Notes from the biomass

Here’s one of the things that competes with my time for blogging: We are organizing a workshop on computational biology, which will held from August 20th through 26th 2007 in Cancun, Mexico. It’s a tour de force of bioinformatics applied to the vast amount of metagenomics data with many practical sessions. There’s so much new and interesting data in there that we aim to compile novel (as in publishable) results. There are some preliminary findings that we will explore further in the workshop and which also link the different subjects.
Cancun is a very beautiful spot from all I’ve seen and heard and provides a nice venue close to where most of the metagenomics data was sampled.
The EMBO World program is our main sponsor; Food and lodging is provided, the participant’s institutions have to arrange their travel. We encourage graduate students and Postdocs with some background in bioinformatics from all over to globe to apply.

[Picture of sunset in Cancun by 16209788@N00 (License)]

According to Attila Csordas over at Partial Immortalization, there’s no good laboratory web site out here. He argues that the majority were designed by the first inhabitants of the web and asks us to prove him wrong by submitting the best laboratory web site to him.

There are certainly not many stunning examples known to me, even if I would not be as bold as him. What constitutes a good lab web site to begin with - functionality, in-jokes or stunning images? Bioinformatics labs are certainly worse off picture wise than labs with a strong background on imaging and the adaptation of corporate identity templates certainly has taken its toll on creativity at many institutions. I’m curious to see the results nonetheless, so if you know a good examples, let him know.

Bloggers are nothing more than users of a simple content management system. Most of the participants of re:publica, the blog conference that concluded yesterday in Berlin would probably agree. In that light, the atmosphere was very open and friendly, to the point that people on the panels complained that there was too much consensus. I prefered the in-depth discussions over random quibbles though, even if the latter would be more entertaining.

The most frustating aspect of the re:publica conference was the proximity to the institute. With too much work to do, I spend too little time at the meeting.
As far as science is concerned the hard bloggin’ scientists, a group of student through postdoc-level scientists from many disciplines hosted an entertaining and relevant “plug-in”, a workshop with little agenda, what turned out to be working nonetheless. The diversity was reflected in the 40-strong audience. The hard bloggin’ scientists were not discussed all that much; they have found a niche in adding color to the communication between scientists and the general public and are pretty well known in German blogger circles.
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Re:publica has summoned the German blogosphere to the Kalkscheune, just a couple of blocks from my office in Berlin-Mitte. With 700 attendees over three days it appears that a substantial portion came.

Does it make any sense to go to a blog meeting - wouldn’t it be better to stay at home and use the time to read? Certainly not, if I consider today. Many of the aspects of social software (and interactions of people in general) were said before but the discussions put them in a new light.

One noteworthy tidbit from the panel on blog etiquette this afternoon was the notion of blogs as a “pragmatic medium”, one that provokes direct response, uttered by Rainer Kuhlen (UNESCO chair in communications). In contrast, classical journalism as seen in newspapers are not written with the intentions for communication in the other direction. Most scientific works are published with a similar mind set: The discussion is part of manuscript, not contributed by the readers. After something has been published and passed peer review, it is true until retracted or forgotten.

The most common argument for the lack of participation in the scientific blogosphere is lack of incentives but we need to consider that we do not publish to be discussed in the first place.

Hmm. This didn’t read like a truism this morning. Let’s talk about tech instead.
A nice gadget enables everyone to comment on the presentations (or cocktail bars in the vicinity) via SMS. Not that the comments added much to the discussion for most of the time but the level of participation is what I want for any conference.

[Picture by timk75 under CC by-at license]