International Conference on Systems Biology - 2005

Most of the presentations on ICSB 2005 Conference are now available online.

California stem cell agency fights for life

It was a great news the Proposition 71 was backed by 59% of electorate. The proposition 71 authorized the agency, California Institute of Regenerative Medicine, to dole out an average of $300 million in research grants each year over 10 years. However, at least a couple of lawsuits are seeking to invalidate the creation of CIRM, which put the institute in trouble. Several scientists have to turn down Stanford offer, due to lack of funding that was supposed to come after the foudation of CIRM, but has not yet. From Yahoo SciNews.

Sad for the stem cell scientists.

Wikipedia

Wikipedia: The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit", and the project is described as "an effort to create and distribute a multilingual free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality to every single person on the planet in their own language."

Scale-free Network

In scale-free network, the very few network nodes (called "hubs") were far more connected than other nodes. The probability that a node connects with k other nodes was proportional to k^−γ, where γ is between 2 and 3. Many real networks fall in this group, such as Word Wide Web (Internet), protein-protein interaction, sexual partners in humans, social network and so on.
Barabási A.L. et al. wrote an review, named Scale-free networks, on Scientific American in 2003. Here is a general introduction on Wipipedia.

Hot microbiology! -Change your major now?

Current issue of Cell is a collection of hot topics in microbiology. Several interesting reviews focus on viruses, bacteria, and immunity. Apparently, it becomes easier to find a job with micro PhD than others. NIH fundings for micro were also increased though others were flattened-corret me if I am wrong.

Ten worst presentation habbits

Presentation skills are an essential not only for business elites, but also for biomedical researchers. Here BW (Businessweek) recently represented a good list of bad habbits. So check you own way of speaking in front of audience!

I cite the list brieftly,

• reading from notes
  
• avoiding eye contacts
  
• dressing down
  
• diggling, fidgeting, and swaying
  
• failure to rehearsal
  
• standing at attention
  
• speaking too long
  
• fail to excite
  
• end with an inspiration deficit

The Linux Documentation Project

The Linux Documentation Project: "TLDP is short for The Linux Documentation Project, an organization of volunteers authoring, reviewing and managing documents about the Linux operating system. Documents basically come in two formats HOWTOs and guides."

First contribution

I was delighted to join this group, and wish it would become a useful resource for biomedical researchers.

Finding a job is a big headache for student, postdoc, even for junior faculty. Here I recommend naturejobs. Many pieces of good advice, prospective, and profiles of working area were featured. I do enjoy every issue of it, and hope you like it as I do.

Internet FAQ Archives - Online Education

Internet FAQ Archives - Online Education: "This archive contains Usenet Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) postings in HTML format and in text format."

Emacs Tiny Tools Project

Emacs Tiny Tools Project homepage: "Tiny Tools is an on-going 'hobby', that started with one Emacs package, then next, and next in 1994 to help use Emacs more conveniently in daily work."

Faculty of 1000 Biology

Faculty of 1000 Biology is a new online research tool that highlights the most interesting papers in biology, based on the recommendations of over 1000 leading scientists.

The R Project for Statistical Computing

R is a language and environment for statistical computing and graphics. It is similar to the S language and environment. It's a GNU project.

GSL - GNU Scientific Library

The GNU Scientific Library (GSL) is a numerical library for C and C++ programmers. The library provides a wide range of mathematical routines such as random number generators, special functions and least-squares fitting. There are over 1000 functions in total. It is free software under the GNU General Public License.