A dog’s breed standard is the set of criteria used to define the archetype of each breed. My personal favourite belongs to the Beagle, which includes as part of the official definition: “The man with the lead in his hand and no dog in sight owns a Beagle” Strict adherence to these breed standards defines… Read more »
BMC Ecology wants to see your visual interpretations of ecological processes. The “BMC Ecology Image Competition 2012” is open to everyone affiliated with a research institution. So from muddy-boots fieldworkers to desk-based computational modellers, we want to know how you see the science of ecology. Entries should depict a specific ecological interaction, and should be… Read more »
3BMC Evolutionary Biology, BMC Developmental Biology and EvoDevo will be attending two upcoming conferences in the next two weeks: the First Joint Congress on Evolutionary Biology in Ottawa and the European Society for Evolutionary Developmental Biology conference in Lisbon. Evolution Ottawa is a joint conference of the American Society of Naturalists, the Canadian Society for… Read more »
BMC Microbiology and BMC Infectious Diseases have returned from ASM2012, the 112th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology. The conference, held this year in San Francisco, spanned a broad range of topics with the Human Microbiome Project generating a lot of buzz. Jean Claverie discussed whether bigger was better when it comes to… Read more »
Scientists, clinicians, lawyers, and philosophers from all over the world gathered in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, to discuss the tradition and the future of Bioethics. From the chimpanzee politics of Frans de Waal to the rejuvenation theories of Aubrey De Grey, IAB 2012 was engaging, entertaining, and inspiring for all involved. The opening ceremony featured… Read more »
Liverpool – home of The Beatles, The Grand National and recent European Capital of Culture, was this year also home to the Royal College of Ophthalmologists’ Annual Congress. The meeting was a great success, hosting lots of excellent talks, poster presentations and rapid fire sessions that covered the whole spectrum of ophthalmological research, not to… Read more »
The BMC-series has been watching its weight this month, with two articles on heavy issues. Elsewhere, we had stolen genes, violent ants and Hdac4 controlling development in zebrafish, amongst a host of other important research. Be sure to investigate the journal homepages for more exciting highlights. Public Health: A weighty issue In a study published… Read more »
Edinburgh has sometimes had an uncomfortable relationship with science, as the infamous case of 19th century murderers Burke and Hare attests. Despite this, scientists from disparate disciplines converged on the city last week to perform a 30 year post-mortem on the field of quantitative genetics – and declare it alive and well. The 4th International… Read more »