Today at UC Davis - Joe Derisi "A Seminar in Two Acts: Honey bees and Malaria"

So psyched for today's talk by the one and only Joe Derisi (who I have written about here before).

Monday, January 09th, 2011 in the Genome Center auditorium 1005 starting at 10 a.m. on two different genomics stories, entitled "A Seminar in Two Acts: Honey bees and Malaria".

Press release from De Gruyter regarding acquisition of Versita re #OpenAccess

This press release may be of interest to those interested in Open Access publishing so I am posting it here:


De Gruyter acquires Versita and becomes third-biggest international Open Access publisher

Berlin, January 9, 2012

De Gruyter, the Berlin-based academic publishing company, is acquiring the publisher Versita. As a service provider to academic organizations and bodies, Versita publishes over 230 journals on Open Access basis, i.e. outside the traditional subscription model. With this acquisition De Gruyter is substantially increasing its presence in an important future market of academic publishing. The complete staff of Versita is being retained in this take-over.

“The purchase of Versita is a logical continuation of our publishing strategy of recent years, which involves giving both our authors and our customers an optimum range of publishing options”, says Dr. Sven Fund, the Managing Director of De Gruyter. “For us, the most important issue is that our publications have high-quality content, and not how they are financed.”

Draft post cleanup #11: Tree Hugging

Yet another post in my "draft blog post cleanup" series.  Here is #11 from September.

Just a quick one.  In August a nice review paper came out on phylogenetic analysis software: Learning to Become a Tree Hugger | The Scientist.  By Amy Maxmen it is a "A guide to free software for constructing and assessing species relationships".  Definitely worth checking out.

SPAM conference anyone

Just got this email.  Could be a real conference but am sick of getting SPAM advertising it.   I note - the emails look a lot like the ones I get from Bentham publishers.  I wonder if they are working together or just use the same email service?

Dr.J.A.Eisen

Department of Evolution and Ecology

Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology University of California Davis Genome Center University of California Davis Davis

CA

United States

Woohoo - my kids are doing their 1st chemistry experiment (well 1st formal one)

Woohoo - my kids are doing their 1st chemistry experiment (well 1st formal one)

Draft post cleanup #10: trip to LA artificially sweetened by Carolyn de la Peña

Yet another post in my "draft blog post cleanup" series.  Here is #10:

Went on a mini trip to UCLA for a mini meeting in November. It seemed appropriate that I brought with me to Los Angeles, land of empty pleasures - the new book from UC Davis Professor Carolyn de la Peña - "Empty Pleasures" on the history of artificial sweeteners. So I took a picture of the book overlooking part of LA from my hotel room:

The book is great read by the way ...

Announcement: Workshop on Multiple Sequence Alignment and Phylogeny Estimation

Posting this for Tandy Warnow

Workshop on Advances in Multiple Sequence Alignment and Phylogeny Estimation

May 20 and 21, 2012, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC

The workshop is funded by the National Science Foundation through grant DEB 0733029 to the University of Texas. Registration is required, and attendance is limited to 40 participants. The workshop will include presentations of new methods for multiple sequence alignment and phylogeny estimation, also training in the use of these methods, and personal assistance in analyzing datasets using the SATé software (see this page). Applications for the workshop (and for travel support) are due by February 15, 2012, and will be responded to by March 1. We expect to be able to provide support to all attendees. Please click here for the application form. For more information, please send an email to Tandy Warnow (see below).

Letter from Tandy explaining workshop:

Draft post cleanup #9: Open Access spam from Bentham

Yet another post in my "draft blog post cleanup" series.  Here is #9; from June 2008.  It can in a way be viewed as an extension of my post from a few days ago about Bentham.  Here is what I wrote in 2008:

OK, I know I am supposed to be supportive of Open Access journals, just because a journal is OA does not mean it is OK. Take "The Open Evolution Journal." being published by Bentham.

On paper, this could be a useful contribution to the list of OA journals. They have some good people on their Editorial Board and I am glad to see such a big list of people in Evolution seemingly supporting OA publishing.

And Bentham is certainly doing the OA talk and pushing OA as a major option for their publications. In fact, they might be pushing OA a bit too much. For example, in their letter to me they say

All published open access articles will receive massive international exposure and as is usually the case for open access publications, articles will also receive high citations.

Hmm. A bit over the top no? I love OA mind you. But OA in and of itself does not guarantee citations and exposure.

