● http://www.imb-jena.de/RNA.html

If you're looking for information about RNA, head for the RNA World Website. Set up and maintained by the Institute for Molecular Biology in Jena, Germany, this site does a sterling job of bringing together RNA-related web resources to make the search for relevant information much easier. The site has been updated fairly recently, although this is more than can be said for several of the entries that it links to — probably the only major disadvantage of the site. However, divided into six subcategories, the site should still have something for everyone.

Take, for example, the Books and Tutorials subcategory. For non-specialists, there are five tutorials on ribosomes that provide general structural and functional overviews using a combination of clear diagrams and text. Among other useful topics selected for tutorials are RNA splicing, RNA and DNA as catalysts, and RNA interference (RNAi). The timely RNAi tutorials provide not only an overview of this approach, but also offer informative — protocols.

Valuable information is also available within the Software subcategory. Here, various software is available, including programs that predict RNA structures and RNA movies, which “create the impression of an RNA molecule exploring its own 2D structure space”. Within 'Sequences, Secondary Structures and Other', you can gain access to the RNA Editing Web Site, whereas in 'Databases and Web Tools', you can learn all about the geometrical features of DNA — from A to Z.