Today's paper is: 

Legrain, P. & Rain, J.-C. Twenty years of protein interaction studies for biological function deciphering. Journal of proteomics (2014). doi:10.1016/j.jprot.2014.03.038.

I keep changing the reference format. This really shouldn't bother anyone but me.

The take-home message: There's a lot of protein interaction data out there! Contrary to popular belief, most of it isn't just false positives. Rather, most of this data reveals actual biological complexity. Proteins may just interact with more binding partners than we originally thought.

A few awkward points:

• Both of the authors are experts in the field but are also employed by Hybrigenetics, a company providing protein interaction screen services. They don't advertise the company's services specifically so I suppose it isn't really a conflict of interest. I still grow concerned about such things.
• The title sounds odd. Couldn't it have been "Twenty years of biological function deciphering by protein interaction studies"? I think it's the word "deciphering", mostly.
• The entire review sounds a bit strange, actually. I assume it's a result of English as a second language. It does make some conclusions hard to understand, i.e. "Almost 2000 different proteins were analyzed over six time points, covering four orders of magnitude in terms of protein abundance. In those papers, the aim of the purification process is no more the isolation of a protein complex but just a way to zoom in a specific part of the proteome", which sounds dismissive.
• More specific references to recent interactome-dependent functional studies would have been nice. As they mention, there have been thousands, but it continues to be an active research venue. It looks like the authors just forgot to add some references in other sections: i.e., "..in different cellular contexts (for review on affinity-purification coupled to mass spectrometry, see)".

These guys made an early protein interactome of Helicobacter pylori so I can't complain too much.

I never seem to remember the name of the film Mafioso. It's the one with the Italian guy who gets shipped to NYC by the mob. It comes up in conversation every so often but its title is just so generic that it's hard to recall.

Here's a neat little story about frozen frogs. The basic idea is this: wood frogs freeze solid over the winter, though that's not a problem since they can keep ice out of their cells (otherwise, all those ice crystals can really mess up those frog tissues). They do it by using glucose as a cryoprotectant and a specialized glycolipid as an antifreeze.

The paper in the Journal of Experimental Biology is here.

Beats!

Music for today - like many on Youtube, this guy does very high-quality song covers. The difference here is that he covers electronic-heavy songs that would be impossible for anyone to cover without a finely-trained ear, perfect timing, and just the right batch of equipment. I usually prefer covers to move in entirely new directions (the lady and I have been musing about what a female-fronted cover of December, 1963 would sound like*) but these are impressive on a more technical level.  Here are a couple.

A cover of Lovely Bloodflow by Baths. That whole album is wonderful.

A cover of Windowlicker by Aphex Twin. He doesn't quite capture as much of the original's classically weird atmosphere but that may be impossible.

A cover of Lost and Found by Amon Tobin. This is the live version, for reference.

Courtesy of this Metafilter post.

*A good cover. There are some on Youtube but this is the best one I could find, if that tells you anything.

Hello there! You may have noticed this blog transitioning to more of an electronic portfolio. This means that it will be less of a collection of musings and more of a collection of musings with a good bit of Context included. The rambling journal entries are still a primary focus. Now, however, you can learn about me in the "About" tab up there. I've included my personal mission and Curriculum Vitae. There's also a tab for Research: this page describes my current area of study. More material is on the way.