There are also options for searching, transcription, and translation

  * parsing BLAST output: 

This is an example function that extracts pretty much everything from the blast records object. To see all options, use `dir(NCBIXML.parse)`, or check the help: `help(NCBIXML.parse)`

count = 0
for blast_record in blast_records:
    print "printing header stuff"
    print "blast_record.query", blast_record.query
    print "blast_record.query_letters", blast_record.query_letters
    print "printing descriptions"        
    print "printing descriptions"
    for description in blast_record.descriptions:
        print "description.title", description.title
        print "description.score", description.score #I think this is the best score
        print "description.e", description.e #I think this is the best e-value
        print "num_alignments", description.num_alignments #number of alignments per query
    print "printing alignments"
    for alignment in blast_record.alignments:
        print "alignment.title", alignment.title
        print "alignment.length", alignment.length
        print "printing hsps"
        for hsp in alignment.hsps: #Multiple hits means multiple hsps 
            print "hsp.align_length", hsp.align_length
    
            print "hsp.score", hsp.score
            print "hsp.bits", hsp.bits
            print "hsp.expect", hsp.expect
            print "hsp.num_alignments", hsp.num_alignments
            print "hsp.identities", hsp.identities
            print "hsp.positives", hsp.positives
            print "hsp.gaps", hsp.gaps
            print "hsp.strand", hsp.strand
            print "hsp.frame", hsp.frame
            print "hsp.query", hsp.query
            print "hsp.query_start", hsp.query_start
            print "hsp.query_end", hsp.query_end
            print "hsp.match", hsp.match
            print "hsp.sbjct", hsp.sbjct
            print "hsp.sbjct_start", hsp.sbjct_start
            print "hsp.sbjct_end", hsp.sbjct_end
    print "-----------------------------------"      

result_handle.close()
return

  * Running BLAST locally (on your machine as opposed to over the web)

Note: this won't work unless you install [blast+](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/guide/howto/run-blast-local/) and then add the blast+ directory to your PATH.