YHGTBFKM: Ecological Society of America letter regarding #OpenAccess is disturbing

Wow -- I am really disturbed by the letter the Ecological Society of America (ESA) has written to the White House OSTP in regard to Open Access publishing. (For some background see Dear Representatives Issa and Maloney - Are you kidding me? Stop this bill now #ClosedAccess and Calling on Publishers to Resign from The Association of American Publishers Re Anti-Open Access Stance).

In the letter they make many statements that bother me deeply including:

However, it is important to note that there is a significant difference between research results and peer-reviewed publications.

Really - how are they different exactly?

Publishers such as ESA have a long record of reporting, analyzing and interpreting federally funded research.

OMG - seriously?  Apparently ESA is doing the analyzing and reporting and interpreting.  Not the scientists writing the papers.  But the publisher.  Seriously.  This is completely ridiculous.

It is not appropriate for the federal government to expropriate the additional value publishers add to research results.

They can't be serious.  This is not expropriation in any way.  This is the trying to guarantee that research taxpayers have paid for - that is done by scientists that taxpayers pay the salaries of - is not then published in a way that forces the taxpayers to pay for it again.

Furthermore, subscription revenue helps to support other Society services, including scientific conferences, education programs, and the distribution of science information resources to policymakers and the public.

So now what they are saying is that the government should hand them money via subscription fees so that they can then carry out some services they think are important.  How about this - how about the ESA applies for peer reviewed grants to fund their activities so that these can be reviewed by others.  As it is ESA can do whatever it wants with that money - being fed to it without any peer review - via indirect costs and grant money.

Papers published in ESA journals may therefore be just as relevant in several years as they are today, which means that any potential embargo period will do little to mitigate the financial losses that would result from full open access.

So - the justification here for not making ecological articles available is that they are MORE important over time?  So the taxpayers pays for research that is valuable and because it is valuable over time we should make it less freely available?  Seriously?

And here is the best one:

One way to make taxpayer funded research more visible and accessible to interested members of the public would be to require federally-funded grantees to provide a second version of the research summaries they already prepare, specifically for the lay reader. To aid in online searches, these summaries could also include the source of federal funding institutions and grant numbers. Publishers could also include grant information in paper abstracts which are usually available without a subscription.

That is right, they are suggesting that scientists write a second paper to go with their science papers that would be for the lay reader.  And that these summaries could include grant IDs to help in online searches.  WTF?  So now rather than making the actual scientific papers available they are proposing that scientists write a second paper because lay people would not be able to understand the first paper?  And what about scientists who want to read the papers but are at small institutions?  And never mind that "open access" is not just about money - it is also about "freedom" in the usage of published material.

The ESA has really gone off the deep end on this.  I note - I am in full support of companies and publishers making money.  I am also generally against government regulations.  But this issue is about taxpayers rights, government waste, and the progress of science.  It is simply inexcusable for the government to not use taxpayer money judiciously.


If the government pays for the research, pays for the research supplies, pays the salaries of researchers and peer reviewers, then it is unacceptable that publishers would then limit access to papers and force taxpayers to pay for them again.

The ESA basically is saying "taxpayers should be required to subsidize us".

Or - another way to look at this - ESA is saying: "Taxpayers - we want your money -but you are too stupid to understand what we are doing with it."

Ridiculous.

Hat tip to Karen Cranston for pointing this out.

Some responses to this post:

@phylogenomics Ecologists against public access to peer reviewed publications johnhawks.net/node/28402 <-- Not ecologists; lobbyists.
— Mike Taylor (@SauropodMike) January 7, 2012

@phylogenomics ESA seems to mimic AAA arguments against #openAccess from 5 years ago alexandriaarchive.org/blog/?p=840#ES…
— Eric Kansa (@ekansa) January 7, 2012

YHGTBFKM: Ecological Society of America letter regarding #OpenAccess is disturbing - bit.ly/AAfbEj disgusting/insulting, more like
— Glyn Moody (@glynmoody) January 7, 2012

RT @drcraigmc: Really shocked by this: Ecological Society of America letter regarding #OpenAccess is disturbing shar.es/WJuK3
— Carly Strasser (@carlystrasser) January 7, 2012

Yes, disturbing, to say the least! YHGTBFKM: Ecological Society of America letter regarding #OpenAccess is disturbing shar.es/WJkdI
— Madhusudan Katti (@leafwarbler) January 7, 2012

