BioGopher at the Australian National University

[David G Green]

              The Australian National University

                    BIOINFORMATICS FACILITY

                 ----------------------------
                 Network Information Services
                 ----------------------------

ANU's Bioinformatics Facility provides information on Internet 
under a number of themes. At present the major themes include: 

	* biodiversity
	* bioinformatics & biocomputing
	* biomathematics & biostatistics 
	* complex systems
	* general interest
	* landscape ecology and the environment
	* molecular biology
	* neurosciences
	* viruses (NOT computer viruses)
	* weather & global monitoring

Information services relating to each of these themes are 
being developed progressively. See below for further details. 
The network services currently provided include: 

	* FTP archive
	* Bio-Gopher server
	* Mailing lists and news

You can access these services as follows ...


FTP ARCHIVE

Use ftp to connect to our server life.anu.edu.au
Use the login name anonymous and your email address as the password
The archives are all in the directory  /pub  and its subdirectories. 
If you wish to submit files to the archive see the file /pub/policy.txt 
for details. 


GOPHER SERVER

Besides access to most files in the FTP archive the gopher service 
provides the following information under each of the above themes: 

    * On-line searching of major international databases
    * Direct links to relevant electronic newsgroups
    * Answers to frequently asked questions
    * Bibliographies
    * Thematic links to other sites

To access the server point your gopher software at this address:

Name=BioInformatics gopher at ANU
Host=life.anu.edu.au
Type=1
Port=70
Path=


MAIL SERVICES

Currently these include the following (more lists are planned):

International Organization for Plant Information
     Mailing address:   iopi at life.anu.edu.au
     Moderator:         Dr Catherine Zellweger (zellweger at cjb.unige.ch)

International Union of Biological Societies
     Mailing address:   iubs at life.anu.edu.au
     Moderator:         Dr Ian Noble (noble at rsbs.anu.edu.au)

Complex systems 
     Mailing address:   complex at life.anu.edu.au
     Moderator:         Dr David Green (David.Green at anu.edu.au)

To send relevant news/information to everyone on the list of interest, 
send it as an email message to the appropriate address above. 
NB Do NOT send queries to the thematic address; send them to the 
appropriate moderator. To subscribe to any of these mailing lists, 
send an email message to 

	listserv at life.anu.edu.au 

Include the following line in your message ...
               
        subscribe  <service>  <give your name here>
               
e.g.    subscribe iopi     Fred Nurk
        subscribe complex  Joe Bloggs


SUMMARY OF THE MAIN THEMES

......................................................

title	BIODIVERSITY 
path	/pub/biodiversity

summary
Information and databases concerning biodiversity. For example:
  * On-line searches of Australian Plant Name Index 
        (via Australian National Botanic Gardens)
  * Documents from major international biodiversity projects, 
        (e.g. International Organization for Plant Information)
......................................................

title	BIOINFORMATICS 
path	/pub/bioinformation

summary
Contains material about general issues in compiling, storing and using 
biological information most effectively, especially issues relating to 
distributed and public domain databases (PDD). Topics include: 
  * Development of biological data standards
  * Design and implementation of data exchange protocols
  * Introductory information (FAQs) about Internet & its resources
  * Network searches via Archie and Veronica
  * Relevant bibliographies and newsgroups
......................................................

title	BIOMATHEMATICS & BIOSTATISTICS 
path	/pub/biomathematics

summary
Contains mathematical and statistical methods developed specifically 
for use with biological data. Topics include:  
   * Repository for relevant software and numerical tools
   * Direct links to relevant newsgroups
   * Direct links to major biomaths/stats sites
......................................................

title	COMPLEX SYSTEMS 
path	/pub/complex_systems

summary
Topics include: artificial life, cellular automata, chaos, criticality, 
fractals, iterative function systems, learning systems, L-systems, 
non-linear dynamics, neural networks, percolation, self-organizing 
systems, and more. Services include: 
   * direct queries of major databases, especially in molecular biology
   * direct links, organized thematically, to 
        - other complex systems servers
        - relevant electronic news groups
        - available scientific journal contents
   * bibliographies
   * Answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs) about major topics
......................................................

title	COMPUTATIONAL MOLECULAR BIOLOGY 
path	/pub/molecular_biology

summary 
Contains software, mostly developed at ANU, for sequence analysis and 
molecular modelling. The main areas of concern are database searching, 
multiple sequence alignment, phylogenetic reconstruction, and simulated 
evolution (at the molecular level) and structural prediction. Research 
at ANU is applying parallel computing and artificial intelligence to 
these and other issues in sequence analysis. 
  * On-line searching of all major international databases
  * Direct links to major molecular biology sites
  * On-line access to relevant newsgroups
......................................................

title	GENERAL 
path	/pub/general

summary 
Contains information of general interest. For example: 
   * Robert Ridge's book on working as a scientist in Japan
   * Direct links to and searches of electronic books 
   * Catalogs of services on Internet
   * Recent contents of major scientific journals
......................................................

title	LANDSCAPE ECOLOGY 
path	/pub/landscape_ecology

summary 
Information and software for landscape ecology and related topics. 
Includes: 
   * On-line access to relevant newsgroups and archives
   * Repository for relevant software

......................................................

title 	NETKIT
path 	/pub/netkit

summary 
This folder contains information and essential software for accessing 
and using the facilities provided by ANUBF. It includes introductory 
documents about Internet plus copies of essential public domain software 
for working on the network. 

......................................................

title	VIRUSES 
path    /pub/viruses

summary 
This folder will soon contain hold databases about viruses, which are 
currently being compiled under the Virus Identification Data Exchange. 
......................................................

title   WEATHER
path    /pub/weather

summary
Information about current weather, climate change and global monitoring. 
Includes the following current information from sources world-wide:
     * daily earthquake reports (from U. Washington)
     * daily weather satellite images for most parts of the world; 
     * links to current weather reports
     * links to all other active weather gophers
     * thematic links to relevant news groups
......................................................


ABOUT ANU'S BIOINFORMATICS FACILITY 

The Australian National University's BioInformatics Facility is a 
small group of researchers and programmers located within the Research 
School of Biological Sciences. It is affiliated with ANU's Centre for 
Molecular Structure and Function (CMSF), Centre for Information 
Science Research (CISR), and Supercomputer Facility (ANUSF). 


% _______________________________________________________________________
% For further information contact:  

name    	Dr David Green

address 	BioInformatics Facility
		Research School of Biological Sciences
		Australian National University
		GPO Box 475
		Canberra 2601 AUSTRALIA

email  		david.green at anu.edu.au
phone   	61-6-249-2490 or 61-6-249-5031
fax   		61-6-249-4437