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Wheat berry, wheat berry, quite contrary, how do your layers grow? All folded up with peripheral layers neatly in a row (Enough already). Tasleem‐Tahir et al. examined the development of common bread wheat ( Triticum aestivum ) after fertilization using routine proteomic tools. Hand dissected wheat berries were analyzed by 2‐DE and MALDI‐TOF MS at each stage. Development stages were defined by degree days after fertilization (°Cd). Database searching revealed four major stages of layer development: cell division, cell differentiation, grain filling, and grain dehydration. Eight hundred spots were statistically interesting. Two‐way hierarchical cluster analysis showed five sequential accumulation clusters and 313 spots could be analyzed. The second cluster had the largest array of active functional proteins at 13. pp. 371–379Life and non‐life at the molecular level — a semantic conundrum The question of what is alive (and what's not) came up somewhere in the later part of the formal part of my scientific education. After several beers and several hours one night in the teaching lab at Cold Spring Harbor Labs, I think we settled on a spot somewhere between viruses and what are now known as mycobacteria. Eligibility of single molecules was not considered. The work of Castellana et al., however, may open the debate for admission to zombihood at least. This research group used deep proteomics and genomics (proteogenomics) to reconstruct the sequence of both chains of a monoclonal antibody that had been too long in the freezer. After sequencing the protein (LC‐MS/MS) and reconstructing the predicted DNA, they ended up with only a few questions about errors at one Ile/Leu position and possibly post‐translational modifications. Binding specificity and affinity were spot on. pp. 395–405Ninhydrin, as I look into your lovely blued eyes, I wonder what you R 2 I met ninhydrin as a synthesis project for first year chemistry students. We students were sure that it had been selected by the lab TA's to humiliate us for our poor technique — every mistake left a blue spot on our skin and it stank for two days. Here, Kang and Lubec demonstrate the use of ninhydrin to react quantitatively with primary amines to determine the amount of protein in acrylamide gels. The dye assay works with high linear accuracy ( R 2 >0.99) for BSA standards compared to gel image analysis. Two forms of the assay were developed: in‐gel acid hydrolysis and in‐solution hydrolysis. Although the assays are somewhat tedious, their accuracy pays for their time. The authors consider interfering contaminants, staining and peptide digestion systems and optimum gel fragment sizes in specifying the protocol. pp. 481–484