@carlystrasser @drcraigmc That is bad. I hate in when professional societies put their revenue models ahead of their members interests.
— Eric Kansa (@ekansa) January 7, 2012

Wow, scientists being downright merchant bankers about their revenue streams & tax-funded research: phylogenomics.blogspot.com/2012/01/yhgtbf… via @mattblaze
— Lee Alley (@lee_alley) January 7, 2012

"We want your money, but you're too stupid to understand what we're doing with it." phylogenomics.blogspot.com/2012/01/yhgtbf… #openaccess
— Michael Ekstrand (@elehack) January 7, 2012

#OA without programmatic access? So wrong. Publishers, make money while *making your product useful*, would you? bit.ly/AsHetK
— Heather Piwowar (@researchremix) January 7, 2012

Academics against open access: bit.ly/Albjqt. And a response: bit.ly/wa7tiP
— Kenan Malik (@kenanmalik) January 7, 2012

Why doesn't the Ecological Society of America allow their Open Access content to be text mined? wp.me/p22qQ8-22 via @wordpressdotcom
— Scott Chamberlain (@recology_) January 7, 2012

Still think science and politics don't mix?... fb.me/W58YnJVK
— Dr. Kiki Sanford (@drkiki) January 6, 2012

Open Access and Ecologists

Draft post cleanup #8: Don't let a hospital kill you - CNN.com

Yet another post in my "draft blog post cleanup" series.  Here is #8 from 5-1-2008
------------------

Saw an interesting article today on CNN.Com: Don't let a hospital kill you - CNN.com.  It has some useful suggestions for how to protect yourself from infection in a hospital.  In many cases we have an excessive fear of germs which can be a bad thing.  But in hospitals, staying clean is almost certainly a good idea ...

Go PLOS Biology - getting lots of press coverage for recent pubs

Just got this email from PLoS Biology and thought I would share - it has links to press coverage of recent PLoS Bio papers  :


We are writing to update you on some papers recently published in PLoS Biology.This is a summary of our recent media coverage for PLoS Biology board members, friends, and for editors. Thank you again for your support of the journal.

On January 3, PLoS Biology published an article by Prof. Alex Rogers et al., which detailed a survey of Antarctic waters along the East Scotia Ridge in the Southern Ocean, revealing a new vent biogeographic province among previously uncharacterized deep-sea hydrothermal vent communities. This received significant coverage in the media, a selection of which is below:

BBC
The New York Times
The Guardian
Washington Post

Calling on Publishers to Resign from The Association of American Publishers Re Anti-Open Access Stance

Well, much has been said recently about the ickyness of a new bill in Congress that is targeting open access publishing.

For more about how this new "Research Works Act" is a bad idea see

• Elsevier-funded NY Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney Wants to Deny Americans Access to Taxpayer Funded Research from my brother Michael Eisen
• Why Is Open-Internet Champion Darrell Issa Supporting an Attack on Open Science? from Rebecca Rosen at the Atlantic
• Peter Suber on Google Plus Yesterday  New bill to block open access to publicly-funded research
• Tim O'Reilly on Google Plus: Regulatory Capture at Work

And many more.  

I think a key aspect of this bill is the disturbing support for it from the The Association of American Publishers.  Now, this association includes many you might expect to be in favor of an anti open access bill, like Elsevier and Disney and Wiley and Macmillan.  But it also includes many publishers I would not have expected to see supporting this bill such as the University of California Press and MIT Press and there National Science Teachers Association   The full list of members of AAP is here.  I think it is clearly time for the Academic community to pressure groups to abandon AAP as suggested by John Dupais: Scholarly Societies: It's time to abandon the AAP over The Research Works Act

I therefore am calling on the academic and scientific communities to look at the list of members of AAP and if one of them is an institution with which you have any affiliation please call on them to drop themselves from the membership list.  I will be doing this for the UC Press ASAP ...

UPDATE

Just discovered a similar but much more detailed call from Cameron Neylon.

UPDATE2

See my post from 2007 calling for a boycott of AAP over their inane "PRISM" effort

Dear Representatives Issa and Maloney - Are you kidding me? Stop this bill now #ClosedAccess

Should the results of research funded by taxpayer money be freely available? Apparently two in Congress think no - Darrell Issa and Carolyn Maloney have cosponsored a bill that would reverse the NIH open access policies.

