Science Moves Even Faster
I’ll be writing on microRNAs soon, but here’s yet another example of the extraordinary speed at which some hot fields (like microRNAs) move.
There’s a review paper on microRNAs that was published in advance (i.e. online before its print publication) in Nature Reviews Genetics this past Wednesday. It summarizes the latest and cutting edge of our current understanding of microRNAs, how they’re made, and how they work.
And it might already be (slightly) obsolete, even before it is published!
The review paper almost didn’t get to mention the new upregulatory mechanism of microRNAs paper that I wrote about one month ago, but they managed to squeeze it in at the last moment (there’s an addendum at the end of the paper mentioning this new result). The review certainly didn’t mention last month’s Cell paper on Ago2’s possible role in microRNA maturation and the PNAS paper on the current understanding of the RISC-loading complex composition that was published just over a week ago.
Certainly, the review paper isn’t useless; far from it, as it summarizes much research that is still relevant to our understanding of microRNA mechanisms, and it’s a useful resource for reference and for those who want to learn about the field for the first time. But it is still the slightest bit obsolete even before the ink has hit the page.
Alas, the curse and thrill to live in exciting times.
