Gene name errors and Excel: lessons not learned

June 23, 2004. BMC Bioinformatics publishes “Mistaken Identifiers: Gene name errors can be introduced inadvertently when using Excel in bioinformatics”. We roll our eyes. Do people really do that? Is it really worthy of publication? However, we admit that if it happens then it’s good that people know about it.

October 17, 2012. A colleague on our internal Yammer network writes:

The 23andme blog

23andme have been blogging for a while, but activity has recently picked up. Entitled “The spittoon” (tagline: more than you’ve come to expectorate…nice one), a recent post is bluntly headed “Why science can’t share” and points us to this NYT article by a cancer biostatistician on the difficulties in accessing raw biomedical data.

Update: the NYT article was free when I posted this, but now requires login. Ah, the irony…

The 23andme post is filed, quite appropriately and correctly, under “big questions”. A blog worth keeping an eye on.