From owner-csm@net.bio.net Thu Jul 06 23:00:00 1995 Path: biosci!rutgers!uwm.edu!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!news.starnet.net!wupost!news.utdallas.edu!corpgate!bcarh189.bnr.ca!nott!nrcnet0.nrc.ca!csm From: CSM Newsgroups: bionet.prof-society.csm Subject: Bionet Info sheet (monthly posting) Date: 6 Jul 1995 16:28:44 GMT Organization: National Research Council, Canada Lines: 863 Approved: csm@nrcbsa.bio.nrc.ca Distribution: world Message-ID: <3th2vs$7ra@nrcnet0.nrc.ca> NNTP-Posting-Host: nrcbsa.bio.nrc.ca Originator: csm@nrcbsa.bio.nrc.ca ---------------------------------------------------------------------- THE BIOSCI ELECTRONIC NEWSGROUP NETWORK INFORMATION SHEET (last revised 09-JUN-95) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This is the BIOSCI information sheet for the Americas and Pacific Rim countries. If you are located in Europe, Africa, or Central Asia, please retrieve that version of the information sheet by sending the command info ukinfo in the body of an e-mail message addressed to the Internet address biosci-server@net.bio.net Any text placed on the Subject: line of your message is ignored, so please be sure to put the "info ukinfo" command in the main body of your e-mail message. New users of BIOSCI/bionet may want to read the "Frequently Asked Questions" or "FAQ" sheet for BIOSCI. The FAQ provides details on how to participate in these forums and is available by gopher to net.bio.net or anonymous FTP to net.bio.net [134.172.2.69] in pub/BIOSCI/doc/biosci.FAQ. It may also be requested by sending e-mail to biosci-server@net.bio.net as described above except that the command info faq should be used in the body of the mail message. The FAQ is also posted on the first of each month to the newsgroup BIONEWS/bionet.announce immediately following the posting of both versions of the BIOSCI information sheet. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Contents of this Document ------------------------- Introduction List of BIOSCI Mailing Lists and Newsgroups List of BIOSCI Newsgroup Topics BIOSCI Newsgroup Discussion Leaders Participating in BIOSCI Using USENET News Software Participating in BIOSCI by E-mail E-mail Subscription Requests and other Information E-mail Address Changes Interruption of E-mail Service Posting Messages to Newsgroups by E-mail Retrieval of old postings from the BIOSCI archives BIOSCI "prototype" newsgroups Retrieving Other BIOSCI Documentation Introduction ------------ The BIOSCI newsgroup network was developed to allow easy worldwide communications between biological scientists who work on a variety of computer networks. BIOSCI is supported by the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, and National Institutes of Health in the U.S.A. and by the CCL Daresbury Laboratory in the United Kingdom. BIOSCI services are available to users free of charge. BIOSCI messages are distributed by two means: USENET news software and electronic mail. WE STRONGLY ENCOURAGE ALL INTERESTED USERS TO EXPLORE GETTING "USENET NEWS" SOFTWARE AT YOUR SITE. The software is in the public domain, and you will find it much more convenient than subscribing to newsgroups by e-mail. Please consult your systems manager (the software may already be available on a machine at your institution) or contact biosci-help@net.bio.net for a list of software available free of charge on the Internet. NOTE, however, that the installation and maintenance of news software requires the assistance of a trained systems operator in most cases and is not a task to be undertaken by a computer novice. Why is news software preferable to e-mail? News software recovers messages automatically after network interruptions, whereas your e-mail address may have to be removed from the subscription list at times if your computer/network malfunctions and undelivered mail starts bouncing back to the BIOSCI administrative sites. You will have to manually retrieve lost messages from the archives if your e-mail subscription is suspended. News software organizes messages by topic and subtopic for easy browsing. In contrast if you subscribe by e-mail to more than one discussion list, messages from multiple lists arrive into your personal mail file in chronological order of posting only and are mixed in with your personal messages. You have to connect the discussion threads yourself if you use e-mail. In summary, e-mail participation should be seen as a LAST RESORT to be used only if news software can not be installed locally. Fortunately, BIOSCI offers advantages for e-mail users too. By having distribution sites or "nodes" on each major network, BIOSCI allows its e-mail users to contact people around the world without having to learn a variety of computer addressing tricks. Any user can simply post a message to his/her regional BIOSCI node and copies of that message will be distributed automatically to all other subscribers on all of the participating networks, including the Internet, USENET, BITNET, EARN, NETNORTH, HEANET, and JANET. List of BIOSCI Mailing Lists and Newsgroups ------------------------------------------- BIOSCI messages are distributed on the newsgroups in the "bionet" hierarchy of USENET and on the corresponding mailing lists indicated below. Contents of the USENET newsgroups and the e-mail distributions are *identical*, i.e., messages sent in by e-mail are also forwarded to USENET and messages posted to USENET newsgroups are also distributed to e-mail subscribers. An expanded description of the purpose of each newsgroup follows this list. MAILING LIST NAME USENET Newsgroup Name ----------------- --------------------- ACEDB-SOFT bionet.software.acedb AFCR ** bionet.prof-society.afcr AGEING bionet.molbio.ageing AGROFORESTRY bionet.agroforestry AMYLOID bionet.neuroscience.amyloid ARABIDOPSIS bionet.genome.arabidopsis ASCB ** bionet.prof-society.ascb AUDIOLOGY bionet.audiology BIOCAN bionet.prof-society.cfbs BIOFORUM bionet.general BIO-INFORMATION-THEORY + bionet.info-theory BIONAUTS bionet.users.addresses BIONEWS ** bionet.announce BIO-JOURNALS ** bionet.journals.contents BIO-MATRIX bionet.molbio.bio-matrix BIOPHYSICAL-SOCIETY ** bionet.prof-society.biophysics BIOPHYSICS bionet.biophysics BIO-SOFTWARE bionet.software BIO-SRS bionet.software.srs BIOTHERMOKINETICS bionet.metabolic-reg BIO-WWW ** bionet.software.www CARDIOVASCULAR-RESEARCH bionet.biology.cardiovascular CELEGANS bionet.celegans CELL-BIOLOGY bionet.cellbiol CHLAMYDOMONAS bionet.chlamydomonas CHROMOSOMES bionet.genome.chromosomes COMPUTATIONAL-BIOLOGY ** bionet.biology.computational CSM ** bionet.prof-society.csm CYTONET bionet.cellbiol.cytonet DIAGNOSTICS bionet.diagnostics DROSOPHILA bionet.drosophila EMBL-DATABANK bionet.molbio.embldatabank EMF-BIO bionet.emf-bio EMPLOYMENT bionet.jobs EMPLOYMENT-WANTED bionet.jobs.wanted FASEB ** bionet.prof-society.faseb FLUORESCENT-PROTEINS bionet.molbio.proteins.fluorescent G-PROTEIN-COUPLED-RECEPTOR bionet.molbio.proteins.7tms_r GDB bionet.molbio.gdb GENBANK-BB bionet.molbio.genbank GENETIC-LINKAGE bionet.molbio.gene-linkage GLYCOSCI bionet.glycosci GRASSES-SCIENCE bionet.biology.grasses HIV-MOLECULAR-BIOLOGY bionet.molbio.hiv HUMAN-GENOME-PROGRAM bionet.molbio.genome-program IMMUNOLOGY bionet.immunology INFO-GCG bionet.software.gcg INSULIN-ACTION ** bionet.cellbiol.insulin JOURNAL-NOTES bionet.journals.note METHODS-AND-REAGENTS bionet.molbio.methds-reagnts MICROBIOLOGY bionet.microbiology MOLECULAR-EVOLUTION bionet.molbio.evolution MOLECULAR-MODELLING bionet.molec-model MOLLUSC-MOLECULAR-NEWS bionet.molbio.molluscs MYCOLOGY bionet.mycology NEUROSCIENCE bionet.neuroscience N2-FIXATION bionet.biology.n2-fixation PARASITOLOGY bionet.parasitology PHOTOSYNTHESIS bionet.photosynthesis PLANT-BIOLOGY bionet.plants POPULATION-BIOLOGY bionet.population-bio PRENATAL-DIAGNOSTICS bionet.diagnostics.prenatal PROTEIN-ANALYSIS bionet.molbio.proteins PROTEIN-CRYSTALLOGRAPHY bionet.xtallography PROTISTA bionet.protista RAPD bionet.molbio.rapd SCHISTOSOMA bionet.organisms.schistosoma SCIENCE-RESOURCES ** bionet.sci-resources STADEN bionet.software.staden STRUCTURAL-NMR bionet.structural-nmr SYMBIOSIS-RESEARCH bionet.biology.symbiosis TIBS ** bionet.journals.letters.tibs TOXICOLOGY bionet.toxicology TROPICAL-BIOLOGY bionet.biology.tropical URODELES bionet.organisms.urodeles VIROLOGY bionet.virology WOMEN-IN-BIOLOGY bionet.women-in-bio X-PLOR bionet.software.x-plor YEAST bionet.molbio.yeast ZBRAFISH bionet.organisms.zebrafish + full name is BIOLOGICAL-INFORMATION-THEORY-AND-CHOWDER-SOCIETY ** Note that newsgroups flagged with ** are moderated, i.e., postings are directed to a moderator (editor) who later forwards messages (possibly edited or condensed) to the newsgroup. List of BIOSCI Newsgroup Topics ------------------------------- MAILING LIST NAME TOPIC ----------------- ----- ACEDB-SOFT Discussions by users and developers of genome databases using the ACEDB software. AFCR ** American Federation for Clinical Research announcements AGEING Discussions about ageing research AGROFORESTRY Discussions about agroforestry research AMYLOID Forum for researchers on Alzheimer's disease and related disorders including prion diseases ARABIDOPSIS Newsgroup for the Arabidopsis Genome Project ASCB ** Announcements from The American Society for Cell Biology AUDIOLOGY Topics in audiology and hearing science BIOFORUM Discussions about biological topics for which there is not yet a dedicated newsgroup BIOCAN Newsgroup for the Canadian Federation of Biological Societies (CFBS) BIOLOGICAL-INFORMATION- THEORY-AND-CHOWDER-SOCIETY Applications of information theory to biology; this group is not for general information or for discussion of theories in general. BIONAUTS Question/answer forum for help using electronic networks, locating e-mail addresses, etc. BIONEWS ** General announcements of widespread interest to biologists BIO-JOURNALS ** Tables of Contents of biological journals BIO-MATRIX Applications of computers to biological databases BIOPHYSICAL-SOCIETY ** Official announcements/information from the Biophysical Society. BIOPHYSICS Discussion of issues related to the science and profession of biophysics BIO-SOFTWARE Information on software for the biological sciences BIO-SRS Discussions about the Sequence Retrieval System (SRS) software BIOTHERMOKINETICS Discussions about the kinetics, thermodynamics and control of biological processes at the cellular level BIO-WWW ** Announcements about new information resources in biology which can be accessed via electronic networked information retrieval software CARDIOVASCULAR-RESEARCH Research discussions in cardiovascular biology CELEGANS Research discussions on the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans and related nematodes CELL-BIOLOGY Discussions about cell biology including cancer research at the cellular level CHLAMYDOMONAS Discussions about the biology of the green alga Chlamydomonas and related genera CHROMOSOMES Discussions about mapping and sequencing of eucaryote chromosomes COMPUTATIONAL-BIOLOGY ** Mathematical and computer applications in biology CSM ** Announcements from the Canadian Society of Microbiologists. CYTONET Discussions about research on the cytoskeleton, plasma membrane, and cell wall DIAGNOSTICS Discussions of problems and techniques in all fields of diagnostics DROSOPHILA Discussions about biological research on Drosophila EMBL-DATABANK Messages to and from the EMBL database staff EMF-BIO Discussions about research on electromagnetic field interactions with biological systems EMPLOYMENT Job opportunities in biology (see BIOSCI FAQ *before* posting commercial job openings) EMPLOYMENT-WANTED Forum for posting resumes/CVs by individuals seeking employment in the biological sciences or in support of the biological sciences FASEB ** Announcements from the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology FLUORESCENT-PROTEINS Research on fluorescent proteins and bioluminescence G-PROTEIN-COUPLED-RECEPTOR Discussions about signal transducing receptors which interact with G-proteins GDB Messages to and from the Genome Data Bank staff GENBANK-BB Messages to and from the GenBank database staff GENETIC-LINKAGE Newsgroup for genetic linkage analysis GLYCOSCI Discussions about carbohydrate and glycoconjugate molecules. GRASSES-SCIENCE Discussions regarding grasses, especially cereal, forage, and turf species HIV-MOLECULAR-BIOLOGY Discussions about the molecular biology of HIV HUMAN-GENOME-PROGRAM NIH-sponsored newsgroup on human genome issues IMMUNOLOGY Discussions about research in immunology INFO-GCG Discussions about the GCG sequence analysis software INSULIN-ACTION ** Discussions about the biology and chemistry of insulin and related receptors. JOURNAL-NOTES Practical advice on dealing with professional journals METHODS-AND-REAGENTS Requests for information and lab reagents MICROBIOLOGY Discussions about research in microbiology MOLECULAR-EVOLUTION Discussions about research in molecular evolution MOLECULAR-MODELLING Discussions about molecular modelling MOLLUSC-MOLECULAR-NEWS Discussions about research on mollusc DNA MYCOLOGY Discussions about research on filamentous fungi NEUROSCIENCE Discussions about research in the neurosciences N2-FIXATION Discussion about biological nitrogen fixation PARASITOLOGY Discussions about research in parasitology PHOTOSYNTHESIS Discussions about photosynthesis research PLANT-BIOLOGY Discussions about research in plant biology POPULATION-BIOLOGY Discussions about research in population biology PRENATAL-DIAGNOSTICS Discussions about research in prenatal diagnostics PROTEIN-ANALYSIS Discussions about research on proteins and messages for the PIR and SWISS-PROT databank staffs PROTEIN-CRYSTALLOGRAPHY Discussion about crystallography of macromolecules and messages for the PDB staff PROTISTA Discussions about research on ciliates and other protists RAPD Discussions about Randomly Amplified Polymorphic DNA SCHISTOSOMA Discussions about Schistosoma research SCIENCE-RESOURCES ** Information from/about scientific funding agencies STADEN Discussions between scientists using the Staden molecular sequence analysis software STRUCTURAL-NMR Discussions about the use of NMR for macromolecular structure determination SYMBIOSIS-RESEARCH Discussions about symbiosis research TIBS ** "Letters to the Editor" of "Trends in Biochemical Sciences" TOXICOLOGY Discussions about research in toxicology TROPICAL-BIOLOGY Discussions about research in tropical biology URODELES Discussions about research in urodele amphibian biology VIROLOGY Discussions about research in virology WOMEN-IN-BIOLOGY Discussions about issues concerning women biologists X-PLOR Discussions about the X-PLOR software for 3D macromolecular structure determination YEAST Discussions about the molecular biology and genetics of yeast ZBRAFISH Discussions about research using the model organism Zebrafish (Danio rerio) ** Note