Why would they do this? Well, if you follow the money, you can see that they are well supported by Elsevier - one of the publishers vehemently against open access to scientific research results.

For more on this see

• Elsevier-funded NY Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney Wants to Deny Americans Access to Taxpayer Funded Research from my brother Michael Eisen http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=807
• Why Is Open-Internet Champion Darrell Issa Supporting an Attack on Open Science? from Rebecca Rosen at the Atlantic http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/01/why-is-open-internet-champion-darrell-issa-supporting-an-attack-on-open-science/250929/
• New bill to block open access to publicly-funded research from Peter Suber https://plus.google.com/u/0/109377556796183035206/posts/QYAH1jSJG6L
• Scholarly Societies: It's time to abandon the AAP over The Research Works Act from John Dupais http://scienceblogs.com/confessions/2012/01/scholarly_societies_its_time_t.php

Draft post cleanup #7: Scamming Pubmed Central Deposition Rules

Yet another post in my "draft blog post cleanup" series.  Here is #7, from February this year.

I continue to be a bit annoyed by the Pubmed Central system for depositing your own papers there.  Well, actually, not annoyed with the existence of the system.  But am annoyed that you can only do it if you have an NIH grant ID associated with the paper you are depositing.  I am tempted to set up a system for sharing NIH grant IDs that would allow non NIH funded researchers to scam the system and to get their papers into Pubmed Central.  Almost certainly, people at NIH would not like this, but not sure whether this would be considered "illegal" or just "annoying".

And I am still unclear as to why Pubmed does this.  Genbank is NIH funded but will take sequences from any researcher no matter the source of funding for the work.  Anyway - I have not set up a NIH grant ID sharing system but if you want to submit an article to Pubmed Central and do not have an NIH grant ID, you might want to just ask someone who has one for a grant covering a similar topic at a similar time period.  I do not think NIH would figure out that the grant did not actually fund your work.  And you could even use the NIH grant search engine that pops up when you use the manuscript submission system or search Pubmed directly.  Not that I would recommend anyone break their rules or anything like that.

Bentham publisher - so wrong in some many ways #SPAM

I have written about Bentham - that Spam bots of science publishing before.   Got an email from them today - it is wrong in so many ways.  I thought I would just post it here - and let people judge for themselves but am a bit wary of calling attention to them and putting out any of their message.  So I am going to put out mine

BENTHAM - LEAVE ME THE $&%#@ ALONE

And if that is not enough for you, how about reading Richard Poynder's piece on them from four years ago.  Seems they have not changed a bit.

Vote early/often for #DavisCA house Holiday lights, help win $100K for Davis schools

Just a quick request for Davis folks or fans ... there is a vote going on for best Holiday light display and a house in Davis is one of the finalists with the winner getting $100,000 for their local public schools. It would be great to get some more votes ... See http://deckthehouse.patch.com/entry/229605 to vote (you will need a Facebook account).

And I note you can vote 1x/ day ... so vote early and often.

Draft post cleanup #6 from 2005: Hydrogen producing microbe mea culpa

Yet another post in my "draft blog post cleanup" series.  Here is #6. From 2005. (Yes, the bottom of my draft list).  In fact, this would have been my second blog post if I had posted it ...

I had written

OK, so a few months ago we published a paper on a hydrogen producing microbe and issued a press release. I think the paper we published was pretty cool - lots of interesting science.

Then we (me and our public affairs person) wrote a press release about the project. We were fortunate enough to have the press release picked up by all sorts of bloggers and web commentary groups. Examples include Softpedia (article here) and probably most importantly Slashdot.

Wow - Sacramento Zoo Education Team incredibly impressive

Went to the Sacramento Zoo yesterday with my brother, our wives, and our kids.  We met up there at 2:15 PM because my brother's 2 year old daughter is obsessed with orangutans and there was a educational talk scheduled for 2:15.

The talk was impressive and when it was over and the Zoo "Animal Ambassador" team started heading to the anteaters, well, we followed them.  And then, when that was over, we followed them to the clearing near the reptile house where they did an outdoor show with their Harris Hawk Saguaro.

The woman leading the show was one of the best public-science-education speakers I have ever seen.  Really.  She had a perfect temperament, explained complex topics, showed incredible respect to children asking bizarre questions, and showed a deep respect for the hawk that really blew me away (they realized that their activities with the hawk had been too repetitive and that it was getting bored so they were trying many new things to diversify it's life, for example).  We lingered and lingered soaking up everything she was doing.  I wish I could remember her name to give her extra props but I will figure it out.

