nodalpoint.org

Nature Publishing Group are organising a workshop on science blogging, this Saturday 30th August 2008 at the Royal Institution of Great Britain in London. Why would you care? Because there are:

1. Lots of interesting people...
2. ...talking about a range of interesting subjects ...
3. .. in a distinguished venue that has recently been refurbished. It is also home to the fantastic Christmas lectures and much more besides.

To cap it all, I think it will be great fun too. So if you're going, see you there. If you're not, it is never too late to publish your fantasy science funding entry. Much of the conference will be televised and blogged, making it available online too.

Fantasy Science Funding is a fun game that anybody can play. You select a Science funding body of your choice, imagine yourself as its all powerful chief executive, and decide which areas of scientific research you would "hire and fire". What could be easier? Here is how Fantasy Science Funding works...

In a recent Science magazine article, Löytynoja-Goldman showed that all current Multiple Sequence Alignment algorithms – the bread-and-butter algorithm for biologists studying similarities in genes across different species – completely fail to detect independent insertions in the alignment of sequences, and thus, erroneously mismatches regions of evolutionary volatility. In their improved MSA algorithm, PRANK, they use history itself to improve the performance of this basic algorithm. [more...]

I'm not much of an evolutionary biologist, but Jonathan Eisen asked for help and I can't resist. So, in the name of Science, and via the goodness of nodalpoint, here is some deserved Google Juice for various Trees of Life on the Web.

• Jonathan Eisen's "Tree of Life" blog
• Tree of Life Web Project
• Tree of life (science) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• Green Tree of Life at Berkeley
• Fungal Tree of Life Project
• Beetle Tree of Life project
• Fly Tree of Life project
• Mammal Tree of Life project
• Cypriniformes Tree of Life project
• Liverwort Tree of Life Project
• Early Bird Tree of Life project
• Angiosperm Tree of Life project
• Cnidaria Tree of Life Project
• Decapoda Tree of Life Project

There, I've done my bit for Science, now it's your turn. Spread the ❤ link love ❤,and since we will soon be celebrating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, why not marvel at the coral / shrub / lungs of life too?

(CC-licensed Tree of Life picture by Phitar)

Hello, Just wondering if anyone on nodalpoint is in a position to help with gene hunting for cytochrome p450 genes in Maize (just for fun)?

Some more details at whether maize carries the protective cytochrome p450 or the “defective” version of the gene and Researchers Identify Genetic “Fix” for Problem in Some Sweet Corn Hybrids.

This is for a long lost friend of mine Jeremy Cherfas who is a biologist, but computer literate. He writes good books about the human genome (for example) and is just curious to do some experimental and exploratory bioinformatics, just for kicks but with a special interest in Agricultural Biodiversity.

Eureka Science News just launched - it's an intelligent science news aggregator based on machine learning (for classification) and clustering of recent news from all major science sources - I'm a microarray analyst, so I used the same techniques I use to cluster genes, but this time to cluster news! It's fun to use skills in other contexts - I hope you will enjoy the site!

Twenty one years ago this month, in May 1987, Irish rockers U2 released their classic Joshua Tree single, I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For. Those twenty one years have seen incredible technological change: the adoption of desktop computers, mobile phones, the birth of the Web and the widespread use of search engines like Google. So with sincere apologies to Bono, The Edge, Adam and Larry, it's time we updated the lyrics for the 21st century. So, I give you "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Googling For" (21st anniversary, 2008 webby edition)...

Scientists usually share information with collaborators from all around the world. For that purpose, eyeOS (www.eyeos.org) provides an invaluable system to access and share documents, create and save data files or store crucial personal and professional information.

To see eyeOS widely used by scientists all around the world, we initiated the eyeLIMS project ! eyeLIMS is a community-driven project which aims at providing a Free, web-based, Open Source Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) powered by eyeOS.

The Ensembl Weblog provides news, views and announcements about the Ensembl Genome Browser. The blog has been going for a few years now, but I’ve only just become aware of it thanks to a recent Ensembl Genome Browser Tutorial by Bert Overduin. Catching up on posts from Ensemblians this year, Ewan Birney wrote a piece about The Gene Love-in last week and Paul Flicek briefly described the 1000 Genomes project back in January. The Ensembl Weblog is fairly low traffic, so if you don’t already read it, it’s worth considering subscribing to the feed.

And it’s good to see more scientists using blogs to communicate. Long may this trend continue!

There are a few remaining places left on the Building Scientific Workflows for Bioinformatics and Systems biology using Taverna course held in Manchester, UK on 15th April 2008. Attendance at the workshop is free, but participants will have to cover their own travel costs. Due to the hands-on nature of the workshop, numbers are limited to 30, so there is a ‘first-come, first-serve’ policy on bookings. Book now to avoid disappointment!