that newsgroups flagged with ** are moderated, i.e., postings are directed to a moderator (editor) who later forwards messages (possibly edited or condensed) to the newsgroup. BIOSCI Newsgroup Discussion Leaders ----------------------------------- Most scientific specialty newsgroups (except for a few created several years ago) have individuals who are responsible for stimulating discussion on the newsgroup. General purpose forums such as METHODS-AND-REAGENTS do not have discussion leaders. If a group that you are interested in does not seem to have much activity recently, please contact the discussion leader and ask why. NEWSGROUP NAME Discussion Leader and their e-mail address -------------- ------------------------------------------ ACEDB-SOFT Mike Cherry (cherry@genome.stanford.edu) AFCR ** Jon T. Schafer (pp001101@interramp.com) AGEING Sydney Shall (bafa1@central.sussex.ac.uk) AGROFORESTRY Gerry Lawson (F_GJL@vaxa.nerc-bush.ac.uk) AMYLOID David Small (david_small@muwayf.unimelb.edu.au) ARABIDOPSIS Chris Somerville (21847CRS@msu.edu) ASCB ** Vincent Shan (moderator@faseb.org) AUDIOLOGY Jeff Sirianni (sirianni@uts.cc.utexas.edu) and Susan Moreland (smorelan@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu) BIOCAN Leon Browder (browder@acs.ucalgary.ca) BIOFORUM None BIOLOGICAL-INFORMATION- THEORY-AND-CHOWDER-SOCIETY Tom Schneider (toms@ncifcrf.gov) BIONAUTS Rob Harper (harper@convex.csc.fi) BIONEWS ** David Kristofferson (biosci-help@net.bio.net) BIO-JOURNALS ** David Kristofferson (biosci-help@net.bio.net) BIO-MATRIX Dan Davison (davison@uh.edu) BIOPHYSICAL-SOCIETY ** David Kristofferson (biosci-help@net.bio.net) BIOPHYSICS Carol Gross (cgross@molbio.cbs.umn.edu) BIO-SOFTWARE None BIO-SRS Thure Etzold (etzold@embl-heidelberg.de) and Reinhard Doelz (doelz@comp.bioz.unibas.ch) BIOTHERMOKINETICS John Woods (eanv20@castle.edinburgh.ac.uk) BIO-WWW ** Reinhard Doelz (bio-www@comp.bioz.unibas.ch) CARDIOVASCULAR-RESEARCH Zhandong Zhou (zhandong@macc.wisc.edu) CELEGANS William Morgan (wmorgan@acs.wooster.edu) CELL-BIOLOGY Ola Myklebost (ola.myklebost@dnr.uio.no) CHLAMYDOMONAS Elizabeth H. Harris (chlamy@acpub.duke.edu) and Antonio R. Franco (bf1rodri@cc.uco.es) CHROMOSOMES Bruce Roe (broe@aardvark.ucs.uoknor.edu) and Greg Lennon (greg@mendel.llnl.gov) COMPUTATIONAL-BIOLOGY ** Phil J. Curtiss (curtiss@umiacs.umd.edu) CSM ** Max Firtel and John Nash (csm@nrcbsa.bio.nrc.ca) CYTONET Nicholas C. Carpita (carpita@btny.purdue.edu) DIAGNOSTICS Kevin O'Donnell (odonnell@sasa.gov.uk) and Robert Burns (burns@sasa.gov.uk) DROSOPHILA Michael Ashburner (m.ashburner@gen.cam.ac.uk) EMBL-DATABANK None (datalib@embl-heidelberg.de) EMF-BIO Allan H. Frey (afrey@uunet.uu.net) EMPLOYMENT None EMPLOYMENT-WANTED None FASEB ** Vincent Shan (moderator@faseb.org) FLUORESCENT-PROTEINS Paul Kitts (paulki@clontech.com) Steve Kain (stevek@clontech.com) G-PROTEIN-COUPLED-RECEPTOR Lee F. Kolakowski, Jr. (lfk@receptor.mgh.harvard.edu) GDB Kerryn Brandt (kab@welchgate.welch.jhu.edu) GENBANK-BB Dennis Benson (benson@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov) GENETIC-LINKAGE Steve Bryant (s_bryant@icrf.ac.uk) GLYCOSCI Iain Wilson (iwilson@molbiol.ox.ac.uk) and Barry Hardy (bhardy@convex.ox.ac.uk) GRASSES-SCIENCE Allen Wright (adwright@iastate.edu) HIV-MOLECULAR-BIOLOGY Mika Salminen (msalminen@nphi.fi) HUMAN-GENOME-PROGRAM Jane Peterson (jp2@cu.nih.gov) IMMUNOLOGY Donald Forsdyke (forsdyke@qucdn.queensu.ca) INFO-GCG John Cargill (ontogen@nic.cerf.net) INSULIN-ACTION ** T. S. Pillay (tpillay@ucsd.edu) JOURNAL-NOTES Donald Forsdyke (forsdyke@qucdn.queensu.ca) METHODS-AND-REAGENTS None MICROBIOLOGY Martin Latterich (mdhouse@mendel.berkeley.edu) MOLECULAR-EVOLUTION Dan Davison (davison@uh.edu) MOLECULAR-MODELLING Philippe Stas (philstas@vub.ac.be) MOLLUSC-MOLECULAR-NEWS Elizabeth Grace Boulding (boulding@uoguelph.ca) MYCOLOGY Tom Adams (tom@bio.tamu.edu) Leland Ellis (leland@straylight.tamu.edu) Greg May (gsmay@bcm.tmc.edu) NEUROSCIENCE Vincent A Mazzarella (vamg6792@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu) James L. Olds (olds@bernard.ninds.nih.gov) N2-FIXATION Eng-Leong Foo (eng-leong_foo_mircen-ki%micforum@mica.mic.ki.se) PARASITOLOGY Daniel R. Brooks, Sherwin S. Desser and Henry Hong (parasite@zoo.toronto.edu) PHOTOSYNTHESIS Johnathan Marder (marder@agri.huji.ac.il) PLANT-BIOLOGY Tony Travis (ajt@rri.sari.ac.uk) POPULATION-BIOLOGY None PRENATAL-DIAGNOSTICS Aneal Chandra (chandra@cardiff.ac.uk) and David Miller (davidm@pathology.leeds.ac.uk) and Tim Reynolds (timreyno@burton.demon.co.uk) PROTEIN-ANALYSIS Amos Bairoch (bairoch@cmu.unige.ch) and John Garavelli (garavelli@nbrf.georgetown.edu) PROTEIN-CRYSTALLOGRAPHY Morten Kjeldgaard (morten@oase.kemi.aau.dk) PROTISTA Marsha Altschule (marsha.i.altschuler@williams.edu) and Mark Farmer (farmer@emlab.zoo.uga.edu) RAPD James Farmer (farmerj@yvax.byu.edu) SCHISTOSOMA Werner Kunz (Werner.Kunz@uni-duesseldorf.de) and Christoph Grevelding (Christoph.Grevelding@uni-duesseldorf.de) and Lutz Gohr (Lutz.Gohr@uni-duesseldorf.de) SCIENCE-RESOURCES ** David Kristofferson (biosci-help@net.bio.net) STADEN Tim Littlejohn (tim@bch.umontreal.ca) STRUCTURAL-NMR C. S. Raman (raman@bioc01.uthscsa.edu) SYMBIOSIS-RESEARCH James F. White, Jr. (epichloe@tango.aum.edu) TIBS ** Jo McEntyre (TIBS@elsevier.co.uk) and David Kristofferson (biosci-help@net.bio.net) TOXICOLOGY Charles A. Miller (rellim@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu) TROPICAL-BIOLOGY Matti Nummelin (mnummelin@cc.helsinki.fi) URODELES Susan Duhon (duhon@ucs.indiana.edu) and Anthony Mescher (mescher@ucs.indiana.edu) VIROLOGY Robert Coelen (robert@arbo.microbiol.uwa.oz.au) WOMEN-IN-BIOLOGY Cassandra Smith (cls@buenga.bu.edu) X-PLOR Axel T. Brunger (brunger@laplace.csb.yale.edu) YEAST Francis Ouellette (francis@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov) ZBRAFISH Richard Vogt (vogt@biol.scarolina.edu) and Una Smith (smith-una@yale.edu) ** Note that newsgroups flagged with ** are moderated. Participating in BIOSCI Using USENET News Software -------------------------------------------------- Users who have access to USENET news software and the bionet USENET groups can participate immediately, i.e., they do not need to "subscribe" to anything. They can read and reply to messages using their local news software (e.g., "nn" or "rn") and post new messages of their own. Users will have to consult their local systems managers for help in using news software. There are many different programs available and the BIOSCI staff can not provide training in news software use. Fortunately, most news software is fairly simple to use and can be learned quickly. When posting new messages, USENET users should be sure to set the message "distribution" to "world" or "bionet" or else your message may not be distributed beyond your local computer. In most cases, messages are posted directly to the newsgroups without editorial intervention. Some groups (indicated in the lists above) are "moderated," however. This means that postings to these newsgroups will be sent to the newsgroup moderator who will decide whether or not the message is suitable for posting to the newsgroup in question. Participating in BIOSCI by E-mail --------------------------------- PLEASE NOTE THAT IF YOU HAVE ACCESS TO USENET NEWS YOU DO NOT NEED AN E-MAIL SUBSCRIPTION!! Simply read and post to the newsgroups in the "bionet" newsgroup hierarchy using your USENET news software. E-mail Subscription Requests and other Information -------------------------------------------------- For users in the Americas and Pacific Rim countries, e-mail subscription and cancellation requests are handled automatically by an e-mail server, although personal assistance is also available via the biosci-help@net.bio.net address. Once your e-mail address is added to a subscription list, mail will be sent to your address automatically each time someone posts a message. This will continue until you remove your address from the subscription list. You should first send the lists command to the address biosci-server@net.bio.net to obtain a listing of all current BIOSCI mailing lists. You may leave your message Subject: line blank in any message that is sent to the server (text on the Subject: line is *not* processed). Please include all commands only in the body of your mail message. Please BE SURE to substitute the appropriate mailing list name obtained FROM THE "lists" COMMAND OUTPUT for "listname" in the subscribe or unsubscribe commands shown below. Some list names used by the server are abbreviated compared to their full spelling in the BIOSCI information sheet. After obtaining the names of the mailing lists using the "lists" command, use the subscribe listname or unsubscribe listname commands to add or delete your address from the mailing lists. Please substitute "listname" above with the appropriate name of the list that you want to join/cancel. !!! PLEASE BE SURE to send all subscribe or unsubscribe commands only to !!! the biosci-server@net.bio.net address and not to the newsgroup posting !!! addresses where they will bother all of the readers! Your e-mail address is obtained AUTOMATICALLY from the header of your mail message and should NOT be included on the subscribe/unsubscribe command line unless you need to sign up at a different address than the one you are currently using. Such requests must be handled manually by us and create extra work. (Also you would be surprised at how many people list their e-mail addresses incorrectly, so please let our server obtain this information automatically from your mail header.) Multiple commands may be placed on separate lines in the same mail message, i.e., you can include all of your subscribe and/or unsubscribe requests in one mail message as long as each is on a separate line. If you put multiple commands in your mail message, please put an end command as the last in your list of commands. This helps avoid sending to the server any signatures that might be automatically included in your mail messages. Here is a sample subscription message. The address public@state-u.edu would be automatically added to the bionews and grasses mailing lists as the result of this message. To: biosci-server@net.bio.net From: J.Q. Public Subject: subscribe bionews subscribe grasses end If you are already a BIOSCI e-mail subscriber and need to determine which mailing lists you are on currently, send the command which to biosci-server@net.bio.net if you are signed up under the address which will appear on the From: line of your mail message. If your address has changed, you can put a search string after the which command, e.g., if you are certain than your user name has always been jqpublic but do not remember the computer hostname, send the command which jqpublic Other command details are included in the mail server help file from biosci-server@net.bio.net. To get the server help file (in computerese 8-), send in the help command to the server address. E-mail Address Changes ---------------------- If you have subscribed to a newsgroup and are now leaving an institution or changing your e-mail address, it is IMPERATIVE that you cancel your subscription! Non-existent addresses or overflowing mailboxes cause computer mail programs to send back "daemon" messages which might bother everybody on the newsgroup. We will immediately remove any address causing such a problem, but would prefer it if you would notify us in advance as a courtesy to the rest of the user community. Interruption of E-mail Service ------------------------------ It is our policy to remove any address from our mailing lists which becomes inaccessible and causes mail to bounce back to the sender. This might happen to you if your local computer or network fails for a significant period of time. If you notice that you are no longer receiving BIOSCI postings, it may be because your address was removed for the above reason. It will be necessary for you to contact biosci-help@net.bio.net and resubscribe. Please see the BIOSCI FAQ, mentioned at the beginning of this document, for more details on how BIOSCI handles addresses which reject mail. Posting Messages to Newsgroups by E-mail ---------------------------------------- Those who use e-mail to post messages should send their mail to the following Internet addresses in the USA: ********************************************************************** DO NOT, REPEAT, DO NOT POST SUBSCRIPTION OR CANCELLATION REQUESTS DIRECTLY TO ANY OF THE NEWSGROUP E-MAIL POSTING ADDRESSES. PLEASE USE ONLY THE ADDRESS biosci-server@net.bio.net for subscription or cancellation requests as explained above. Your posting could go to several thousand people. Supposing that each person spends a couple of seconds to figure out that you did this, before they go on to the next message. You will have wasted the equivalent of several hours of one person's time, not to mention wasted computer time and disk storage. ********************************************************************** MAILING LIST NAME Mailing Address ----------------- ---------------- ACEDB-SOFT acedb@net.bio.net AFCR ** afcr@net.bio.net AGEING ageing@net.bio.net AGROFORESTRY ag-forst@net.bio.net AMYLOID amyloid@net.bio.net ARABIDOPSIS arab-gen@net.bio.net ASCB ** ascb@net.bio.net AUDIOLOGY audiolog@net.bio.net BIOCAN biocan@net.bio.net BIOFORUM bioforum@net.bio.net BIO-INFORMATION-THEORY + bio-info@net.bio.net BIONAUTS bio-naut@net.bio.net BIONEWS ** bionews@net.bio.net BIO-JOURNALS ** bio-jrnl@net.bio.net BIO-MATRIX biomatrx@net.bio.net BIOPHYSICAL-SOCIETY ** bphyssoc@net.bio.net BIOPHYSICS biophys@net.bio.net BIO-SOFTWARE bio-soft@net.bio.net BIO-SRS bio-srs@net.bio.net BIOTHERMOKINETICS btk-mca@net.bio.net BIO-WWW ** bio-www@net.bio.net CARDIOVASCULAR-RESEARCH cardiors@net.bio.net CELEGANS celegans@net.bio.net CELL-BIOLOGY cellbiol@net.bio.net CHLAMYDOMONAS chlamy@net.bio.net CHROMOSOMES biochrom@net.bio.net COMPUTATIONAL-BIOLOGY ** comp-bio@net.bio.net CSM ** csm@net.bio.net CYTONET cytonet@net.bio.net DIAGNOSTICS diagnost@net.bio.net DROSOPHILA dros@net.bio.net EMBL-DATABANK embl-db@net.bio.net EMF-BIO emf-bio@net.bio.net EMPLOYMENT biojobs@net.bio.net EMPLOYMENT-WANTED wantjob@net.bio.net FASEB faseb@net.bio.net FLUORESCENT-PROTEINS fluorpro@net.bio.net G-PROTEIN-COUPLED-RECEPTOR 7tms_r@net.bio.net GDB gdb@net.bio.net GENBANK-BB genbankb@net.bio.net GENETIC-LINKAGE gen-link@net.bio.net GLYCOSCI glycosci@net.bio.net GRASSES-SCIENCE grasses@net.bio.net HIV-MOLECULAR-BIOLOGY hiv-biol@net.bio.net HUMAN-GENOME-PROGRAM gnome-pr@net.bio.net IMMUNOLOGY immuno@net.bio.net INFO-GCG info-gcg@net.bio.net INSULIN-ACTION ** insulin@net.bio.net JOURNAL-NOTES jrnlnote@net.bio.net METHODS-AND-REAGENTS methods@net.bio.net MICROBIOLOGY microbio@net.bio.net MOLECULAR-EVOLUTION mol-evol@net.bio.net MOLECULAR-MODELLING molmodel@net.bio.net MOLLUSC-MOLECULAR-NEWS molluscs@net.bio.net MYCOLOGY