Here are some pics --- most by me, some by my brother

Draft post cleanup #5: Best Science Paper Endings Award: Linking the Kama Sutra & Amoebas

OK - I am cleaning out my draft blog post list.  I start many posts and don't finish them and then they sit in the draft section of blogger.  Well, I am going to try to clean some of that up by writing some mini posts.  Here is #5:

I was reading an article on MSNBC: Amoebas: Sexier than anyone knew - Technology & science - Science - LiveScience - msnbc.com

The article discusses a paper: "The chastity of amoebae: re-evaluating evidence for sex in amoeboid organisms" from the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.  The paper is freely available and it is definitely scientifically interesting.  But the last sentence is phenomenal and deserves some sort of prize

"When discussing the sex of amoeboid protists, the existing evidence does not evoke chastity but rather Kama Sutra"

So I am starting a new award here - the "Best Science Paper Endings Award"

If only scientists were as important as Rupert Murdoch

(CNN) -- A synthetic life scandal may have cost J. Craig Venter the nobel prize in medicine in 2011, but the maverick science mogul managed to end the year with a modest addition to his empire -- an account on Twitter.

Within 48 hours of debuting with tweets about family, work and his dogs, Venter had pulled in more than 5,000 followers and stirred internet debate over why the 60-year-old was now embracing a technology often used to attack him.

The tweets also raised doubts that the notorious technophobe was writing the messages himself. Science writer Carl Zimmer -- one of only eleven people being followed by Venter -- however insisted that the media mogul was writing "with his own voice, in his own way."

Venter appears to have made his Twitter debut some time ago but with the new year many are waiting anxiously for more posts with insight into his maverick lifestyle.

This is very cool: CrowdoMeter - consider signing in and participating

Just was catching up on PLoS Blogs which I do not read enough (some great stuff there).

And I discovered a really spectacular project described my Martin Fenner: CrowdoMeter – or trying to understand tweets about journal papers | Gobbledygook

Basically, this is an effort to crowdsource annotation of tweets about scientific papers. It is pretty simple - go to their website, sign in with a twitter ID, and start classifying. You can search for specific terms in the search bar, including "I'm feeling lucky" which will give you random tweets to classify. I first searched for evolution and four tweets came up. And then I played around with some other searches and I classified a few tweets. Not sure exactly where this is going but it is a cool idea and I will find out more at Science Online 2012 and will report back.

Draft post cleanup #4: Gut microbes and cancer

Yet another post in my "draft blog post cleanup" series.  Here is #4:

Interesting article in the Scientist August 1, 2011:
Sharing the Bounty | The Scientist by Michelle Rooks and Wendy Garrett.

It is based on an article from the journal F1000 reports by the same authors.

The article in essence reviews other studies that suggest a possible link between microbes in one's gut and the risk of development of certain cancers.  It is worth a look.

See abstract below:

Draft post cleanup #3: The Open Knowledge Foundation

Yet another post in my "draft blog post cleanup" series.  Here is #3 from just a few weeks ago:

Interesting article in PLoS Biology:  PLoS Biology: The Open Knowledge Foundation: Open Data Means Better Science.  It discusses many issues in open science especially as they relate to open data.

Some links from this paper are worth checking out

• http://www.opendefinition.org/okd/
• http://science.okfn.org/About/
• http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/bethe​sda.htm
• http://sciencecommons.org/projects/publi​shing/open-access-data-protocol/
• http://www.pantonprinciples.org/
• http://www.isitopendata.org/

This article reminds me that I keep meaning to push for the development of a "Datawatch" system much like the "RetractionWatch" systems of Ivan Oransky. I have discussed this with Ivan but we have not yet gotten around to doing it ... 

