Summary
1. Here, I present a new, multifunctional phylogenetics package, phytools, for the R statistical computing environment.

2. The focus of the package is on methods for phylogenetic comparative biology; however, it also includes tools for tree inference, phylogeny input/output, plotting, manipulation and several other tasks.

3. I describe and tabulate the major methods implemented in phytools, and in addition provide some demonstration of its use in the form of two illustrative examples.

4. Finally, I conclude by briefly describing an active web-log that I use to document present and future developments for phytools. I also note other web resources for phylogenetics in the R computational environment.

/pdf/phytools-an-r-package-for-phylogenetic-comparative-biology-yli0omoidd.pdf

phytools: an R package for phylogenetic comparative biology (and other things)

Associations between modifiable exposures and disease seen in observational epidemiology are sometimes confounded and thus misleading, despite our best efforts to improve the design and analysis of studies. Mendelian randomization-the random assortment of genes from parents to offspring that occurs during gamete formation and conception-provides one method for assessing the causal nature of some environmental exposures. The association between a disease and a polymorphism that mimics the biological link between a proposed exposure and disease is not generally susceptible to the reverse causation or confounding that may distort interpretations of conventional observational studies. Several examples where the phenotypic effects of polymorphisms are well documented provide encouraging evidence of the explanatory power of Mendelian randomization and are described. The limitations of the approach include confounding by polymorphisms in linkage disequilibrium with the polymorphism under study, that polymorphisms may have several phenotypic effects associated with disease, the lack of suitable polymorphisms for studying modifiable exposures of interest, and canalization-the buffering of the effects of genetic variation during development. Nevertheless, Mendelian randomization provides new opportunities to test causality and demonstrates how investment in the human genome project may contribute to understanding and preventing the adverse effects on human health of modifiable exposures.

/pdf/mendelian-randomization-can-genetic-epidemiology-contribute-vb0zjyrtxf.pdf

‘Mendelian randomization’: can genetic epidemiology contribute to understanding environmental determinants of disease?

In recent months there has been an explosion of interest in using the Web to create, assemble, and disseminate geographic information provided voluntarily by individuals. Sites such as Wikimapia and OpenStreetMap are empowering citizens to create a global patchwork of geographic information, while Google Earth and other virtual globes are encouraging volunteers to develop inter- esting applications using their own data. I review this phenomenon, and examine associated issues: what drives people to do this, how accurate are the results, will they threaten individual privacy, and how can they augment more conventional sources? I compare this new phenomenon to more traditional citizen science and the role of the amateur in geographic observation.

/pdf/citizens-as-sensors-the-world-of-volunteered-geography-phibl484h3.pdf

Citizens as sensors: the world of volunteered geography

We review the recent rapid progress in the statistical physics of evolving networks. Interest has focused mainly on the structural properties of complex networks in communications, biology, social sciences and economics. A number of giant artificial networks of this kind have recently been created, which opens a wide field for the study of their topology, evolution, and the complex processes which occur in them. Such networks possess a rich set of scaling properties. A number of them are scale-free and show striking resilience against random breakdowns. In spite of the large sizes of these networks, the distances between most of their vertices are short - a feature known as the 'small-world' effect. We discuss how growing networks self-organize into scale-free structures, and investigate the role of the mechanism of preferential linking. We consider the topological and structural properties of evolving networks, and percolation and disease spread on these networks. We present a number of models demonstrat...

/pdf/evolution-of-networks-27h4ny8xbi.pdf

Evolution of networks

Yuelong Shu1, John McCauley2 1. WHO Collaborating Center for Reference and Research on Influenza, Chinese National Influenza Center, National Institute for Viral Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing, China 2. WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza, Crick Worldwide Influenza Centre, the Francis Crick Institute, London, United Kingdom

GISAID: Global initiative on sharing all influenza data - from vision to reality.

The US media are abuzz after an outbreak of measles in Disneyland but the disease will keep on popping up until it is wiped out worldwide.

Measles by the numbers: A race to eradication

The charity hopes other funders will follow a similar model.

Wellcome Trust launches open-access publishing venture

/pdf/sars-veterans-tackle-coronavirus-3swwastr7q.pdf

SARS Veterans Tackle Coronavirus

/pdf/statistics-suggest-bse-now-europe-wide-18bg0wv1cp.pdf

Statistics suggest BSE now 'Europe-wide'.

The safe transplantation of pig organs into human patients remains several steps from realization, experts say. Two announcements that research teams have cloned pigs lacking a gene involved in graft rejection still leave several obstacles to xenotransplantation intact, according to most specialists in the field. On 2 January, PPL Therapeutics, the Scottish company that cloned Dolly the sheep, announced the birth on Christmas Day of five cloned knockout female piglets. Each had an inactivated gene for a-1,3-galactosyl transferase, an enzyme that adds the sugar a-1,3galactosyl, or alpha-gal, to the surface of pig cells. The immune systems of humans and Old World primates, who lost this enzyme in evolution, recognize the sugar as foreign and kill transplanted pig organs in minutes. The timing of PPL’s statement was widely interpreted as an attempt to steal the thunder from a similar finding that was peer-reviewed and published by Science on 3 January (L. Lai et al. 10.1126/science.1068228) by groups at the University of Missouri at Columbia and Massachusetts-based Immerge BioTherapeutics. Their four cloned piglets, all female, were born in September and October. “The promise of xenotransplantation is news

/pdf/xenotransplant-experts-express-caution-over-knockout-piglets-31cql8gorm.pdf

Declan Butler

Papers

Measles by the numbers: A race to eradication

Wellcome Trust launches open-access publishing venture

SARS Veterans Tackle Coronavirus

Statistics suggest BSE now 'Europe-wide'.

Xenotransplant experts express caution over knockout piglets.