mycology@net.bio.net NEUROSCIENCE neur-sci@net.bio.net N2-FIXATION n2fix@net.bio.net PARASITOLOGY parasite@net.bio.net PHOTOSYNTHESIS photosyn@net.bio.net PLANT-BIOLOGY plantbio@net.bio.net POPULATION-BIOLOGY pop-bio@net.bio.net PRENATAL-DIAGNOSTICS prenatal@net.bio.net PROTEIN-ANALYSIS proteins@net.bio.net PROTEIN-CRYSTALLOGRAPHY xtal-log@net.bio.net PROTISTA protista@net.bio.net RAPD rapd@net.bio.net SCHISTOSOMA schisto@net.bio.net SCIENCE-RESOURCES ** sci-res@net.bio.net STADEN staden@net.bio.net STRUCTURAL-NMR str-nmr@net.bio.net SYMBIOSIS-RESEARCH symbios@net.bio.net TIBS ** tibs@net.bio.net TOXICOLOGY toxicol@net.bio.net TROPICAL-BIOLOGY trop-bio@net.bio.net URODELES urodeles@net.bio.net VIROLOGY virology@net.bio.net WOMEN-IN-BIOLOGY womenbio@net.bio.net X-PLOR x-plor@net.bio.net YEAST yeast@net.bio.net ZBRAFISH zbrafish@net.bio.net + full name is BIOLOGICAL-INFORMATION-THEORY-AND-CHOWDER-SOCIETY ** Note that newsgroups flagged with ** are moderated, i.e., postings are directed to a moderator (editor) who later forwards messages (possibly edited or condensed) to the newsgroup. Retrieval of old postings from the BIOSCI archives -------------------------------------------------- Users with Internet access can use either the WAIS or gopher software to search the BIOSCI archives located at net.bio.net as described in the BIOSCI FAQ. E-mail users can retrieve messages from our waismail e-mail server. For waismail instructions, send the word help in a message to waismail@net.bio.net. Please leave the Subject: line of your message blank. BIOSCI "prototype" newsgroups ----------------------------- To assist areas of research in developing their own electronic communication forums, BIOSCI at net.bio.net will set up, on request, a mailing list *without* an associated USENET newsgroup. The mailing list is created only at net.bio.net, the U.S. BIOSCI node, and all subscription requests must be sent to the e-mail server at biosci-server@net.bio.net regardless of one's geographical location. There is no charge for this or any other BIOSCI service, as usual. This procedure waives the rule that requires each new newsgroup proposal to be put to a vote of the readership first (see the BIOSCI FAQ, mentioned at the beginning of this document, for details on creating new full-fledged newsgroups and prototype newsgroups). Each mailing list ("prototype newsgroup") must have a scientist volunteer to serve as its discussion leader and an initial list of e-mail subscribers. The prototype newsgroup has six months to build up its readership after which time it is put out for a vote for full newsgroup status (i.e., to have both a mailing list *and* parallel USENET newsgroup created at both BIOSCI nodes in the U.S. and U.K.). If you are interested in establishing such a forum for your research specialty, please contact biosci-help@net.bio.net. The current prototype newsgroups are listed below. Please send subscription requests to biosci-server@net.bio.net and NOT to the newsgroup posting addresses. Prototype newsgroups may *not* be fully archived, so please be sure to save any messages that you may want to refer to again. Posting Address Purpose --------------- ------- bigblue@net.bio.net Discussions between researchers who use transgenic animal systems for mutation assays. phbiotec@net.bio.net Discussions about research in pharmaceutical biotechnology. plant-ed@net.bio.net Discussions among instructors, lab preparators, and graduate assistants who teach courses in any aspect of plant biology at both the undergraduate and graduate level. radoncjc@net.bio.net Radiation Oncology journal club (moderated list) rna@net.bio.net Discussions about RNA editing, RNA splicing, and ribozyme activities of RNA. rust-mil@net.bio.net Research about the biotrophic foliar fungal diseases of cereals, including rusts, powdery mildews and downy mildews. yac@net.bio.net Discussions about yeast artificial chromosomes. Retrieving Other BIOSCI Documentation ------------------------------------- BIOSCI documents are kept in the anonymous FTP area on net.bio.net [134.172.2.69] in the directory pub/BIOSCI/doc and can be retrieved either via FTP or by gopher to net.bio.net or on the WWW to URL http://www.bio.net/. Documents can also be retrieved by addressing e-mail to the Internet address biosci-server@net.bio.net and including any of the commands below in the body of your mail message. Text placed on the Subject: line of your message is ignored, so please be sure that the commands are in the body of the mail message. Although multiple commands may be placed in one message, we recommend instead that one message be sent per command to avoid having to extract multiple documents from a single message. The server sends back all information requested from a multiple command query in a single response message. Document to Retrieve Command to send to biosci-server@net.bio.net -------------------- -------------------------------------------- BIOSCI FAQ info faq (Frequently Asked ?'s about using BIOSCI) BIOSCI info sheet for the Americas & Pacific Rim info usinfo BIOSCI info sheet for Europe, Africa, & Central Asia info ukinfo Information on Network Connections info internet How to set up USENET News at your site info usenet1 USENET Netiquette and other edifying reading info usenet2 FURTHER QUESTIONS??? Please address them to biosci-help@net.bio.net. PLEASE DO NOT DIRECT BIOSCI QUESTIONS TO THE PERSONAL E-MAIL ADDRESSES OF PEOPLE ON THE BIOSCI STAFF!! DUE TO OUR VOLUME OF MAIL, ANSWERS MAY BE DELAYED OR NOT SENT AT ALL!! -- Dr. John Nash // Dr. Max Firtel (moderators) Disclaimer: The National Research Council of Canada bears no responsibility for the content of messages posted to this newsgroup. From owner-csm@net.bio.net Thu Jul 06 23:00:00 1995 Path: biosci!rutgers!uwm.edu!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!news.starnet.net!wupost!news.utdallas.edu!corpgate!bcarh189.bnr.ca!nott!nrcnet0.nrc.ca!csm From: CSM Newsgroups: bionet.prof-society.csm Subject: CSM FAQ list (monthly posting) Date: 6 Jul 1995 16:07:34 GMT Organization: National Research Council, Canada Lines: 311 Approved: csm@nrcbsa.bio.nrc.ca Distribution: world Message-ID: <3th1o6$79b@nrcnet0.nrc.ca> NNTP-Posting-Host: nrcbsa.bio.nrc.ca Originator: csm@nrcbsa.bio.nrc.ca Changes to this month's FAQ: --------------------------- None. ********************************************************************* Frequently Asked Questions list (FAQ) and subscription information for bionet.prof-society.csm. ********************************************************************* Last modified: 5 Apr 95. Welcome to the bionet.prof-society.csm newsgroup / CSM mailing list, representing the "Canadian Society of Microbiologists". This newsgroup (and accompanying mailing list) was set up after discussions arising from the 1994 Annual General Meeting. Please bring this facility to the attention of CSM members, colleagues, graduate students and other interested parties who could benefit from it. BIOSCI/bionet operates on the "USE IT OR LOSE" principle. Therefore, CSM members are encouraged to make full use of this facility to conduct CSM-related activities. Posts could include (but are not limited to) discussions or opinions on CSM policies; announcements of meetings, events or seminars of interest to CSM members (even regional posts); job postings for microbiologists in non-profit Canadian institutions; strain requests; or even address requests. Hint: It could be a good idea for members to use this newsgroup to set up arrangements for the approaching AGM - from requests for a room-mate to Section Heads floating ideas to members before their Section meetings. Errors, omissions and information requests to: nash@nrcbsa.bio.nrc.ca (John Nash). ********************************************************************* Q: What's a FAQ? A: A FAQ (short for "Frequently Asked Questions") list is the traditional way that information about newsgroups (and other Internet things) is disseminated "on the net". This document is a FAQ. Q: What's in this FAQ? A: This FAQ contains reams of useful information on this newsgroup, including instructions on how to: i) subscribe (or unsubscribe) to the mailing list, ii) read the newsgroup from a central source instead of reading dozens of email messages, iii) post or reply to messages on the newsgroup or mailing list, iv) search newsgroup archives for past posts. Q: What is BIOSCI/bionet? A: The newsgroup/mailing list is part of BIOSCI (also known as "bionet"). The BIOSCI newsgroup network was developed to allow easy worldwide communications between biological scientists who work on a variety of computer networks. BIOSCI is supported by the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, and National Institutes of Health in the U.S.A. and by the Science and Engineering Research Council Daresbury Laboratory in the United Kingdom. BIOSCI services are available to users free of charge. BIOSCI administers DOZENS of newsgroups of various biological subjects from proteins to software, from immunology to the Genome Project. Of particular note to CSM members, are the following newsgroups: bionet.microbiology, bionet.molbio.methds-reagnts, bionet.glycosci, and bionet.immunology, as well as newsgroups on Genbank and EMBL. Along with this FAQ, a general BIOSCI information sheet will be posted on the first of each month to assist you in using the network. You may wish to save these messages for future reference. Q: What is CSM? A: The Canadian Society of Microbiologists (CSM) seeks to advance microbiology in all aspects and to facilitate the interchange of ideas between microbiologists. The society is divided into eight sections (Environmental Microbiology, Genetics and Molecular Biology, Infections and Immunity, Microbial Physiology, Morphology and Structure, Virology, Applied Microbiology, and Veterinary Microbiology). The CSM is financed by annual dues from the membership as well as proceeds of the Annual General Meeting or othe rmeeting which it sponsors. It is a non-profit organization. For more information on membership or the Society, please contact: The CSM Secretariat, 1200E Prince of Wales Drive, Ottawa ON, Canada K2C 1M9. Telephone: (613) 723-73233 Email: ba099@freenet.carleton.ca Q: What is this newsgroup for? A: CSM/bionet.prof-society.csm is a moderated newsgroup devoted solely to announcements from the Canadian Society of Microbiologists, and discussion of society issues. It is not intended as a general discussion forum. Mail sent to the addresses listed above or posts to the USENET newsgroup will be forwarded to the CSM moderator. CSM is under no obligation to reply to such posts or submit them to the newsgroup for posting as this group is intended primarily for communications from the Society to its members and other interested scientists who may not be members currently. Q: How do I subscribe to this group? A: It depends on whether you: i) have access to a Usenet newsreader, ii) are located in the Americas or Pacific Rim (incl Canada!), or iii) are located in Europe, Africa or Central Asia. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- i) IF YOU USE USENET NEWS: you need do nothing other than participate in bionet.prof-society.csm when it appears in your newsreader. In this case, you DO NOT have to subscribe to anything. Depending upon your news software, this may entail you having to answer a prompt indicating that you want to subscribe. You might also try the command "g bionet.prof-society.csm" in rn-like newsreaders. [Moderator's note: Using a Usenet newsreader is definitely the preferred way of reading this group. Ask your Systems Administrator for more details. - JN] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ii) IF YOU ARE LOCATED IN THE AMERICAS OR THE PACIFIC RIM (i.e. Canada): log in to the computer account in which you would like to receive mail (not an account that you use infrequently) and send a mail message to the Internet address biosci-server@net.bio.net Leave the Subject: line of the message blank and enter the following line into the body of the mail message: subscribe csm This message will be automatically read by our computer and your e-mail address will be extracted from the mail header and added to the list. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- iii) IF YOU ARE LOCATED IN EUROPE, AFRICA, OR CENTRAL ASIA: please send the word help in the body of your message to MXT@dl.ac.uk to retrieve general server usage instructions. To subscribe to the CSM list, first be sure that you are sending mail from the address at which you wish to receive news postings, and then send the command SUB bionet-news.bionet.prof-society.csm to MXT@dl.ac.uk. This message will be automatically read by the computer and your e-mail address will be extracted from the mail header and added to the list. *** Please do NOT do this from Canadian institutions **** Q: How do I cancel my subscription? A: IF YOU ARE LOCATED IN THE AMERICAS OR THE PACIFIC RIM: send a message to biosci-server@net.bio.net exactly as described above for subscribing except include the text unsubscribe csm in the body of the message. Please be sure to send the message from the account whose address matches the one on the list. If your address differs, we will be notified automatically and will remove you manually from the list if we can determine what was your old address. Please contact biosci-help@net.bio.net if you have problems. IF YOU ARE LOCATED IN EUROPE, AFRICA, OR CENTRAL ASIA: first be sure that you are sending mail from the address at which you signed up to receive news postings, and then send the command (in the body of your mail message) UNSUB bionet-news.bionet.prof-society.csm to MXT@dl.ac.uk. This message will be automatically read by the computer and your e-mail address will be extracted from the mail header and removed from the list. Q: What if I cannot cancel my subscription, or am having subscription problems? A: Please send a message to one of the following addresses depending upon your location Address Location ------- -------- biosci-help@net.bio.net Americas and the Pacific Rim biosci@daresbury.ac.uk Europe, Africa, and Central Asia and someone on the staff will help you. PLEASE DO NOT send mail to our personal e-mail addresses as this will delay a response to your request for help. How to post a message to the group: ----------------------------------- Please note that this is a *moderated* newsgroup and mailing list. Only messages pre-approved by the moderators, Max Firtel and John Nash, will be distributed on this list. If you use news (a.k.a Usenet news, netnews), simply post a message into bionet.prof-society.csm. Be sure to set your "distribution" to either bionet or world or else the message might not leave your site!! Your posting will be forwarded by mail to the newsgroup moderators who will decide whether or not to approve it