Note @David_Dobbs @mbeisen had nice family PM yesterday watching wrapup of 2004 ALCS @David_Dobbs @mbeisen

Note @David_Dobbs @mbeisen had nice family PM yesterday watching wrapup of 2004 ALCS @David_Dobbs @mbeisen

Draft blog post cleanup #2: Metagenomics meets animals

OK - I am cleaning out my draft blog post list.  I start many posts and don't finish them and then they sit in the draft section of blogger.  Well, I am going to try to clean some of that up by writing some mini posts.  Here is #2:

Saw an interesting story on Genome Web: 'Denizens' of the Deep | The Daily Scan | GenomeWeb.  I have not been able to get the original article yet, but it seems that what they have done can basically be considered metagenomics for animals.  They collected sloughed off cells and other material from a lake and surveyed it for animal DNA.  This seems like a very cool derivative of metagenomic approaches and has enormous potential.  But alas, I never got down to getting access to the paper: Monitoring endangered freshwater biodiversity using environmental DNA so this will have to stay as a mini post.  Damn non open access journals ...

Draft blog post cleanup #1: Divide and Conquer to Find Orthologs

OK - I am cleaning out my draft blog post list.  I start many posts and don't finish them and then they sit in the draft section of blogger.  Well, I am going to try to clean some of that up by writing some mini posts.  Here is the first ---

Saw an interesting paper worth checking out:
PLoS ONE: Calculating Orthologs in Bacteria and Archaea: A Divide and Conquer Approach

UC Davis Chancellor putting increased emphasis on communications

Just got this email announcement and I thought I would share.  As many know, in the aftermath of the pepper spray incident, whether you support the UC Davis Chancellor or not, it was pretty clear that communications regarding the incident were, well, poor at best.  Hopefully this will improve things.  Of course, action is more important than communication --- but I am glad to see the Chancellor responding to communication issues ---

Dear Colleagues, 
  
I write to inform you about additional actions that I am taking immediately to strengthen Strategic Communications. These steps will help us address needs and challenges facing UC Davis today while preparing us to take advantage of opportunities that lie ahead. 

Top 10 Humorous Science Videos of the Year

I was starting to compile a Top 10 list of best humorous Science-related videos of the year.  And I got stuck on #1 because it is so so so good.  But I was able to find some others I liked (and listed them in no particular order)... so here goes.  If you know of other good ones please post/tweet ...

1. Bad Project video from the Zheng lab.  This is simply awesome.

2. Top 10 quirky science tricks for parties.  I found out about this from Twitter ... and it is very good.

If you subscribe to the NY Times - you might want to cancel to get their secret discount

Just got this email

Dear New York Times Reader, 


You may have received an e-mail today from The New York Times with the subject line “Important information regarding your subscription." 


This e-mail was sent by us in error. Please disregard the message. We apologize for any confusion this may have caused. 


Sincerely,


The New York Times

Which then caused me to go back to my trash and read the previous one:

Dear Potential Post Doc or PhD Student - top10 ways to get a position in my lab

Dear Candidate (for any type of position in my lab)

I thought I would write a letter to you to help guide you in how to apply for a position in my lab.  Here are some suggestions for things that really help out - based on real emails I note ...

1. Describe your interests by copying text from my web site.  This shows that you are not only able to read, but also able to either copy directly or retype what you have read.  It is very appealing.
2. Get my name or institution wrong in some way.  This shows that you are likely being industrious in applying for lots of jobs.
3. Include attachments that do not open on Macs. Screw Steve Jobs and all of his fans.
4. Send the same email multiple times - once to Prof. Eisen at UC Davis, once to Dr. Eisen at JGI, and once to Prof. Eisen from the "Genome Center at UC Davis."  Repetition is an important literary technique. 
5. Refer to the "reputation" of my group without saying anything specific about what interests you.  I love things based on reputation alone.
6. Describe your background as very relevant to our work and then say that you too have focused extensively on microarray based studies of gene expression (I love stealing candidates whose original goal was to work in my brother's lab).
7. Have no publications but a list of more than 10 as "in preparation".
8. Include viruses in attachments - as I am interested in evolution of microbes this is appealing.
9. Express an interest in biological weapons and biological defense and be from a terrorism sponsoring country.
10. Have the original email message be more than four pages long with dozens of questions for me about my institution and my open positions.

