Punctuation
Punctuation. n. the use of periods and other marks in sentences. From Latin punctus point or prick, punctuare to mark with points or dots; related to punctual, prompt; punctuality, exactness or precision; less closely to punctilio n. detail of honour, conduct or ceremony. In the language of infection punctuation is concerned only with the written form i.e. the genome, its corresponding proteome and their identifiable functions. These belong to the emerging field of omics (genome, transcriptome, proteome, metabolome etc) which is awash with linguistic metaphors notably including translational science. (more on punctuation).
Featured Posts

STEALTH VIRUS
There’s something rather sinister about a potentially fatal virus that doesn’t declare its presence until a week or more after contact.

Turn of the coronatide
It may not be the beginning of the end, but in parts of the world that are detecting fewer cases of COVID-19, it is starting to look like the end of the beginning. Maritime metaphors are in heavy demand. Maybe it’s the thought of returning to the beach, as some have already done. The storms that have just battered southern Australia are a rough reminder that nature is unpredictable. These events can come without warning, and may return in waves. So just what is this COVID-19 second wave?

COVID-19 unplugged
Our physical distancing has its down side. Now that we’re starting to see modest signs of progress, it’s a good time to consider what it has achieved so far.

Logic in the time of coronavirus
An insight editorial in the Journal of Medical Microbiology examines COVID-19 through the prism of the priobe hypothesis, and uses it to build an argument for causality as a means of identifying key research and development priorities in the campaign against SARS coronavirus 2 (SC2).

Coronavirus’s centre of gravity
We need to know our coronavirus enemy. In order to plan our return to normality, we need to consider SARS coronavirus’s key attributes, and what makes up its centre of gravity.