spatial variation in water availability also attenuated density dependence as elephants adjusted their distribution relative to current environmental conditions. This work has important climate change implications for the conservation management of African herbivores.     

Aldehyde-Thionin: A Stain Having Similar Properties to Aldehyde-Fuchsin

A mixture containing thionin, 0.5 gm; paraldehyde, 7.5 ml; concentrated HCl, 1 ml; and 70% ethanol, 91.5 ml, when allowed to ripen for several days, produces a stain which, when applied to sections of tissue fixed in a Zenker-based fixative, resembles in its effects the aldehyde-fuchsin stain of Gomori, but presents certain advantages.     

Cell locomotion: new research tests old ideas on membrane and cytoskeletal flow

Recent studies on the mobility of membrane markers on crawling cells indicate that there is no long-range centripetal flow of membrane proteins or lipids during cell locomotion. In this article we reflect on the history of ideas about membrane flow in cells, and we discuss how these new findings will shift the focus of research in cell locomotion away from the cell surface to the molecular interactions and dynamics of the actin cytoskeleton.     

Developing a set of guidelines for your research field: a practical approach

Since 2008, the autophagy community has periodically published a set of guidelines, currently titled “Guidelines for the Use and Interpretation of Assays for Monitoring Autophagy.” The newest version of the guidelines was published in 2016. There are many reasons for establishing a set of guidelines in a given research field. This Perspective explores some of these reasons, including standardizing nomenclature for better communication, improving reproducibility, and making it easier for newcomers to enter the field. It also includes the approach I have used to generate and update the guidelines that are now widely used in the autophagy field. The suggestions are not meant to be formulaic, and the method is certainly not perfect. Instead, this should be viewed as a starting set of, well, guidelines.     

Bringing the physical sciences into your cell biology research

Historically, much of biology was studied by physicists and mathematicians. With the advent of modern molecular biology, a wave of researchers became trained in a new scientific discipline filled with the language of genes, mutants, and the central dogma. These new molecular approaches have provided volumes of information on biomolecules and molecular pathways from the cellular to the organismal level. The challenge now is to determine how this seemingly endless list of components works together to promote the healthy function of complex living systems. This effort requires an interdisciplinary approach by investigators from both the biological and the physical sciences.     

A DNA Bank of People Having Experienced Occupational Irradiation: Aims and Prospects

A DNA bank was created to preserve the genetic material of staff of the first Russian atomic plant, Production Association (PO) Mayak, who were exposed to chronic external -irradiation at various doses in the early years of plant operation. Some of the workers experienced combined irradiation from external and internal (incorporated plutonium-239) sources. The unique genetic material of the subjects and their children can be used to study the remote consequences of irradiation by means of modern molecular-genetic techniques. At present, the bank contains the genetic material of 500 people. A database was constructed to include medical, demographic, professional, and dose characteristics of each individual and quantitative and qualitative parameters of each DNA preparation. The bank is continuously augmented with new DNA samples of the irradiated people and members of their families.