Letter to the Editor: A wake-up call on mentoring,
January 2013
I want to thank Fred Maxfield for his thoughtful mentoring column in the January issue about what we as individuals and what educational institutions can do to make science students aware of the many career options available to them. Clearly ASBMB has a role in this process as well. This month ASBMB is sponsoring two regional career symposia, one at Stony Brook University in New York and one at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio. Three more will be announced soon, and information on past events is available online as well. I encourage undergraduate and graduate students — and their advisers — in those regions to consider attending these symposia to broaden their professional networks and to hear from people with science backgrounds who are applying their skills and knowledge in various fields. We also encourage institutions to use information from past meetings as a source of topics and speakers to develop local meetings on their campuses. All ASBMB members can play a role and mentor local students and postdocs who apply to host ASBMB-sponsored career meetings in their areas in the next call for applications.
Terri Goss Kinzy, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey Robert Wood Johnson Medical School 

Parkin deficiency and myocardial infarction
Åsa Gustafsson from the University of California, San Diego, talks about her JBC Paper of the Week, “Parkin Protein Deficiency Exacerbates Cardiac Injury and Reduces Survival following Myocardial Infarction.” The paper delves into the cardiac defects brought on by a protein involved in Parkinson’s disease.

MDEG hyperactivation and caspase-8 activation
Wei-Xing Zong of Stony Brook University talks about his group’s Journal of Biological Chemistry Paper of the Week, “Hyperactivation of the mammalian degenerin MDEG promotes caspase-8 activation and apoptosis.” The paper and interview investigate how misregulation of the degenerin family of ion channels leads to cell death.

Best of the JBC for 2012
Twenty-two JBC papers — out of the more than 4,000 published last year — won Best of 2012 designations. This podcast features a conversation between JBC Associate Editor Joel Gottesfeld of The Scripps Research Institute and John M. Denu of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who authored two papers given the designation. All of the Best of 2012 papers are freely available at www.jbc.org.

 
ASBMB representing at #scio13
Geoff Hunt, ASBMB’s public outreach coordinator, joined ASBMB Today science writer Rajendrani Mukhopadhyay at ScienceOnline 2013 last month. The seventh annual conference, which draws hundreds of researchers, teachers, bloggers, journalists and communicators to North Carolina’s Research Triangle, provided an opportunity for Hunt to throw down a new science rap. (Maybe you’ve heard of his performance of “99 Problems and the Lab Ain’t One” at a past ASBMB annual meeting?) Here, we reprint lyrics from his newest creation, a commentary — which he wrote on the train from D.C. to Raleigh — on the disparity between communicating in the real world and communicating in the virtual world.

Watch Geoff’s performance here:

Poison Online they say no one knows you’re a dog Whether you tweet or post or comment or blog Action so thick it all becomes a fog Who are you, why you think that you’re a vital cog? Do you talk with facts? Or just grind your ax? Speak your mind? Bust a rhyme? Waste my time? Join the slime What I hear in my ear it don’t sound too clear This one says pray and that one says fear You my peer? Far or near? Telling lies or sincere? Is your story allegory or should I shed a tear? All the words that you write will all disappear Talk at me in circles and still I end up here Poison Internet shouter Can’t get no louder Trust your router Silence the doubter Exclaim, emphasize, create, capitalize Retweet, reply, shake your head, realize Hashtags, dislikes, snark shown in all size Come in peace, come in truth or just antagonize

The right to write whets your appetite Pounding at the keys all day and night Logic as a metaphor Going to settle a score I am right, you are wrong, repeat repeat Yet from here in my seat it’s all just empty heat Poison Got new toys to make signal from noise Everyone’s wired, all the girls and boys iPhone, iPad, laptop, Android So how’s the real world supposed to be employed? Online, you shine, might be a big star But you know you only famous as an avatar What happens if you meet Your idol on the street? Will it match your dream Or leave you incomplete? Are fact and fiction cool or do they spar? Does what you say define who you are? Sheltered from revenge, commenting from afar? Verbal or physical, it leaves the same scar So just remember when you trying to rally the herds Comrades or crazies or jocks or nerds How the virtual world makes reality blurred And heed the danger of the poison of words Poison