Good articles/websites about sleep

table of sleep disorders
http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v5/n11s/full/nn944_T1.html
Figure of sleep control
http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v5/n11s/full/nn944_F1.html

Text book (Principal of neuroscience) about sleep
http://www.semel.ucla.edu/sleepresearch/SleepDream/sleep_dreams.htm

Best website on sleep by Jerome Siegel
http://www.semel.ucla.edu/sleepresearch/

Very good review about sleep from Nature Reviews Neuroscience 3, 591-605 (August 2002) | doi:10.1038/nrn895
The Neurobiology of Sleep: Genetics, cellular physiology and subcortical networks
http://www.nature.com.ezproxy.hsclib.sunysb.edu/nrn/journal/v3/n8/full/nrn895.html#B32

Another very good website on sleep
http://www.macalester.edu/psychology/whathap/UBNRP/dreaming/py.html
http://www.macalester.edu/psychology/whathap/UBNRP/dreaming/dream.html
The person gives very good explanation about physiology of sleep.

Another review from Annual Review of Genetics
Vol. 42: 361-388 (Volume publication date December 2008)
(doi:10.1146/annurev.genet.42.110807.091541)

Genetics of Sleep

http://arjournals.annualreviews.org.ezproxy.hsclib.sunysb.edu/doi/full/10.1146/annurev.genet.42.110807.091541?amp;searchHistoryKey=%24{searchHistoryKey}&cookieSet=1
Only that I didn't finish reading it....

Another website:
http://science.education.nih.gov/supplements/nih3/sleep/guide/info-sleep.htm

If you google book "sleep", there are a lot of books about it. I don't have time to read all of them, and it seems their content are actually not that secret to me.

Academic website of dreaming
http://www.asdreams.org/index.htm

Finally I can close so many tabs in firefox.

This year's meeting related to me

Neural Circuits & Plasticity (May 17, 2009)

June 7-12, 2009
Salve Regina University
Newport, RI

http://www.grc.org/programs.aspx?year=2009&program=neurplast

Evolutionary & Ecological Functional Genomics (June 21, 2009)
July 12-17, 2009
Tilton School
Tilton, NH
http://www.grc.org/programs.aspx?year=2009&program=evoeco

Calcium Signalling

June 21-26, 2009
Il Ciocco Hotel and Resort
Lucca (Barga), Italy




Next year's

Cardiac Regulatory Mechanisms

June 6-11, 2010
Colby-Sawyer College
New London, NH
http://www.grc.org/programs.aspx?year=2010&program=cardiac

Cell Biology Of The Neuron

June 27 - July 2, 2010
Waterville Valley Resort
Waterville Valley, NH
http://www.grc.org/programs.aspx?year=2010&program=cellbio

Ion Channels

July 11-16, 2010
Tilton School
Tilton, NH
http://www.grc.org/programs.aspx?year=2010&program=ionchan

Mechanisms Of Epilepsy & Neuronal Synchronization

August 8-13, 2010
Colby College
Waterville, ME
http://www.grc.org/programs.aspx?year=2010&program=epilepsy

Molecular & Cellular Neurobiology

June 6-11, 2010
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Hong Kong, China
http://www.grc.org/programs.aspx?year=2010&program=neurobio

Neurobiology Of Cognition

August 1-6, 2010
Waterville Valley Resort
Waterville Valley, NH
http://www.grc.org/programs.aspx?year=2010&program=neurocog

Post-Transcriptional Gene Regulation, The Biology Of

July 18-23, 2010
Salve Regina University
Newport, RI
http://www.grc.org/programs.aspx?year=2010&program=posttrans

Why is there a dispute about cis and coding?

There has been a fighting in the evolution field about the molecular genetic mechanisms of evolution, especially evolution of morphology, in the recent years. I got involved because I have no choice.

As is known historically that proteins come from the coding regions of a gene, it's also known for long that changes in the nucleotides in these regions would result a mutation if it changes the meaning of the codon. The textbook I learned when I just got into the biology field clearly said: there are several types of mutations; insertion and deletions (not multiple of 3) will cause a frame-shift which is really bad, substitutions can change the meaning of the codon or just stay neutral. At that time, I have no idea that changes in the cis-regulatory region would matter.

Now I read about evolutionary-developmental scientist (Jacob and Monod 1961) who started the idea that evolution can be mediated or even mainly dependent on changes in cis-regulatory region for evolution of this specific phenotype -- morphylogy. One of the main leaders on this side is Sean Caroll from UWM. Such an "assumption" of course make the conservatives unhappy. People started standing up one after the other to disagree. There are even papers point directly at every sentence said by cis-regulatory scientists. A notable example is the hoekstra and coyne 2007 paper. As the heat generated by the discussion increases, people can not stay silence any more and had to stand up to clear up for both sides: the Stern and Orgogozo 2008 paper, titled "The loci of evolution: How predictable is genetic evolution?" Which really helped to cool down both sides, I believe.

But to me, of course I believe cis-regulatory changes play an important role during evolution, but this does not necessary exclude the idea that coding mutations are also important. Why do you need to place cis at the most important position? Why do the other need to treat cis as nothing? Why one of them, cis and coding, have to win? Why do we care which side wins? Why should we waste time on such a dispute? It is great to learn that functional mutations can occur in the cis-regulatory regions, in addition to what's known for a long time that functional mutations happen in the coding region. If there are additional mechanisms, scientists should be very happy to learn as well. It is like, if you have two child, why need you know or try to prove that David is the best and Jack is the worst of your children? It's true that such discussions would help to sharp peoples' ideas and make people think more carefully. Except for that, I still think we doesn't need to use one mechanism to conclude everything. Yes, reductionism is important to science, but please don't be too reductive...