While bawling can be a cathartic experience, the laboratory is, of course, no place for human emotions.

Earlier this year a source sent us a copy of an unpublished manuscript describing the creation of the first gene-edited babies, born last year in China. Today, we are making excerpts of that manuscript public for the first time. Titled “Birth of Twins After Genome Editing for HIV Resistance,” and 4,699 words long, the still…

Revealing some impressive all-rounders.

The International Brain laboratory (IBL) is a collaboration aiming to understand the neural basis of decision-making. Ten experimental labs use multiple neural recording modalities in diverse brain structures of mice making perceptual decisions. A primary requirement of IBL is to establish a data architecture that integrates data from all labs and modalities together. We have developed a system that allows users across 5 countries to automatically contribute data and metadata, search for relevant data, and share code for exploratory analysis. To accurately record metadata about subjects and experiments in a searchable and accessible way, we have developed a user-friendly, web-based electronic lab notebook system for colony and experiment management (Alyx). Alyx is a small relational metadatabase that records relevant information about each subject (age, strain, procedures), alongside information about experiments and their resulting data files. Once an experiment is completed, data registered in Alyx is automatically…