BLAST

(noun)

In bioinformatics, Basic Local Alignment Search Tool, or BLAST, is an algorithm for comparing primary biological sequence information, such as the amino-acid sequences of different proteins or the nucleotides of DNA sequences.

Related Terms

Examples of BLAST in the following topics:

  • Vorticism

    • The Vorticists published two issues of the literary magazine BLAST, edited by Lewis, in June 1914 and July 1915 .
    • The cover of the 1915 BLAST demonstrates the Vorticist Movement's use of geometric style and sharp angles in print and design.
    • Lawrence Atkinson, one of the signatories of BLAST, painted The Lake (pen and watercolor on paper) circa 1915-20 inspired by Vorticism.

  • Genetic Defects from Radiation

    • The medical effects of a nuclear blast upon humans can be put into four categories:
    • Initial stage: the first 1–9 weeks; the period with the greatest number of deaths—90 percent due to thermal injury and/or blast effects and 10 percent due to super-lethal radiation exposure.

  • Steelmaking and Refining

    • Primary steelmaking uses mostly new iron as the feedstock, usually from a blast furnace.
    • Basic oxygen steelmaking is a method of primary steelmaking in which carbon-rich molten pig iron (the iron created in the blast furnace) is made into steel.
    • The process is based on a new type of blast furnace called a Cyclone Converter Furnace, which makes it possible to skip the process of manufacturing pig iron pellets, a necessary step in the basic oxygen steelmaking process.
    • The product of the blast furnace is pig iron, which contains 4-5 percent carbon and usually some silicon.

  • Online Sales Promotion

    • Emails blasts can reach thousands of potential buyers at one time.

  • The Transcontinental Railroads

    • Workers then built and prepared the roadbed; dug or blasted through hills; filled in washes; built trestles, bridges, or culverts across streams or valleys; made tunnels if needed; and laid the ties.
    • Tunnels were blasted through hard rock by drilling holes in the rock face by hand and filling them with black powder.
    • Sometimes cracks were found which could be filled with powder and blasted open.

  • The Haymarket Affair

    • The bomb blast and ensuing gunfire resulted in the deaths of seven police officers and at least four civilians, and the wounding of scores of others.
    • Witnesses maintain that immediately after the bomb blast there was an exchange of gunshots between police and demonstrators.

  • Korea, Communism, and the 1952 Election

    • Eisenhower the NATO commander and war hero narrowly defeated Taft, then crusaded against the Truman policies he blasted as "Korea, Communism and Corruption."
    • The Republicans blamed the Democrats for the military's failure to be fully prepared to fight in Korea; they accused the Democrats of "harboring" Communist spies within the federal government; and they blasted the Truman Administration for the numbers of officials who had been accused of various crimes.

  • The Brain and Personality

    • In 1858, Gage was working as a blasting foreman for a railroad company.
    • Due to a faulty blast, a railroad spike was blown through his head .

  • Clonal Selection and T-Cell Differentiation

  • Plant Pathogens

    • Magnaporthe grisea (causal agent of blast of rice and gray leaf spot in turfgrasses)