for distribution. To post by e-mail, mail your message to one of the following addresses depending upon your location: Posting Address Location --------------- -------- csm@daresbury.ac.uk Europe, Africa, and Central Asia csm@net.bio.net Americas and the Pacific Rim These addresses will forward your message to the newsgroup moderators for their review prior to posting. PLEASE DO NOT SEND SUBSCRIPTION REQUESTS TO THE POSTING ADDRESSES!!! How to reply to a message on the group: --------------------------------------- If you are using a newsreader, simply use the reply or follow-up command on your newsreader (these vary from program to program) to send either private or public replies. If you are using e-mail, replies to messages that you receive will *NOT* be automatically returned to the group. This is the standard for Internet mailing lists as opposed to BITNET LISTSERVs which often send all replies back to everyone. You must be certain that your reply contains either of the two newsgroup posting addresses above in your message header if you want to share it with everyone on the group. Otherwise in most cases your reply may go back to only the original poster of the message to which you are replying. Messages directed back to the group will have to be approved by the moderators before they are distributed. ALWAYS be certain that you examine the address on your messages before you send them!!! Once a message is sent there is no way to cancel it or bring it back once the moderators pass it on to the newsgroup and mailing list!!! Some non-Internet compliant mail systems may attempt to send replies to our error-trapping address called BIOSCI-REQUEST. If yours does this, please be sure to readdress your message to csm@net.bio.net or csm@daresbury.ac.uk if you want to send it to the newsgroup. How to look at archives of the list: ------------------------------------ Archives for CSM/bionet.prof-society.csm are kept in the anonymous FTP account at net.bio.net [134.172.2.69]. Look in the directory pub/BIOSCI/CSM for posting archives. Each file is assigned a date such as 9312 for December 1993. Please note that ours is a UNIX system and all file and directory names are case-sensitive, i.e., upper case file names are different from lower case names. You can also access these same files via Gopher if you start a gopher session using net.bio.net as your gopher server. Gopher also allows you to view the individual messages within each monthly archive file. The files are in the CSM directory. Postings to bionet.prof-society.csm are also WAIS indexed and can be searched via either gopher or WAIS at our site. In gopher the option at net.bio.net is "Search Bionet USENET Articles" and in WAIS one should use the WAIS source biosci.src. This is a WAIS index of all BIOSCI/bionet messages including this newsgroup. Please see the BIOSCI FAQ for details. The FAQ can be requested from biosci-help@net.bio.net. Finally, you can also access the archives via WWW/Mosaic. The URL is gopher://net.bio.net/. Once again, if you have any administrative questions that require personal assistance, please address them to biosci-help@net.bio.net in the U.S. or biosci@daresbury.ac.uk in the UK. -- Dr. John Nash // Dr. Max Firtel (moderators) Disclaimer: The National Research Council of Canada bears no responsibility for the content of messages posted to this newsgroup. From owner-csm@net.bio.net Thu Jul 06 23:00:00 1995 Path: biosci!rutgers!uwm.edu!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!news.starnet.net!wupost!news.utdallas.edu!corpgate!bcarh189.bnr.ca!nott!nrcnet0.nrc.ca!csm From: CSM Newsgroups: bionet.prof-society.csm Subject: Bionet Info sheet (monthly posting) Date: 6 Jul 1995 16:28:36 GMT Organization: National Research Council, Canada Lines: 1819 Approved: csm@nrcbsa.bio.nrc.ca Distribution: world Message-ID: <3th2vk$7r9@nrcnet0.nrc.ca> NNTP-Posting-Host: nrcbsa.bio.nrc.ca Originator: csm@nrcbsa.bio.nrc.ca ---------------------------------------------------------------------- BIOSCI/bionet Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) ---------------------------------------------- This document supplements the BIOSCI Newsgroups Information Sheet and provides details on how to participate in BIOSCI forums. Both documents are available for anonymous FTP and gopher retrieval (port 70) from net.bio.net [134.172.2.69]. The text version of the FAQ is found in pub/BIOSCI/doc/biosci.FAQ. This document is also available using the World Wide Web at "http://www.bio.net/BIOSCI/biosci.FAQ.html". This document may also be requested by e-mail by sending the command info faq in the body of an e-mail message addressed to the Internet address biosci-server@net.bio.net Any text placed on the Subject: line of your message is ignored, so please be sure to put the "info faq" command in the main body of your e-mail message. The FAQ is posted the first of each month to the BIONEWS/bionet.announce newsgroup along with the BIOSCI information sheet and the list of changes to the newsgroups during the preceding month. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Contents COMMON QUESTIONS ABOUT BIOSCI/BIONET USAGE * What is BIOSCI and bionet? * What newsgroups are available on BIOSCI/bionet? * Where should I post my messages? * What are the restrictions on commercial activities in the BIOSCI/bionet newsgroups? * How does one post a message? * Should I post my message to more than one newsgroup? * Sorting out mail - which newsgroup did an e-mail message come from? * Why do all of my postings come from "BIOSCI-REQUEST?" * How do I reply to a BIOSCI posting? * What is Usenet? * How can I get news software at my site? * How can I test my news or mail software? * I hear that a new bionet newsgroup was created but why isn't it at my site yet? * A new bionet Usenet group has been created at my site but there are no messages in it. However, I see that messages are being sent out to the mailing list. Why do the contents differ? * How do I request or cancel e-mail subscriptions to BIOSCI newsgroups? * How can I get a list of newsgroups or my subscriptions? * How do I find back issues of BIOSCI postings? * Is there a summary of METHODS-AND-REAGENTS postings? * What journals are available on BIO-JOURNALS? How can one locate articles? * Why are there two BIOSCI sites? * Why have I stopped getting messages? * What should I do about mail error messages that come back when I post? * How does one start a new BIOSCI newsgroup/mailing list? * How can I list my address information in the BIOSCI user directory? * Why didn't my Usenet posting show up elsewhere? * Why are my messages are going to bionet.followup? COMMON QUESTIONS POSTED TO BIOSCI/BIONET NEWSGROUPS * What are all of these references to FTP, WAIS, Gopher, and WWW? * Please help me find the e-mail address for Dr. ... * How do I report a problem in a biological data base? * What about submitting sequence data to GenBank, EMBL, DDBJ or PIR? Other questions to add to this list??? Please send them to biosci-help@net.bio.net. We would also appreciate your sending the answer to the question if possible. All contributions will be gratefully acknowledged by including the author's name along with the answer provided. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Common Questions about BIOSCI/bionet usage WHAT IS BIOSCI AND BIONET? We'll spare you the fascinating historical details and say simply that BIOSCI is a series of freely accessible electronic communication forums (i.e., electronic bulletin boards or "newsgroups") for use by biological scientists worldwide. No fees are charged for the service. The system is intended to promote communication between professionals in the biological sciences. All postings to the newsgroups should be made in that spirit. While the general public may "listen in" to the discussions, these newsgroups are intended primarily for communications between researchers. There are other forums on Usenet such as sci.bio for the asking and answering of biological questions from lay persons. BIOSCI messages are distributed without editorial intervention in most cases. Dissemination is by both electronic mail and over Usenet in the form of the "bionet" newsgroups (see below for Usenet details). The contents of the electronic mail distribution is identical to the Usenet news distribution, but we encourage BIOSCI users to access the system through Usenet news software whenever possible. E-mail distributions may eventually be phased out. As of October 1992, 59% of our readers used Usenet news software instead of e-mail. You may find much more detailed and up to date information concerning Usenet in the news.announce.newusers newsgroup. These articles are also available using anonymous FTP from rtfm.mit.edu [18.181.0.24, but please always reference the hostname rtfm.mit.edu, as IP addresses and canonical names will change in the future, but rtfm.mit.edu will remain correct], in the /pub/usenet/news.announce.newusers directory. You may be specifically interested in the following articles: * What_is_Usenet? * What_is_Usenet?__A_second_opinion. * Usenet_Software:_History_and_Sources * How_to_Get_Information_about_Networks * How_to_become_a_Usenet_site * Answers_to_Frequently_Asked_Questions_about_Usenet * Emily_Postnews_Answers_Your_Questions_on_Netiquette * Hints_on_writing_style_for_Usenet Detailed starting information on how to get your site connected to the Internet can be found the file "How_to_Get_Information_about_Networks". ---------------------------------------------------------------------- WHAT NEWSGROUPS ARE AVAILABLE ON BIOSCI/BIONET? "THE BIOSCI ELECTRONIC NEWSGROUP NETWORK INFORMATION SHEET" containing the latest list of newsgroups, e-mail posting addresses, and other information about subscribing/unsubscribing, etc., to BIOSCI is posted the first of each month on the BIONEWS/bionet.announce newsgroup along with this FAQ posting. Two versions of the BIOSCI info sheet are available, one for the Americas and the Pacific Rim countries, and the second for Europe, Africa, and Central Asia. The former may be requested by e-mail to biosci-help@net.bio.net, while the latter may be requested from biosci@daresbury.ac.uk. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- WHERE SHOULD I POST MY MESSAGES? The list of newsgroups in the BIOSCI info sheet gives a brief description of the purpose of each newsgroup. Please select the appropriate forum for your posting with the newsgroup's purpose in mind. The groups designated as "Scientific Interest Group" are for discussions of professional interest in the area designated by the newsgroup name, i.e., population biology issues should obviously be directed to the POPULATION-BIOLOGY newsgroup. A few guidelines on specific newsgroups: BIONAUTS/bionet.users.addresses: This newsgroup was designed to help biologists "voyaging" into the new world of electronic networking. This is also the appropriate forum for requesting electronic mail addresses of other biologists if you can not find them in the BIOSCI user address directory (the address directory is described elsewhere in this FAQ). Regarding address requests to BIONAUTS, there are no guarantees that the people in question will respond personally, of course, but someone else might. In addition, this forum can be used for asking questions if you need any help with mail and news software or other aspects of electronic networking, e.g. "What is WAIS, gopher, and all of these other newfangled things that I have been hearing about?" (see another FAQ section for answers to this last question!). BIONEWS/bionet.announce: This is a moderated newsgroup designed to be low-volume, high content and intended primarily for announcements of interest to most users on the network, e.g., for general announcements such as for scientific meetings, courses, etc. We recommend that *ALL* participants subscribe to this newsgroup to keep up with the items above and also to receive the latest information about changes to BIOSCI/bionet. BIOFORUM/bionet.general: BIOFORUM is intended for discussions on topics that do not fit in to any of the specialty newsgroups. If you want to start a new newsgroup, you might begin by trying to raise interest through a discussion in this forum. Be aware that this newsgroup is by design one of the most "chatty" forums in the BIOSCI network. BIO-JOURNALS/bionet.journals.contents: This newsgroup is not for postings by readers. It is used to distribute the Table of Contents for over 30 biological research journals approximately a week or two in advance of publication (see the latest listing of journals in the FAQ section about the BIO-JOURNALS newsgroup). BIO-SOFTWARE: Intended for discussions about software in the biological sciences. There are other Usenet newsgroups and mailing lists for questions about word processors, etc., i.e., for general purpose software. BIO-SOFTWARE is intended for discussions about software for biologists. For Usenet users only, please note that there is an accompanying newsgroup bionet.software.sources used for distributing biological software source code and binaries. This service is *not* available by e-mail. COMPUTATIONAL-BIOLOGY: This newsgroup is moderated, i.e., postings made to the group are reviewed by a moderator before being distributed. EMPLOYMENT: These are the posting regulations for EMPLOYMENT/bionet.jobs as formulated by the U.S. National Science Foundation. Readers outside of the U.S. should check with their local network authorities to determine what rules apply to their usage. EMPLOYMENT/bionet.jobs is to be used for the posting of job openings in the biological sciences or professional level jobs that support the work of biological scientists (such as for computer/systems programming/support). There are no restrictions on the content of the postings if these jobs are in the non-profit sector. Individuals regardless of their place of employment may post their CVs/resumes to this newsgroup or simply place a request for work if they are looking for jobs in this area of endeavor. Commercial companies can post jobs intended for professional people in the areas just mentioned provided that the postings are limited to the format described below. Extended commercial job/benefit descriptions and promotional material are not allowed, nor may commercial firms post openings for non-professional positions (if in doubt about the appropriateness of a posting, please check with biosci-help@net.bio.net *before* proceeding). Commercial job posting format The posting should include * job title * one or two line factual description of the position * an e-mail contact address for further information; a regular surface mail address and contact telephone number is also permissible. To repeat, commercial job postings that do not comply with the above format or that are for jobs in areas outside of the range described above are not permissible in this newsgroup. Your cooperation is greatly appreciated. SCIENCE-RESOURCES: This newgroup is used solely to distribute funding agency announcements such as the "NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts" and is not to be used for postings by readers. Most other BIOSCI newsgroups are dedicated to professional discussions in the area defined by the name of the newsgroup. You are free to post anything of interest within the specialty served by the newsgroup. Please note that the lack of face-to-face contact often emboldens some of our readers. While we can wish that everyone learned manners in grade school or at home, please be aware that discussions can sometimes become a bit more heated than a new user might be accustomed to (our readership is usually composed of "sober" Ph.D.s, or so we used to think, but it appears that perhaps economic hard times have taken their toll on sobriety 8-). NOTE: To understand what 8-) means tilt your head to the left; other variants: :-) and :-(. These symbols try to add emotional connotations to the electrons such as "that's a joke, son!" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- WHAT ARE THE RESTRICTIONS ON COMMERCIAL ACTIVITIES IN THE BIOSCI/BIONET NEWSGROUPS? BIOSCI is funded in part by the National Science Foundation (NSF) which supports the Internet in the U.S. with U.S. taxpayer dollars. NSF is responsible for setting Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) for the the NSFNet backbone section of the Internet of which BIOSCI makes extensive use. Because of these reasons, BIOSCI users should adhere to the following guidelines. Commercial activities on BIOSCI are in general prohibited except as noted below. People at for-profit organizations are free to read all postings made to the BIOSCI/bionet newsgroups, but must ensure that their postings to the newsgroups do not violate our guidelines. Commercial organizations may post job openings on EMPLOYMENT/bionet.jobs subject to the format restrictions for that group. Commercial job posting format restrictions for the EMPLOYMENT/bionet.jobs newsgroup are described above under the question "Where should I post my messages?" Users who violate these format restrictions consciously risk losing their network access. BIOSCI readers without any financial connections to a company or a product may discuss and/or post endorsements of a commercial product. However, it is standard Internet practice to include in the posting a disclaimer of any financial interest in the product/company. Note that postings to newsgroups are subject to libel laws. BIOSCI advises readers to think twice before taking potshots at products that they do not like. BIOSCI users often post general questions about problems that might be solved through the use of a commercial product. It is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT, however, that such general questions *not* be answered by people affiliated with the product or company that might stand to gain a sale as a result. For example, user X may ask, "Is there a product that will allow me to separate protein A from protein B given the following properties ...?", but, if user Y works at company Z which sells a product that can accomplish this task, user Y does *NOT* have permission to respond to the question. Responses can only be posted by other scientists who might have experience in solving the problem in question and who do not stand to gain financially by promoting the product in question, i.e., they are not employees, consultants, or connected to the company via other financial ties. As noted above, postings endorsing commercial products should contain a customary disclaimer stating the absence of financial ties of the poster to the product/company. Commercial companies MAY RESPOND to a public BIOSCI newsgroup if a BIOSCI user asks a question directly about one of their products, e.g., mentions it by name. The response should be limited to a factual answer of the question posed and should avoid any hint of advertising hype. Comparisons with competitors' products should be avoided completely. Finally, as a general rule, if you are unsure about the appropriateness of your posting, before you post anything please send a copy of what you propose to post to the BIOSCI adminstrator at biosci-help@net.bio.net for review. BIOSCI will takes steps to terminate network access to any reader who willfully violates our commercial use policies. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- HOW DOES ONE POST A MESSAGE? If you use Usenet, run your posting program (e.g., postnews or e.g., use the ":post" command in nn) and follow the prompts. Please check with your local systems administrator for details on using your local news software; general information on Usenet and how to get news software is provided further below but each news program is different. When prompted, enter the appropriate newsgroup name from the list of Usenet names in the BIOSCI info sheet. Be sure to set your news distribution to "world" (or "bionet" if the option is available) if you want your message to be seen by others. Some Usenet systems may default to "local" which means that only people on your local computer will see the message. You can limit the extent of distribution of your message by choosing other distribution options, e.g., "usa" distributes only to the U.S.A. (sometimes! - on occasion these distribution limiting features don't work for a variety of reasons). Usually pressing "?" or "h" at the Distribution: prompt will show you your options. After entering your options, you are usually placed in an editor to compose your message. After saving it and exiting the editor, one typically enters a "send" command to complete the posting process. If you are using e-mail, first select the newsgroup that you wish to post to and find the mailing address in the BIOSCI info sheet for your region. For example, to post to the METHODS-AND-REAGENTS newsgroup you would use one of the following two addresses depending upon your location: Address Serving ------- ------- methods@net.bio.net The Americas and Pacific Rim methods@daresbury.ac.uk Europe, Africa, and Central Asia Once you have entered the newsgroup mailing address on the To: line of your mail message, the rest of the process is the same as composing and sending any e-mail message. Your message will be automatically distributed to all mail recipients on the list and also distributed by Usenet news. The BIOSCI information sheet containing the latest list of e-mail addresses for each of the above regions can be requested from biosci@net.bio.net or biosci@daresbury.ac.uk respectively. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SHOULD I POST MY MESSAGE TO MORE THAN ONE NEWSGROUP? Generally only *ONE* copy of a message should be posted to the most appropriate forum. Crossposting the same message to multiple newsgroups can aggravate readers who participate by e-mail. These people will receive multiple copies of a message if they are on the mailing lists for the groups that receive the crosspostings. Please note that software safeguards in our system which prevent mailing loops also make it difficult to use news software to both crosspost to different newsgroups AND simultaneously mail to all associated mailing lists. If you *absolutely must* distribute a message to different newsgroups AND their associated mailing lists, the way to do this is to e-mail a *separate* copy of your message to each newsgroup e-mail posting address. Including multiple mailing addresses on a single e-mail message will not crosspost to all mailing lists. Please be aware that many people read multiple groups by mail and be assured that, if two groups are related, many people who are interested in one will obviously sign up for the other group, too. Before crossposting, be certain that your message is so important that it really warrants sending multiple copies to a large number of people. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SORTING OUT MAIL - WHICH NEWSGROUP DID AN E-MAIL MESSAGE COME FROM? If you use Usenet news software, all messages are sorted by newsgroup so there is no problem identifying the source. If you receive BIOSCI postings in your mail file, all postings are funneled into your one mail file merely by chronological order of posting and you must be a little discerning to follow discussions. The best way to determine the news forum is to look at the line in the mail header that starts with "To:". For example, if you see "To: arab-gen@net.bio.net" or "To: arab-gen@daresbury.ac.uk" then you know that the address for sending a reply to everyone on the newsgroup is "arab-gen@net.bio.net" or "arab-gen@daresbury.ac.uk." The "From:" line in the mail header indicates who sent the message. In most cases, if you want to reply only to the author of the message, use the address on the "From:" line, and, if you want to reply to everyone on the newsgroup, use the address on the "To:" line (but please read the following sections on the BIOSCI-REQUEST address and replying to BIOSCI postings for additional information). Please note that replies to BIOSCI messages are *not* automatically sent back to the newsgroup address. The default reply on most mail systems (your local mail configuration may differ) will be to reply to the address that you see on the "From:" line, i.e., only to the person who posted the original message. You must consciously decide to send a copy of your reply to the newsgroup by including the newsgroup posting address in your e-mail response. This default reply (to the original sender only) is an Internet newsgroup standard and is the opposite of that used by the BITNET LISTSERV software (for those who may be familiar with the latter; the Internet standard is designed to minimize wasted network bandwidth, i.e., to avoid the *automatic, unthinking* posting by many people of the same answer to a particular question). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- WHY DO ALL OF MY POSTINGS COME FROM "BIOSCI-REQUEST?" Unfortunately some mail systems make all BIOSCI postings appear to come from someone named "BIOSCI-REQUEST." The BIOSCI-REQUEST@net.bio.net address was established to trap mailing error messages ("bouncers"). The address is not normally seen by BIOSCI readers in the messages that they receive. Unfortunately some proprietary (read "VMS") and other oddball mail systems misread the information used to transmit Internet e-mail messages and may end up putting the BIOSCI-REQUEST address on the From: line in the mail that you may receive. If this happens at your site and you want to reply to a message, please use either the newsgroup address on the To: line of the message or try to find the author's e-mail address elsewhere in the message (people often append this at the end of their text in their "signature"). If you send a message back to BIOSCI-REQUEST@net.bio.net, the BIOSCI managers at net.bio.net will be the only ones who will see it (we will try to forward it to the appropriate newsgroup, but would appreciate it if you would determine the correct address yourself first). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- HOW DO I REPLY TO A BIOSCI POSTING? If you are using news software, there are usually two types of reply commands. One command sends a private reply to the author of the original posting; the second sends a "followup" posting to everyone on the newsgroup. Press ? or h in your news software to find these commands. They are often noted by "r" and "R" or "r" and "f" respectively. If you are replying to an e-mail message from BIOSCI, be sure to look carefully at the To: and Cc: lines of your reply message *before* sending it off. If you want the reply to be PRIVATE, only the address of the person who posted the original message (and perhaps your address and/or that of other individuals) should be on the To: and Cc: address lines. If you want the reply to be PUBLIC, be sure that the newsgroup posting address appears on either the To: or Cc: line of your response. If your mail system is a bit unorthodox and puts the "BIOSCI-REQUEST" address in your response (see the section about BIOSCI-REQUEST above), please be sure to correct this *before* sending your message (ask your systems administrator how to edit the To: and Cc: lines of your mail messages before sending if you do not know how to do this). Now that you have read about all of these problems with using e-mail to participate in BIOSCI, why don't you get news software installed at your site and make life easy for yourself instead of using e-mail 8-)!! Let's look at Usenet news next! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- WHAT IS USENET? Usenet (short for Users Network) is an electronic bulletin board network which utilizes various public domain versions of the "netnews" software for message transmission. The software can operate over physical networks ranging from as simple as a telephone UUCP link (via modem) to networks as sophisticated as the Internet. Netnews has been optimized to transmit messages without loss and also to avoid possible mail loops and other errors which plague simple electronic mail "broadcasting." We strongly encourage our users to adopt netnews software at their sites as soon as possible. News software also keeps messages segregated into their respective newsgroups, making it easier to follow the thread of a discussion. If you only use e-mail, messages from all of the newsgroups to which you subscribe will be sent to your one personal e-mail address and will be mixed in with each other and with your other personal messages. This is obviously a suboptimal means of organizing messages. With news software, you can browse the discussion topics easily, read what you want and discard the rest. Why subject yourself to having to page through a disorganized mail file message-by-message unless you really have no other choice?? News software makes the use of BIOSCI pleasant and efficient. It's time to get your organization "into the 20th Century" before it turns into the 21st Century! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- HOW CAN I GET NEWS SOFTWARE AT MY SITE? Contact biosci-help@net.bio.net for information on getting started with Usenet. News software can be obtained free of charge from anonymous FTP sources. Note, however (yes, here's the unfortunate catch), that news software should be installed and maintained by a trained systems administrator in most cases; it is not a task for a computer novice. You can find detailed information about Usenet using anonymous FTP from rtfm.mit.edu [18.181.0.24, but please always reference the hostname rtfm.mit.edu, as IP addresses and canonical names will change in the future, but rtfm.mit.edu will remain correct], in the /pub/usenet/news.announce.newusers directory. You may be specifically interested in the following articles: * What_is_Usenet? * What_is_Usenet?