Conference: NGS4MG -- Next Generation Sequencing for Marine Genomics Symposium

Carlos Canchaya and David Posada are organizing this NGS symposium -- which will be held in our building and will be free. The e-mail communication follows below. 

NGS4MG: Next Generation Sequencing for Marine Genomics Symposium
Vigo (Spain), 27 September 2012

The recent advances in sequencing technology have revolutionized genomic research and have represented a big enough shift from previous technologies to be widely termed “Next Generation Sequencing”, NGS. The main effect effect of these technologies has been the fast processing and analysis of large quantities of genomic data at ever more economical prices. Their effect has been been so profound that they are also changing fundamental investigative methods by moving research from the traditional hypothesis-based approach to one based on data. The aim of this symposium is to explain what NGS consists of, its advantages and shortcomings and its potential use in the marine environment.

Invited Speakers:

Genome Sequencing

•   Monica Bayes (National Centre for Genomic Analysis – Spain)

Genome Assembly

•   Jason Miller (J. Craig Venter Institute – USA)

Evolutionary Genomics

•   Nori Satoh  (Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology – Japan)

Genomics of Speciation

•   Iria Fernandez (Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology – USA )

Biodiversity

•   Mehrdad Hajibabaei (Biodiversity Institute of Ontario – Canada)

Microbial Metagenomics

•   Ramon Massana (Institute of Marine Sciences, CSIC- Spain)

The registration to this event is free.

You can find more information at :

http://ngs4mg.uvigo.es/


The organization of this event is supported by Campus do Mar (http://campusdomar.es/) and MG4U consortium (http://mg4u.eu)

The Organizing Committee

If working hard is not for you, at least you can look busy...

Via @michaelshermer, I found this series of anti-motivation posters which actually speak the truth very well. Some examples:

Conference on Astrobiology at the University of Vigo

Next Wednesday (November 16th) from 10:00 to 13:30 the University of Vigo will host a series of talks and a round table on "Astrobiology: the challenge of searching for life on the Universe today". It will take place at the Auditorium (Salón de actos) of the Experimental Sciences building. Judging by the poster, the talks might be in galician.

PS: I'm not involved in the organization of the event, just spreading the word.

Sao Paulo Advanced School of Astrobiology - SPASA 2011

I received this announcement from an alumnus friend, who is one of the organizers.

Sao Paulo Advanced School of Astrobiology -SPASA 2011 -- Making Connections

The applications are open for the "Sao Paulo Advanced School of Astrobiology – Making Connections (SPASA 2011)", promoted by the Department of Astronomy of the Universidade de Sao Paulo and by the Sao Paulo Research Foundation (Fapesp), Brazil.

Location: University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
Date: December 11 -- 20, 2011
Home Page: www.astro.iag.usp.br/~spasa2011
Target audience: Undergraduate, graduate students and early career post-docs in biology, physics, astronomy, chemistry, earth sciences and related areas.
Application Deadline: September 20, 2011, through the event website.
Language: English

Objective: Astrobiology is a multidisciplinary field that aims to study origin, evolution, distribution and future of life on the Universe, with a broad and multidisciplinary scope, requiring a constant dialogue between different areas. This is a new and very promising scientific research field, with the ambitious goal of seeking for answers to some of the most complex scientific questions. The SPASA aims to bring together renowned experts from different countries with students of different fields in a multidisciplinary event that will address some of the general themes of research in astrobiology, as well as more specific topics in the frontier of science that are being developed worldwide. Stimulating the connection between topics and the exchange of knowledge among the participants is the main goal of the event.

Selected participants from all countries will have travel and accommodation expenses covered by the Sao Paulo Research Foundation.

Workshops in August: Bayesian phylogenetics on UC Berkeley and Statistical Genetics course in Barcelona

From Evoldir (check the links for more info):

Eighth annual Statistical Genetics Short Course

• When: Monday, 22 August - Friday, 26 August
• Where: Barcelona, Spain. Hosted by Centre Nacional d'Analisi Genomica (CNAG)
• more information here

Each day will include hands-on computer exercises using statistical genetics computer programs, especially the Mendel software package, with its new graphical front-end.

We will cover the general theory behind the methods as well as emphasize the practical aspects needed to give the best chances of success. The Course is designed to assist people who will be performing statistical analyses to discover the genetic basis of complex traits. The methods covered are appropriate to both human and non-human populations.

Mini-symposium on Bayesian inference of phylogeny

• When: August 15 - 16 (talks), August 17 - 19 (workshop on RevBayes for interested developers)
• Where: UC Berkeley campus

There will be a mini-symposium on Bayesian inference of phylogeny to be held on the UC Berkeley campus from August 15th to 19th. There will be two days of talks (August 15th and 16th) on various aspects of Bayesian inference as it applies to the phylogeny problem. The following three days will be a workshop for people interested in developing for the RevBayes program. RevBayes implements an R-like language for specifying complex evolutionary models and (attempts) to perform solid statistical estimation of a model's parameters.

Confirmed speakers include: Michael Jordan (UC Berkeley), Ian Holmes (UC Berkeley), Jeff Thorne (NCSU), Fredrik Ronquist (Swedish Natural History Museum), Jeet Sukumaran (KU), Sebastian Hoehna (Stockholm University), Tracy Heath (UC Berkeley), and John Huelsenbeck (UC Berkeley)