Firstpost
  • Home
  • Video Shows
    Vantage Firstpost America Firstpost Africa First Sports
  • World
    US News
  • Explainers
  • News
    India Opinion Cricket Tech Entertainment Sports Health Photostories
  • Asia Cup 2025
Apple Incorporated Modi ji Justin Trudeau Trending

Sections

  • Home
  • Live TV
  • Videos
  • Shows
  • World
  • India
  • Explainers
  • Opinion
  • Sports
  • Cricket
  • Health
  • Tech/Auto
  • Entertainment
  • Web Stories
  • Business
  • Impact Shorts

Shows

  • Vantage
  • Firstpost America
  • Firstpost Africa
  • First Sports
  • Fast and Factual
  • Between The Lines
  • Flashback
  • Live TV

Events

  • Raisina Dialogue
  • Independence Day
  • Champions Trophy
  • Delhi Elections 2025
  • Budget 2025
  • US Elections 2024
  • Firstpost Defence Summit
Trending:
  • Charlie Kirk shot dead
  • Nepal protests
  • Russia-Poland tension
  • Israeli strikes in Qatar
  • Larry Ellison
  • Apple event
  • Sunjay Kapur inheritance row
fp-logo
Genes renamed, guidelines revised to deal with MS Excel's overzealous 'date autocorrect' issue
Whatsapp Facebook Twitter
Whatsapp Facebook Twitter
Apple Incorporated Modi ji Justin Trudeau Trending

Sections

  • Home
  • Live TV
  • Videos
  • Shows
  • World
  • India
  • Explainers
  • Opinion
  • Sports
  • Cricket
  • Health
  • Tech/Auto
  • Entertainment
  • Web Stories
  • Business
  • Impact Shorts

Shows

  • Vantage
  • Firstpost America
  • Firstpost Africa
  • First Sports
  • Fast and Factual
  • Between The Lines
  • Flashback
  • Live TV

Events

  • Raisina Dialogue
  • Independence Day
  • Champions Trophy
  • Delhi Elections 2025
  • Budget 2025
  • US Elections 2024
  • Firstpost Defence Summit
  • Home
  • Tech
  • science
  • Genes renamed, guidelines revised to deal with MS Excel's overzealous 'date autocorrect' issue

Genes renamed, guidelines revised to deal with MS Excel's overzealous 'date autocorrect' issue

FP Trending • August 7, 2020, 12:54:39 IST
Whatsapp Facebook Twitter

The latest guidelines bring extra focus to how researchers can deal with ‘symbols that affect data handling and retrieval’.

Advertisement
Subscribe Join Us
Add as a preferred source on Google
Prefer
Firstpost
On
Google
Genes renamed, guidelines revised to deal with MS Excel's overzealous 'date autocorrect' issue

Many researchers including genetics researchers around the world use Microsoft Excel to store and analyse data. Apart from schedules and tables, it is also a handy tool to list down different genes in the human body, and record information from research in genetics. However, an automatic formatting function in the Excel application continuously decoded gene names as dates. The error caused serious problems for many genetics researchers in terms of the time cost a researcher has to put in to correct these errors. For example, if a certain gene was named “DEC4”, Excel was decoding it to be 4-Dec, as in 4 December. While there is no option to train Excel to stop making the change, it’s undoubtedly tiring for any scientist to go through the entire document, and manually undo the default changes for large science researches. Microsoft suggests insertion of apostrophe or space in front of the number. However, when it comes to genes and nomenclature, researchers might not have that liberty. [caption id=“attachment_6373391” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”] ![First species made from artificially-constructed DNA, Caulobacter ethensis-2.0. Image: ETH Zurich](https://images.firstpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/First-synthetic-life-form_ETH-Zurich.jpg) Genes have been renames and new guidelines issued to combat the “Excel date” issues geneticists deal with. Image Credit: ETH Zurich[/caption] So the HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee (HGNC) has published new guidelines for human gene naming. HGNC is the scientific body which is authorized to “approve and implement standardized human gene symbols and names. The body has given extra care with its latest rule book to deal with “symbols that affect data handling and retrieval.” The new guidelines were published in Nature on 3 August 2020, and threw light on the Excel issue. Earlier, there was a legitimate gene named MARCH1 [short for Membrane Associated Ring-CH-Type 1], to which scientists can now insert another symbol in between to preventing Excel from reformatting the gene name. So the gene becomes MARCHF1, where F is short for an otherwise unnecessary “Finger” at the end of the name, and before “1”. Talking about how problematic MS Excel posed to be, Dezső Módos, a systems biologist at the Quadram Institute in the United Kingdom, spoke with The Verge. “It’s really, really annoying,” he said, adding that the issue was very widespread what with Excel being the first choice for many researchers for its tantamount usefulness apart from the said issue. “It’s a widespread tool and if you are a bit computationally illiterate you will use it”.

Tags
science gene MS Excel Biologist
End of Article
Latest News
Find us on YouTube
Subscribe
End of Article

Top Stories

Charlie Kirk, shot dead in Utah, once said gun deaths are 'worth it' to save Second Amendment

Charlie Kirk, shot dead in Utah, once said gun deaths are 'worth it' to save Second Amendment

From governance to tourism, how Gen-Z protests have damaged Nepal

From governance to tourism, how Gen-Z protests have damaged Nepal

Did Russia deliberately send drones into Poland’s airspace?

Did Russia deliberately send drones into Poland’s airspace?

Netanyahu ‘killed any hope’ for Israeli hostages: Qatar PM after Doha strike

Netanyahu ‘killed any hope’ for Israeli hostages: Qatar PM after Doha strike

Charlie Kirk, shot dead in Utah, once said gun deaths are 'worth it' to save Second Amendment

Charlie Kirk, shot dead in Utah, once said gun deaths are 'worth it' to save Second Amendment

From governance to tourism, how Gen-Z protests have damaged Nepal

From governance to tourism, how Gen-Z protests have damaged Nepal

Did Russia deliberately send drones into Poland’s airspace?

Did Russia deliberately send drones into Poland’s airspace?

Netanyahu ‘killed any hope’ for Israeli hostages: Qatar PM after Doha strike

Netanyahu ‘killed any hope’ for Israeli hostages: Qatar PM after Doha strike

Top Shows

Vantage Firstpost America Firstpost Africa First Sports
Latest News About Firstpost
Most Searched Categories
  • Web Stories
  • World
  • India
  • Explainers
  • Opinion
  • Sports
  • Cricket
  • Tech/Auto
  • Entertainment
  • IPL 2025
NETWORK18 SITES
  • News18
  • Money Control
  • CNBC TV18
  • Forbes India
  • Advertise with us
  • Sitemap
Firstpost Logo

is on YouTube

Subscribe Now

Copyright @ 2024. Firstpost - All Rights Reserved

About Us Contact Us Privacy Policy Cookie Policy Terms Of Use
Home Video Shorts Live TV