Publications update

This morning we got an email from Nucleic Acids Research with provisional acceptance of the postdoc's manuscript on Haemophilus influenzae uptake specificity.  The reviews were short and favourable so we should be able to get the revisions done quickly.

My opinion piece on genetics teaching is in press at PLoS Biology.

The visiting grad student's paper on Gallibacterium anatis transformation is in press at the Journal of Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

The RA's first paper this year (on E. coli competence) is already published in PLoS One.

My short essay on 'Do bacteria have sex' has now appeared in a collection of essays titled Microbes and Evolution: The World that Darwin Never Saw, published by the American Society for Microbiology.  (only $14.95)

The RA's second paper this year, on her H. influenzae competence-gene knockout collection, is under review at the Journal of Bacteriology.  (Update!  Later the same day we received a 'provisional acceptance' email for this too.  One of the reviewers described it as "an exemplary, thorough study that completes what is arguably the first global definition of a complete competence regulon."

And what about our GFAJ-1 #arseniclife paper?  After receiving largely favourable reviews from Science we submitted the revised manuscript on April 13.  Yes, that's six and a half weeks ago, and they still haven't reached a final decision.  If our email queries had gotten any interesting responses I couldn't tell you about them, because we've been cautioned that correspondence between Science editors and authors is confidential and that alerting the press to a manuscript under review may jeopardize its acceptance.