__A_second_opinion. * Usenet_Software:_History_and_Sources * How_to_Get_Information_about_Networks * How_to_become_a_Usenet_site ---------------------------------------------------------------------- HOW CAN I TEST MY NEWS OR MAIL SOFTWARE? Please DO NOT post test messages to any of the BIOSCI/bionet Usenet newsgroups. If you are unsure about whether or not your mail is working, please send test mail messages to either of our two administrative addresses, but NOT to newsgroup mailing addresses: Address for tests Location ----------------- -------- biosci@daresbury.ac.uk Europe, Africa, and Central Asia biosci@net.bio.net Americas and the Pacific Rim If you need to test your Usenet news software, please post test messages to the Usenet newsgroup misc.test which was created solely for this purpose. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- I HEAR THAT A NEW BIONET NEWSGROUP WAS CREATED BUT WHY ISN'T IT AT MY SITE YET? This could happen for a variety of reasons. When we create a new Usenet newsgroup, a "newgroup" message is sent out from net.bio.net to news administrators at Usenet sites around the world. Many sites are configured so that such newgroup messages are acted upon automatically and the group is established without human intervention. However, due to the growing volume of Usenet newsgroups, many sites have turned off automatic newgroup creation and require human intervention to create a new Usenet group in response to a newgroup message. If you know from reading BIONEWS/bionet.announce or from contacting the BIOSCI staff at biosci-help@net.bio.net that a new bionet newsgroup should be in existance, please contact your local news administrator and ask them if they acted on the newgroup message. Newgroup messages can sometimes be simply overlooked by the news administrator and sometimes they may not be received if a Usenet site upstream on the net from you had a problem and did not pass on the message. Please let your news adminstrator know that a bionet "checkgroup" message is posted on the first of each month to bionet.announce. Your news administrator can use the contents of that message to update your local list of bionet Usenet newsgroups. Please note that all new BIOSCI/bionet newsgroups are announced on BIONEWS/bionet.announce as soon as they are ready for use. If you see this announcement, this means that the BIOSCI staff has tested the group and is (1) sure that it works, and (2) knows that it has propagated to at least some other sites in both North America and Europe. We obviously can not check for propagation to the thousands of sites on Usenet. Depending upon your source of Usenet news, there may be a delay of several days before the newgroup message reaches your site. The announcement of the newsgroup availability, however, is always sent to bionet.announce *after* the newgroup message has been sent and after system tests have been run. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A NEW BIONET USENET GROUP HAS BEEN CREATED AT MY SITE BUT THERE ARE NO MESSAGES IN IT. HOWEVER, I SEE THAT MESSAGES ARE BEING SENT OUT TO THE MAILING LIST. WHY DO THE CONTENTS DIFFER? If you experience the problem above, please contact your local news administrator and have them check with the site that sends you your bionet Usenet news feed. We explained in a question above that new Usenet newsgroups are created in response to a "newgroup" message which is sent out to all Usenet news administrators. It is possible that your news administrator acted on the message to create the group, but that the site which sends you bionet Usenet news did not. Having your Usenet news administrator contact the administrator at the upstream site can usually resolve the problem. If you have a problem getting a reliable bionet Usenet news feed, please contact biosci-help@net.bio.net. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- HOW DO I REQUEST OR CANCEL E-MAIL SUBSCRIPTIONS TO BIOSCI NEWSGROUPS? Instructions for subscribing and unsubscribing to the BIOSCI newsgroups by e-mail are included in the BIOSCI info sheet which can be obtained from either of the following two addresses: Administrative Address Location ---------------------- -------- biosci@daresbury.ac.uk Europe, Africa, and Central Asia biosci@net.bio.net Americas and the Pacific Rim ---------------------------------------------------------------------- HOW CAN I GET A LIST OF NEWSGROUPS OR MY SUBSCRIPTIONS? Simply send a request to your appropriate BIOSCI distribution site: Administrative Address Location ---------------------- -------- biosci@net.bio.net The Americas and Pacific Rim biosci-help@daresbury.ac.uk Europe, Africa, and Central Asia The most recent list of BIOSCI newsgroups/mailing addresses and the latest revision of the BIOSCI/bionet FAQ are posted the first of each month on the BIONEWS/bionet.announce newsgroup. You should save these postings for future reference. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- HOW DO I FIND BACK ISSUES OF BIOSCI POSTINGS? The BIOSCI node at net.bio.net maintains the entire collection of BIOSCI/bionet messages. They are available via WAIS (biosci.src and biology-journal-contents.src), Gopher (net.bio.net port 70), anonymous ftp from net.bio.net [134.172.2.69], and Mosaic/WWW (URL is gopher://net.bio.net/). Contact biosci-help@net.bio.net for further help. If you are on the Internet but do not have WAIS software running locally, try telnet quake.think.com and login in as "wais" to experiment with the software. All of our WAIS sources (biosci.src, biology-journal-contents.src, and biologists-addresses.src) may be selected from the menu for searching. Please also refer to the FAQ section below entitled "Please help me find the e-mail address for Dr. ..." for additional uses of our WAIS sources. If you are not on the Internet you may search the BIOSCI WAIS archives by e-mail using our WAISMAIL e-mail server. For instructions on using WAISMAIL, please send the message help in the body of a mail message addressed to the Internet address waismail@net.bio.net and be sure to leave the Subject: line of your message blank. Detailed instructions will be returned to you automatically. The SERC Daresbury BIOSCI node runs a BIOSCI newsgroups WAIS source called BIOWAIS. This source can also be searched through their gopher client at host s-crim1.dl.ac.uk, port 70. All the Bionet newsgroup postings since December 1991 are stored for Gopher searching and retrieval and anonymous ftp at ftp.bio.indiana.edu, the IUBIO Archive maintained by Don Gilbert. The directory in the anonymous FTP account is usenet/bionet. This gopher site also contains an outstanding collection of biological software and databases. Another excellent gopher server is maintained by Dan Jacobson at merlot.gdb.org, port 70. In addition to newsgroup archives, many other information sources of use to biologists are available. In Europe, Rob Harper runs a full-featured Gopher for biologists at gopher.csc.fi and Reinhard Doelz maintains a biology gopher at gopher.embnet.unibas.edu. The number of "gopher holes" on the network is expanding too rapidly to list them all here. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- IS THERE A SUMMARY OF METHODS-AND-REAGENTS POSTINGS? Yes. A FAQ for the METHODS newsgroup was created by Paul Hengen of Frederick Cancer Research and Development Center. It can be obtained via anonymous FTP from net.bio.net in pub/BIOSCI/METHDS-REAGNTS/METHODS.FAQ or from ftp.ncifcrf.gov in pub/methods/FAQlist. Note, however, that maintaining such a FAQ is a gargantuan task. We also recommend searching the METHODS archives for keywords through the use of the WAIS and Gopher software as described in the "archives" question above. In each issue of "Trends in Biochemical Sciences" since November 1993, Dr. Hengen writes a monthly digest column of the METHODS newsgroup. This column highlights topics of special interest which were discussed recently on the newsgroup. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- WHAT JOURNALS ARE AVAILABLE ON BIO-JOURNALS? HOW CAN ONE LOCATE ARTICLES? The following journals appear regularly as of 6/28/94. This list is constantly expanding and the latest copy can be requested from biosci-help@net.bio.net. * Anatomy & Embryology * Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology * Applied and Environmental Microbiology * Binary * CABIOS * Cell and Tissue Research * Chromosoma * Clinical Chemistry * Current Genetics * EMBO Journal * European Journal of Biochemistry * European Journal of Physiology * Experimental Brain Research * Histochemistry * Human Genetics * IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology * Immunogenetics * Journal of Bacteriology * Journal of Biological Chemistry * Journal of Comparative Physiology B: Biochemical, Systemic, and Environmental Physiology * Journal of Membrane Biology * Journal of Molecular Evolution * Journal of Virology * MGG - Molecular and General Genetics * Mammalian Genome * Microbial Releases * Molecular Microbiology * Molecular and Cellular Biology * Nucleic Acids Research * Plant Cell Reports * Planta * Protein Science * Roux's Archives of Developmental Biology * Seminars in Cancer Biology * Seminars in Cell Biology * Seminars in Developmental Biology * Seminars in Immunology * Seminars in the Neurosciences * Seminars in Virology * TAG - Theoretical and Applied Genetics Table of Contents for the journals above are available for FTP from net.bio.net in pub/BIOSCI/BIO-JOURNALS and also for searching and retrieval by Gopher from net.bio.net, port 70. One can use either gopher or WAIS to search the WAIS source biology-journal-contents.src at net.bio.net and retrieve individual article references from the journals above. This can be accessed through WAIS, WAISMAIL, gopher, and Mosaic as described in the FAQ section entitled "How do I find back issues of BIOSCI postings?" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- WHY ARE THERE TWO BIOSCI SITES? Originally there were *four* BIOSCI distribution sites (nodes), but due to administrative complexities, the number of nodes was scaled back to two. Although 99% of you never have to pay for any BIOSCI messages, rest assured that network resources are not free and should not be squandered. We established BIOSCI distribution sites on each side of the Atlantic to minimize network e-mail traffic. For example, if a message is posted to the U.S. site, only one copy is sent on to the U.K. site *via netnews software, not by mail* before being "exploded" for mail distribution to all of the final e-mail destinations on the "other side of the pond." This is more efficient than sending hundreds of copies of the same message across the Atlantic. A trade-off for this efficiency is slightly increased complexity in the distribution network, i.e., the mailing lists for each newsgroup are split between two sites. In the past BIOSCI experienced sporadic problems with "bounced" mail, but the reduction in the number of BIOSCI distribution sites and the implementation of U.S. to U.K. message transfer via news rather than by e-mail has eliminated this problem. Everyone would be better served if Usenet news was used exclusively, and we have the eventual elimination of e-mail subscriptions as a *long term* goal. Currently, however, too many biologists still have no other means of access to BIOSCI other than through e-mail. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- WHY HAVE I STOPPED GETTING MESSAGES? If your computer or network connection is down, mail sent to your address will "bounce" back to the sender of the message and often to the BIOSCI-REQUEST address at net.bio.net. Given the number of people using BIOSCI around the world, this can become quite a problem, so we have to take prompt action to eliminate troublesome addresses from our mailing lists. Offending addresses are "commented out" of the mailing lists. If your system is down, there may be no way to reach you, so it is your responsibility to contact your BIOSCI distribution site and request reinstatement if you notice a lapse in distribution. There is an automatic reminder system at net.bio.net in the U.S. that sends a message to all "commented out" addresses on the mailing lists at net.bio.net each Monday for three weeks. After that if no response is received to biosci-help@net.bio.net, the bad addresses are completely removed from the mailing lists. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- WHAT SHOULD I DO ABOUT MAIL ERROR MESSAGES THAT COME BACK WHEN I POST? It is not uncommon when posting a mail message to a newsgroup to receive an error message from a "mailer daemon." Don't panic!! The devil is not in the employ of BIOSCI! It is a rare day when every single computer and e-mail address in the world is functional. Mail systems are programmed to alert you if mail does not go through to a particular address which could be on any of our BIOSCI lists. Rest assured that your message was received by the *vast majority* of readers. You may either just delete these "bouncers" or send them on to your local BIOSCI distribution node (in most cases we will probably be aware of them already). It is not uncommon to receive one or two bouncers for any e-mail posting that you make. Note once again that if everyone used news software and if we didn't have to bridge so many incompatible e-mail networks to bring the biology community together, we wouldn't have to deal with this problem. Note that the BIOSCI-REQUEST address at net.bio.net was established to trap daemon bouncers instead of passing them back to the person who posts a message. Unfortunately due to network incompatibilities, the BIOSCI-REQUEST trapping mechanism is often disabled when the bad address is not on the Internet. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- HOW DOES ONE START A NEW BIOSCI NEWSGROUP/MAILING LIST? BIOSCI's goal is to promote the use of electronic communications among biologists and we are here to assist you in establishing new forums at no charge. There are currently two options - create a full newsgroup or a prototype (mailing lists only): For full-fledged BIOSCI newsgroup status (also see "prototype" rules below) Proposals for new groups must contain a statement of purpose for the group and the name of a person designated as discussion leader unless the group is in the service category such as METHODS, EMPLOYMENT, etc. Discussion leaders are responsible for ensuring that a reasonable level of activity is sustained on the newsgroup (see Newsgroup Termination Policy below). The discussion leader can also propose the creation of moderated newsgroups if he/she agrees to serve as moderator (this requires access to Usenet news software at the moderator's site). Proposals should be sent to biosci-help@net.bio.net. When a proposal is received it will be posted on BIONEWS/bionet.announce. A ten day period for discussion on BIOFORUM/bionet.general will follow and precede the call for votes. After the discussion, the person proposing the newsgroup may modify or withdraw the proposal prior to the call for votes. The modified proposal will then be included in a call for votes on BIONEWS/bionet.announce. The proposal must collect 80 YES votes in 30 days and the number of YES votes must exceed the number of NO votes by at least 40 to pass. BIOSCI management must be informed in advance of any intended efforts to advertise the newsgroup proposal in other forums. While BIOSCI wishes to inform potential users of the creation of newsgroups that might be of interest to them, promotional efforts should be focussed in forums likely to be utilized by professionals in the subject area covered by the newsgroup proposal, and should seek participation in the discussion of the proposal within bionet.general/BIOFORUM rather than promoting separate discussions in other forums to which portions of the BIOSCI readership may not have ready access. If a proposal is not passed by the readers, there will be a three month period before it can be brought up for another vote. Newsgroup Termination Policy Any group with less than 52 msgs in the previous calendar year will be put on notice by posting an announcement to the newsgroup (not to bionet.announce) that it faces cancellation. It can be reprieved if 80 readers respond within two weeks (this policy will be stated in the termination announcement). It then has two months to reach a usage level of one message per 3 days or else it will be abolished. Appeals to the BIOSCI management about high content albeit low volume on the group will be considered. Newsgroups for Professional Societies in Biology BIOSCI will create a moderated newsgroup in the bionet.prof-society domain without voter approval for any professional society in the biological sciences which has a membership of at least 500. Smaller groups must go through the regular BIOSCI/bionet newsgroup creation process. Because these groups are not discussion forums, they will be exempted from the 52 message per year minimum posting limit and would only be discontinued if the society in question no longer wishes to use them. If usage seems extremely low on any group in the bionet.prof-society domain, the BIOSCI/bionet staff will contact the society in question and ensure that the newsgroup is still wanted. BIOSCI "prototype" newsgroup creation policy We will be happy to establish and administer a straight *mailing* list *without* an associated Usenet newsgroup for a six month trial period for anyone that wants to try to form a new electronic community in the biological sciences (We stress that the topics are limited to professional communications though.). The mailing lists will be maintained *initially* only at net.bio.net instead of at both BIOSCI sites. It will be the responsibility of the person who proposes the list to get it up and running within the six month period. They will have to handle promotion; our involvement at BIOSCI at net.bio.net will be limited to creating the list, putting out one announcement about it, and handling subscription requests. After six months, the list will be put out for discussion and a vote according to our procedures for full-fledged newsgroups above (unless the organizer decides to bow out). If it passes it will become a full-fledged BIOSCI newsgroup at both net.bio.net and daresbury.ac.uk and will also have a parallel Usenet newsgroup. If it fails, the prototype mailing list at net.bio.net will be shut down. Note that this service does not preclude people who have an idea that has widespread appeal from following our current newsgroup creation policy and going to a vote after a 10 day discussion. If you have an idea for a prototype newsgroup, please send it to biosci-help@net.bio.net. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- HOW CAN I LIST MY ADDRESS INFORMATION IN THE BIOSCI USER DIRECTORY? Below is the address form that we would like each reader of the BIOSCI/bionet newsgroups to complete and return if you would like to be listed in our database. The database serves as a directory that enables biologists, who are currently using (or even just reading) the BIOSCI newsgroups, to look up e-mail addresses and other information about our users. The address database is reindexed nightly for WAIS, waismail, and gopher access. If you have access to gopher, connect to net.bio.net to search the database. If you have access to WAIS, please use our WAIS source biologists-addresses.src. If you are not on the Internet, please use our waismail server (send the word "help" to waismail@net.bio.net to get instructions; any text on the Subject: line of your message will be ignored, so put the help command in the body of the mail message.). Please carefully follow the instructions for completing the form below and return it to either of the following two addresses (whichever is more convenient for you). Thanks in advance for taking the time to complete and return the form. Addresses for returning forms Location Network ----------------------------- -------- ------- biovote@net.bio.net U.S.A. Internet/BITNET biovote@daresbury.ac.uk U.K. JANET Making Sure That Your Information Is Current This notice will be mailed bimonthly to each newsgroup. You should check your database entry from time-to-time to see if your address information is still up-to-date. Using Gopher to complete the form If you don't want to use a text editor, you can also use Dan Jacobson's gopher site to fill out the address database form as follows. Otherwise skip this section on gopher and proceed to the instructions for filling out the form below. > To add yourself to the database just point your > gopher client at merlot.gdb.org and select the following: > > --> 15. Searching For Biologists/ > > --> 9. E-mail Addresses of Biosci-Bionet Users/ > >--> 1. Add (or Correct) Your Address to the BIOSCI User Address > Data.. > > And fill out the form. or Rob Harper's gopher site in Europe as follows: > Europeans can point their gopher client at gopher.csc.fi and add their > information to the database. All entries will be mailed directly to > Dave for incorporation in a wais source. > > The path to the questionare is as follows. > > ---> 10. Finnish EMBnet BioBox/ > > ---> 8. FAQ Files/ > > FAQ Files > > 1. EMBnet: Information. > 2. EMBnet: Internet resources guide. > 3. A Biologist's Guide to Internet Resources/ > 4. All FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) Searches and Archives/ >--->5. Bionauts Address Database (questionaire) Important Instructions - Please Read Carefully Please enter all responses after the : on each line, leaving one (1) blank space after the : (i.e., before the start of your text). Please do NOT extend your responses past the end of each line (80 characters). PLEASE DO NOT alter any of the field identifiers such as "first name:". If you have nothing to enter after a field identifier, PLEASE LEAVE IT - do not delete it even if there is no data on the line in question. Several lines are provided at the end of the form for comments, but, please adhere to the line length restriction. On the date: line, please enter the date in the DD-MM-YY format, e.g., 15-05-93 for 15 May 1993. This line will tell others when the information was last updated. Please be sure to include the 0's for single digit days or months, e.g., 15-05-93, not 15-5-93. Note that the "e-mail network:" line below is for specifying, e.g., "Internet," "BITNET," "EARN," "JANET," or whatever other network that your computer may be on. If you are uncertain about any field, please feel free to leave it blank, but please DO NOT DELETE the field identifier from the form! In the first field below, "New information or Update ...", please enter "N" if this is the first time that you have registered in the directory or "U" if you are correcting a listing that you sent to us previously. The comment: lines may be used for anything that you like but PLEASE DO NOT DELETE THEM FROM THE FORM OR ALTER THEM. One suggested use is to list the names of the newsgroups in which you participate. Please use the MAILING LIST name (see below - the latest version of the list can be requested from biosci@net.bio.net) instead of the Usenet name even if you don't participate by e-mail. WAIS might get confused by the periods in the Usenet names. This allows one to retrieve via WAIS or waismail the list of participants in a particular group. For example: comment: ARABIDOPSIS PLANT-BIOLOGY BIONEWS On the comment: lines use these names below -- NOT the Usenet names below MAILING LIST NAME Usenet Newsgroup Name ----------------- --------------------- ACEDB-SOFT bionet.software.acedb AGEING bionet.molbio.ageing AGROFORESTRY bionet.agroforestry ARABIDOPSIS bionet.genome.arabidopsis BIOFORUM bionet.general BIO-INFORMATION-THEORY bionet.info-theory BIONAUTS bionet.users.addresses BIONEWS bionet.announce BIO-JOURNALS bionet.journals.contents BIO-MATRIX bionet.molbio.bio-matrix BIOPHYSICAL-SOCIETY bionet.prof-society.biophysics BIOPHYSICS bionet.biophysics BIO-SOFTWARE bionet.software BIOTHERMOKINETICS bionet.metabolic-reg CELL-BIOLOGY bionet.cellbiol CHLAMYDOMONAS bionet.chlamydomonas CHROMOSOMES bionet.genome.chromosomes COMPUTATIONAL-BIOLOGY bionet.biology.computational CYTONET bionet.cellbiol.cytonet DROSOPHILA bionet.drosophila EMBL-DATABANK bionet.molbio.embldatabank EMPLOYMENT bionet.jobs GDB bionet.molbio.gdb GENBANK-BB bionet.molbio.genbank GENETIC-LINKAGE bionet.molbio.gene-linkage GRASSES-SCIENCE bionet.biology.grasses HIV-MOLECULAR-BIOLOGY bionet.molbio.hiv HUMAN-GENOME-PROGRAM bionet.molbio.genome-program IMMUNOLOGY bionet.immunology INFO-GCG bionet.software.gcg JOURNAL-NOTES bionet.journals.note METHODS-AND-REAGENTS bionet.molbio.methds-reagnts MOLECULAR-EVOLUTION bionet.molbio.evolution MYCOLOGY bionet.mycology NEUROSCIENCE bionet.neuroscience N2-FIXATION bionet.biology.n2-fixation PARASITOLOGY bionet.parasitology PHOTOSYNTHESIS bionet.photosynthesis PLANT-BIOLOGY bionet.plants POPULATION-BIOLOGY bionet.population-bio PROTEIN-ANALYSIS bionet.molbio.proteins PROTEIN-CRYSTALLOGRAPHY bionet.xtallography PROTISTA bionet.protista RAPD bionet.molbio.rapd SCIENCE-RESOURCES bionet.sci-resources STRUCTURAL-NMR bionet.structural-nmr TROPICAL-BIOLOGY bionet.biology.tropical VIROLOGY bionet.virology WOMEN-IN-BIOLOGY bionet.women-in-bio YEAST bionet.molbio.yeast Listing newsgroups on the comment: line is optional, of course. Thanks again for your cooperation! --------------- please cut here and return portion below --------------- New information or Update to old record (enter N or U): date (DD-MM-YY): first name: middle initial: family name: job title: e-mail address: e-mail network: phone number: FAX number: institution: address1: address2: address3: city: state/province: country: postal code: research interest: comment: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- WHY DIDN'T MY USENET POSTING SHOW UP ELSEWHERE? Your local Usenet software may have defaulted to "local" distribution. If this option is selected, only other readers of the bionet newsgroups on your local computer will see your posting. If you want your message to be delivered to all BIOSCI/bionet readers, please be sure to specify "world" or "bionet" when prompted for the Distribution:. Generally, if you press "?" or "h" when prompted, you will see your options for controlling the distribution of your messages on Usenet. If your message does not reach one of the two BIOSCI nodes in the U.S. or the U.K. it will not be distributed to people who participate in BIOSCI by e-mail. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- WHY ARE MY MESSAGES ARE GOING TO BIONET.FOLLOWUP? This is a problem that might plague users of older versions of the "rn" newsreading program when they try to reply to messages on BIOFORUM/bionet.general. bionet.followup is a non-existent newsgroup. In the "good old days" there was a newsgroup called "net.general" and replies to net.general were posted to "net.followup." Unfortunately the Usenet name of the BIOFORUM newsgroup, bionet.general, contains the text "net.general" as a subset. Older versions of news software can latch on to this text string and redirect replies to bionet.general messages to bionet.followup. If you are plagued by this problem, please call the following fixes, provided by Roy Smith and Wayne Rindone, to the attention of your local systems manager: +++++++++++++++++++++++ The problem is indeed in the rn sources, specifically in intrp.c. In the version I have (intrp.c,v 4.3.2.11 90/12/31 11:47:44 sob Exp), It's the following code at lines 664-670: if (h = instr(s,"net.general")) { off = h-s; strncpy(scrbuf,s,off+4); strcpy(scrbuf+off+4,"followup"); safecpy(scrbuf+off+12,h+11,sizeof(scrbuf)); s = scrbuf; } What's going on is that there used to be the convention that followups to articles in the newsgroup net.general (which doesn't exist anymore and hasn't for something like 5 years) should be placed in net.followup. For better or for worse, the rn code attempted to enforce this convention. What's going on in the above code is that the string "net.general" in the Newsgroups line of an article being follow-ed-up to gets changed to "net.followup". Unfortunately, that means "bionet.general" gets changed to "bionet.followup". I would suggest simply deleting the above code entirely. I'm not even sure why it's still there, other than nobody bothered to take it out, and until bionet.general came around, it never bit anybody. Old code never dies. It simply gets integrated into the host genome of the program it's part of waiting for the right environmental conditions to appear. -- roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016, USA "Arcane? Did you say arcane? It wouldn't be Unix if it wasn't arcane!" +++++++++++++++++++++++ From: Wayne Rindone Subject: Another source of bionet.followup problem Thought you might like to know that there are other potential reasons for the appearance of the bogus bionet.followup group name. A couple of months ago, I installed rn 4.4 on my workstation, expecting that to fix the bionet.followup problem, among other things. I was very surprised to discover that I still had bionet.followup appearing, even though it was quite clear there was nothing in the new rn sources to account for that. It turned out that the following lines were included in /usr/local/news/rn/Pnews.header: case $ng in *net.general*) follow=`echo "$ng" | sed 's/net\.general/net.followup/g'` ;; *) follow="" ;; esac Once these were removed the problem disappeared. I have no idea if this logic was created locally at BBN or not, or if it came from elsewhere or had wider dissemination beyond BBN. Although the problem is solved for me, I have a bad feeling that it will turn up many places around the world for many years to come. Feel free to mention Pnews.header as another potential source of the problem the next time someone asks if you think that helpful. Wayne Rindone, BBN +++++++++++++++++++++++ ------- Common questions posted to BIOSCI/bionet newsgroups WHAT ARE ALL OF THESE REFERENCES TO FTP, WAIS, GOPHER, AND WWW/MOSAIC? FTP FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol and is a method for transmitting files at high speed over the Internet. There are also e-mail servers at various BITNET sites which provide e-mail access to FTP archives. Send the word "HELP" to BITFTP@PUCC.BITNET for details. A sample session of using FTP to access the BIOSCI archives follows. Keyboard input is underlined. ### highlights comments about the procedure. net<1>ftp net.bio.net ### connect to the BIOSCI computer --------------- Connected to net.bio.net. 220 net.bio.net FTP server (SunOS 4.1) ready. Name (net.bio.net:kristoff): anonymous ### login as anonymous --------- 331 Guest login ok, send ident as password. Password: ### enter any password; typically your e-mail address ---------- 230 Guest login ok, access restrictions apply. ftp> ls ### display the directories. sometimes "dir" is used here -- 200 PORT command successful. 