Anyone with an interest in molecular biology will probably have heard of Southern blots, northern blots and western blots, used to analyse DNA, RNA and proteins, respectively. Eastern blots, on the other hand, will be found ranked alongside fairies, unicorns, and a free lunch. They don’t exist. Or rather, they didn’t until Yukihiro Shoyama and colleagues at Kyushu University, Japan, claimed to have developed one.
