In News Focus, Martin Enserink profiled Freek (pronounced "Frake") Vonk, the 30-year-old first author on a study of the king cobra genome published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Despite the relatively lower mRNA expression, the protein comprises close to 6%% of MOh venom (Additional file 3), comparable to the approximation of 8%% w/w in an earlier study of Malaysian king cobra LAAO [ 10].
On the other hand, SVMP was not identified at all in the previous 2DE proteomic study of Malaysian king cobra [ 24], a rather peculiar finding that raises a conflict in local venom database, possibly due to inadequacy of the methodology.
But the new incidents, published in the study "Multiple occurrences of king penguin (Aptenodytes patagonicus) sexual harassment by Antarctic fur seals (Arctocephalus gazella)", still surprised the researchers.
Previous genetic studies of red king crabs in the Alaskan waters did not resolve some details of population structure reported here.
A genomic study of an Indonesian king cobra (a Balinese specimen) by Vonk et al. [ 20] indicated great diversity in the PLA2 and 3FTx gene families in a single specimen.
"It's as much a study of people as of kings and kingdoms," says Lewis. "A study of what personality types tend to win these positions in our society – and what they're prepared to do to keep themselves there".
(His next book, aside from a translation of Suetonius's The 12 Caesars, is a study of the 10th-century king Athelstan for the Penguin Monarchs series, a project bound up with childhood memories that he calls an "emotional core of magma waiting to be expressed").
This is a cross sectional study conducted at the pulmonary function laboratory of king Abdulaziz medical city, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