150 ASCII data connection for /bin/ls (134.172.2.69,3225) (0 bytes). bin dev etc lost+found misc pub usr 226 ASCII Transfer complete. 72 bytes received in 0.1 seconds (0.7 Kbytes/s) ftp> cd pub ### change to the "pub" public directory. Most FTP ------ ### sites place public material in this directory 250 CWD command successful. ftp> ls ### list the files again. BIOSCI archives are in BIOSCI 8-) -- ### Be sure to strictly follow upper/lower case in filenames ### when accessing FTP sites running UNIX such as net.bio.net 200 PORT command successful. 150 ASCII data connection for /bin/ls (134.172.2.69,3227) (0 bytes). BIOSCI README doc dos mac unix vms 226 ASCII Transfer complete. 42 bytes received in 0.05 seconds (0.82 Kbytes/s) ftp> cd BIOSCI --------- 250 CWD command successful. ftp> ls -- 200 PORT command successful. 150 ASCII data connection for /bin/ls (134.172.2.69,3228) (0 bytes). ADDRESSES AGEING AGROFORESTRY ARABIDOPSIS BIO-INFO BIO-JOURNALS BIO-MATRIX BIO-SOFTWARE BIOFORUM BIONEWS CHROMOSOME-22 COMPUTATIONAL-BIOLOGY EMBL-DATABANK EMPLOYMENT GDB GENBANK-BB GENETIC-LINKAGE HIV-BIOL HUMAN-GENOME IMMUNOLOGY JRNLNOTE METHDS-REAGNTS MOLECULAR-EVOLUTION NEUROSCIENCE PLANT-BIOLOGY POPULATION-BIOLOGY PROTEIN-ANALYSIS PROTEIN-CRYSTALLOGRAPHY SCIENCE-RESOURCES TROPICAL-BIOLOGY VIROLOGY WOMENINBIOLOGY biosci-uk.infosheet biosci-us.infosheet biosci.FAQ 226 ASCII Transfer complete. 562 bytes received in 0.1 seconds (5.5 Kbytes/s) ftp> cd PROTEIN-ANALYSIS### We want to look at PROTEIN-ANALYSIS archives ------------------- 250 CWD command successful. ftp> ls -- 200 PORT command successful. 150 ASCII data connection for /bin/ls (134.172.2.69,3233) (0 bytes). 8912 9001 9002 9003 9004 9005 9006 9007 9008 9009 9010 9011 9012 9101 9102 9103 9104 9105 9106 9107 9108 9109 9110 9111 9112 9201 9202 9203 9204 9205 9206 9207 9208 9209 9210 9211 current 226 ASCII Transfer complete. 225 bytes received in 0.12 seconds (1.8 Kbytes/s) ftp> get 9211 ### Retrieve the file for November 1992. -------- 200 PORT command successful. 150 ASCII data connection for 9211 (134.172.2.69,3234) (208763 bytes). 226 ASCII Transfer complete. local: 9211 remote: 9211 213849 bytes received in 1.4 seconds (1.5e+02 Kbytes/s) ftp> bye ### End the FTP session. Some systems use quit or exit. --- 221 Goodbye. Liberal use of the ? key and help at the ftp> prompt will provide information on other options. WAIS WAIS stands for Wide Area Information Server. WAIS software allows information to be stored at many sites around the Internet in to a particular format. Computers running WAIS software can query these sources remotely using a standard protocol. Free software is available for many popular hardware platforms, but requires some systems expertise to install. Now that you know how to use FTP (above), you can use anonymous ftp to think.com and cd to the "wais" directory for software and more information. A public WAIS account is accessible to Internet users by using the command telnet quake.think.com and logging in as "wais" (lowercase). Gopher Gopher is both a user-friendly interface to the FTP program described above and a network searching tool similar to WAIS (which can also utilize WAIS information sources). Gopher software is available as described below for many platforms; TurboGopher on the Macintosh is especially slick! Don Gilbert (gilbertd@silver.ucs.indiana.edu) at ftp.bio.indiana.edu runs the excellent IUBIO Gopher Hole with many services of use to biologists, including search and retrieval of GenBank entries and BIOSCI/bionet newsgroup postings among many other information resources. Dan Jacobson (danj@gdb.org) runs an excellent gopher server at merlot.gdb.org with software, database, news, and government information archives. In Europe Rob Harper (harper@finsun.csc.fi) has set up a similar gold mine of information at gopher.csc.fi. Please see the section on searching the BIOSCI archives for other useful gopher sites. The following information is excerpted from the Gopher FAQ. Many questions have been cut out for brevity. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Common Questions and Answers about the Internet Gopher, a client/server protocol for making a world wide information service, with many implementations. Posted to comp.infosystems.gopher and news.answers every two weeks. The most recent version of this FAQ can be gotten through gopher, or via anonymous ftp: rtfm.mit.edu:/pub/usenet/news.answers/gopher-faq Those without FTP access should send e-mail to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu with "send usenet/news.answers/finding-sources" in the body to find out how to do FTP by e-mail. ------------------------------------------------------------------- List of questions in the Gopher FAQ: Q0: What is Gopher? Q1: Where can I get Gopher software? Q2: What do I need to access Gopher? Q3: Where are there publicly available logins for Gopher? Q5: Who Develops Gopher Software? Q12: What is the relationship between Gopher and (WAIS, WWW, ftp)? Q13: Are papers or articles describing Gopher available? ------------------------------------------------------------------- Q0: What is Gopher? A0: The Internet Gopher client/server provides a distributed information delivery system around which a world/campus-wide information system (CWIS) can readily be constructed. While providing a delivery vehicle for local information, Gopher facilitates access to other Gopher and information servers throughout the world. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Q1: Where can I get Gopher software? A1: via anonymous ftp to boombox.micro.umn.edu. Look in the directory /pub/gopher -------------------------------------------------------------------- Q2: What do I need to access Gopher? A2: You will need a gopher "client" program that runs on your local PC or workstation There are clients for the following systems. The directory following the name is the location of the client on the anonymous ftp site boombox.micro.umn.edu (134.84.132.2) in the directory /pub/gopher. Unix Curses & Emacs : /pub/gopher/Unix/gopher1.03.tar.Z Xwindows : /pub/gopher/Unix/xgopher1.1a.tar.Z Macintosh Hypercard : /pub/gopher/Mac_client/ Macintosh Application : /pub/gopher/Macintosh-TurboGopher DOS w/Clarkson Driver : /pub/gopher/PC_client/ NeXTstep : /pub/gopher/NeXT/ VM/CMS : /pub/gopher/Rice_CMS/ or /pub/gopher/Vienna_CMS/ VMS : /pub/gopher/VMS/ OS/2 2.0 : /pub/gopher/os2/ MVS/XA : /pub/gopher/mvs/ Many other clients and servers have been developed by others, the following is an attempt at a comprehensive list. A Macintosh Application, "MacGopher". ftp.cc.utah.edu:/pub/gopher/Macintosh Another Macintosh application, "GopherApp". ftp.bio.indiana.edu:/util/gopher/gopherapp A port of the UNIX curses client for DOS with PC/TCP oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu:/public/dos/misc/dosgopher.exe A port of the UNIX curses client for PC-NFS bcm.tmc.edu:/nfs/gopher.exe A beta version of the PC Gopher client for Novell's LAN Workplace for DOS lennon.itn.med.umich.edu:/gopher A Xwindows/DECwindows client job.acs.ohio-stat.edu: Most of the above clients can also be fetched via a gopher client itself. Put the following on a gopher server: Type=1 Host=boombox.micro.umn.edu Port=70 Path= Name=Gopher Software Distribution. Or point your gopher client at boombox.micro.umn.edu, port 70 and look in the gopher directory. There are also a number of public telnet login sites available. The University of Minnesota operates one on the machine "consultant.micro.umn.edu" (134.84.132.4) See Q3 for more information about this. It is recommended that you run the client software instead of logging into the public telnet login sites. A client uses the custom features of the local machine (mouse, scroll bars, etc.) A local client is also faster. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Q3: Where are there publicly available logins for Gopher? A3: Here is a short list, use the site closest to you to minimize network lag. Non-tn3270 Public Logins: Hostname IP# Login Area ------------------------- --------------- ------ ------------- consultant.micro.umn.edu 134.84.132.4 gopher North America gopher.uiuc.edu 128.174.33.160 gopher North America panda.uiowa.edu 128.255.40.201 panda North America gopher.sunet.se 192.36.125.2 gopher Europe info.anu.edu.au 150.203.84.20 info Australia gopher.chalmers.se 129.16.221.40 gopher Sweden tolten.puc.cl 146.155.1.16 gopher South America ecnet.ec 157.100.45.2 gopher Ecuador tn3270 Public Logins: Hostname IP# Login Area ------------------------- --------------- ------ ------------- pubinfo.ais.umn.edu 128.101.109.1 -none- North America It is recommended that you run the client software instead of logging into the public login sites. A client uses the custom features of the local machine (mouse, scroll bars, etc.) and is local client is also faster. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Q5: Who Develops Gopher Software? A5: Gopher was originally developed in April 1991 by the University of Minnesota Microcomputer, Workstation, Networks Center to help our campus find answers to their computer questions. It has since grown into a full-fledged World Wide Information System used by a large number of sites in the world. Many people have contributed to the project, too numerous to count. The people behind the much of the gopher software can be reached via e-mail at gopher@boombox.micro.umn.edu, or via paper mail: Internet Gopher Developers 100 Union St. SE #190 Minneapolis, MN 55455 USA Or via FAX at: +1 (612) 625-6817 --------------------------------------------------------------------- Q12: What is the relationship between Gopher and (WAIS, WWW, ftp)? A12: Gopher is intimately intertwined with these two other systems. As shipped the Unix gopher server has the capability to: - Search local WAIS indices. - Query remote WAIS servers and funnel the results to gopher clients. - Query remote ftp sites and funnel the results to gopher clients. - Be queried by WWW (World Wide Web) clients (either using built in gopher querying or using native http querying. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Q13: Are papers or articles describing Gopher available? A13: Gopher has a whole chapter devoted to it in : _The_Whole_Internet_, Ed Kroll, O'Reilly, 1992 (Editors note: ..Great book, go out and buy a bunch!) Other references include: _The_Internet_Gopher_, "ConneXions", July 1992, Interop. _Exploring_Internet_GopherSpace_ "The Internet Society News", v1n2 1992, (You can subscribe to the Internet Society News by sending e-mail to isoc@nri.reston.va.us) _The_Internet_Gopher_Protocol_, Proceedings of the Twenty-Third IETF, CNRI, Section 5.3 _Internet_Gopher_, Proceedings of Canadian Networking '92 _The_Internet_Gopher_, INTERNET: Getting Started, SRI International, Section 10.5.5 _Tools_help_Internet_users_discover_on-line_treasures, Computerworld, July 20, 1992 _TCP/IP_Network_Administration_, O'Reilly. Balakrishan, B. (Oct 1992) "SPIGopher: Making SPIRES databases accessible through the Gopher protocol". SPIRES Fall '92 Workshop, Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Tomer, C. Information Technology Standards for Libraries, _Journal of the American Society for Information Science_, 43(8):566-570, Sept 1992. ------------------------------------------------------------------- WWW/Mosaic The World-Wide Web (WWW) has become the latest hot network item, especially since the advent of the Mosaic software from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois. In a nutshell, Mosaic is a "hypertext browser," i.e., an application program that lets you read through the thousands of cross-linked hypertext documents, pictures and sound bites now available on the Internet. A more detailed explanation will be included in a future version of this FAQ. For now, we recommend using FTP to ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu to pick up a version of Mosaic for your hardware platform. Note that to get the most out of Mosaic, your machine needs a direct and fast Internet connection. 9600 baud links or lower will not be a happy compromise except possibly for browsing plain text documents in some cases. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE HELP ME FIND THE E-MAIL ADDRESS FOR DR. ... If you can not get this information by calling the person in question, there are several other resources that can be of help. As of May 1993, BIOSCI at net.bio.net began running a BIOSCI user address directory which can be accessed through gopher to net.bio.net or via WAIS or waismail. The WAIS source is called biologists-addresses.src and is updated daily. See the FAQ section entitled "How do I find back issues of BIOSCI postings?" for information on WAIS and waismail access. Instructions for using the address source are included in the waismail help file which can be retrieved by sending the word "help" to waismail@net.bio.net (leave the Subject: line of your message blank.) The second easy route is to post your request to the BIONAUTS/bionet.users.addresses newsgroup managed by Rob Harper. Odds are that you will get a response fairly promptly, but, if not, there are other routes described below. If the person in question has posted to BIOSCI/bionet or another Usenet newsgroup, they will be listed in the "usenet-addresses" WAIS source. If you are on the Internet, telnet to quake.think.com and login as "wais" (lowercase). After entering your terminal type, select the usenet-addresses source from the list presented to you (use the up-arrow key to get there more quickly since it is near the end of a long list). When the source is highlighted, press the return