Some links worth checking out regarding suppressing publishing and bioterrorism

Just a quick one here with some links worth checking out regarding the recent discussion of suppressing some parts of a paper on engineering flu viruses

• Fearing Bioterrorism, Government Panel Asks: What Research Should Be Secret? | PBS NewsHour | Dec. 22, 2011 | PBS
• Stop the presses! H5N1 Frankenflu is going to kill us all! by Michael Eisen at "It is not junk"
• Strain Game by Carl Zimmer at Slate
• The Trouble with Scientific Secrets by Michael Spector at the New Yorker
• Seeing Terror Risk, US Asks Journals to Cut Flu Study Facts - NY Times
• AM Vitals: Figuring Out How to Handle Access to Bird-Flu Data by  Katherine Hobson

Reminder - Monthly Omics Office Hours at #UCDavis Genome Center - Schedule

For those at UC Davis interested in learning a bit about various omics issues - this may be of interest:

Omics Office Hour 2012 — UC Davis Genome Center

Email from the responsible parties:

Email regarding UC Davis Academic Senate Special Committee re: Pepper Spray

Posting for anyone interested (email from Linda Bisson - Chair of UC Davis Academic Senate)


Dear Colleagues:

There was an issue with the set up of the email address for the Special Committee that has now been corrected by IT. If you sent an email to the committee prior to Wednesday December 21st,  we request that you send it again. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Linda

A few tweets about open science for the non twitterati

Just posting a few tweets of mine regarding open science - for those who do not follow me on twitter. Each of the four stories linked to below are worth a look.

phylogenomics "A blogger's quest to replicate 'arsenic life' led to a remarkable experiment in open science." #ILOVEROSIE http://t.co/s1qBKpvW 12/22/11 6:37 AM

phylogenomics Open and Shut?: The Open Access Interviews: OMICS Publishing Group’s Srinu Babu Gedela http://t.co/AZyCqx4C #Wow 12/20/11 8:05 A

phylogenomics Must read of the week: Goodbye F1000, Hello Faculty of a Million from @caseybergman http://t.co/wwwO3061 12/19/11 9:02 AM

phylogenomics What does Creative Commons mean for science? (Wired UK) http://t.co/77wmWzv2 12/16/11 4:39 AM

The must have job of 2012: Faculty position in Evolution of Organismal Diversity at #UCDavis

The must have job of 2012 - a faculty position in my Department at UC Davis.  It is a GREAT department both scientifically (UC Davis is consistently ranked as having one of the best Evolution/Ecology programs in the country) and personally (the faculty, staff and students are great to be around).  See below for more information.  I am happy to give people any details of the Department, School, campus, etc if you are interested.

---

EVOLUTION OF ORGANISMAL DIVERSITY, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, DAVIS 


The College of Biological Sciences, University of California, Davis invites applications and nominations for a tenure-track position in the Department of Evolution and Ecology at the ASSISTANT Professor level, with the possibility of ASSOCIATE appointment with tenure. Candidates must have a Ph.D. (or equivalent) in the biological sciences or related fields. 


They should have a strong record of integrative approaches to the evolution of organismal diversity. We seek candidates with expertise in the organismal biology/natural history of a multicellular group, and whose research uses genomic data in an explicitly phylogenetic context to address questions in macroevolution, ecology, behavior and/or development. The successful candidate will be expected to teach in the department's undergraduate program and in the Population Biology Graduate Group and should be committed to departmental service. 


Applicants should submit materials online at this site which contains additional information about the position. Materials required include: curriculum vitae, description of current and projected research, summary of teaching interests and experience, and up to five publications. Applicants should also provide the information requested for three referees. Once entered, referees will be prompted by email with upload instructions for their letters. 


Closing Date: Open until filled, but all application materials, including letters of recommendation, must be received by February 6, 2012, to assure full consideration. 


Administrative contact: Carla Munoz (camunoz@ucdavis.edu). 


Faculty contacts: Peter Wainwright, Michael Turelli, and Rick Grosberg. 


The University of California is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer with a strong institutional commitment to the development of a climate that supports equality of opportunity and respect for differences.

PROMED-MAIL - Nice resource to keep up with stories on outbreaks of infectious disease

For those interested in outbreaks of infectious diseases (which I assume is actually everyone in the world) - there is a nice resource out there called PROMED-MAIL.  It comes from the International Society for Infectious Diseases and it catalogs some recent stories from around the world on outbreaks.  It is worth checking out.  And if you like it, they are trying to raise some funds to keep it going with an Internet-A-Thon so consider donating ...

Some recent stories I found there:

• Lassa fever - Ghana: (AH, EP) susp.
• Babesiosis - USA (02): nationwide survey, background
• Dengue/DHF update 2011 (50)
• Avian influenza, human (73): China, live poultry markets
• Hand, foot & mouth disease - Viet Nam (07): travel alert

And more ... fun for the whole family