Guest contributor Angela Alexander, a postdoc at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, offers reviews of her favorite iPad apps.

This month, contributor Aditi Das reviews the blog MolBio Hut for us. The bloggers say they see the hut as a “rendezvous point for people in the life sciences.”

Researchers will embark on six new drug-development projects targeting, among others, a musculoskeletal disorder, a tropical parasitic worm and a virus that affects the central nervous system of newborns.

The research community was saddened to hear of the death of Masayasu Nomura. Read an obituary relating his breakthroughs in ribosome research.

The National Human Genome Research Institute’s new four-year plan kicks off with efforts by the Genome Sequencing Program to find causes of rare inherited diseases and to more broadly incorporate the use of genome sequence information into clinical care.

The National Institutes of Health launched an electronic database that will streamline the federal government’s technology-transfer process, cutting down the response time for requests for unpatented materials produced by NIH researchers from six months to a few days.

Ian Thorpe, assistant professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, says his love of science stems in part from his love of science fiction. Read his interview with ASBMB's education and professional development manager, Weiyi Zhao.

We’ve been so impressed by the fine verses participants of Experimental Biology 2012 have submitted to the ASBMB-sponsored poetry contest that we’ve extended the deadline. Submit yours before Jan. 31!