Salvador Arias ha ganado el premio GBIF

Salvador Arias ha ganado el premio GBIF - jóvenes investigadores- por el desarrollo del programa para estudios biogeográficos  VIP (Vicariance Inference Program).

Salvador  esta actualmente trabajando en el INSUE-Tucumán, haciendo su Doctorado bajo la dirección de Pablo Goloboff y Claudia Szumik.

Acá mando el Link  de la noticia:


http://www.gbif.org/communications/news-and-events/showsingle/article/awards-tar\
get-novel-research-on-species-distributions


y aquí el del programa:

www.zmuc.dk/public/phylogeny/VIP/intro.htm


Un groso! Felicitaciones Salva!

Santiago Catalano

Hennig XXXI Workshop: Scripting with TNT, Riverside, CA

Participantes del taller de scripts con TNT

 

Durante las sesiones del taller

Pablo Goloboff y participantes

There has been enough interest expressed for a post-meeting workshop: Scripting in TNT.
The exact location of that, and where you might book accommodations has not been determined yet.
The workshop will run on the 28th, 29th and 30th, June, 2012

Pablo Goloboff (one of the co-authors of the program) and Mark Siddall (who has experience writing scripts) are offering to give a short, 3-day course on scripting for TNT, in connection with the next meeting of the Willi Hennig Society in Riverside, California (June 23-27, 2012).

TNT is a program for phylogenetic analysis under parsimony. Even David Swofford praises it as a good phylogeny program, and it is widely recognized as one of the most powerful programs for phylogenetic analysis. Casual users find it very difficult, because it presents so many options that it is difficult to begin using it. Thus, the program left Matthew Vavrek totally confused, and The Manual caused irreparable damage to the eyes of poor Paulo Nuin (see the Blind Scientist blog).

The powerful scripting language of TNT makes it possible to use the program for an enormous variety of calculations and tests, with a flexibility far beyond any other single program for phylogenetic analysis. See the script for consistency and retention indices as an example of a very simple script, Siddall's script for partition bootstrapping as something easily accomplished with slightly more knowledge and then as well Pol and Escapa's script for iterative PCR or Goloboff's script for testing delayed character correlation as examples of more complex scripts.

This course (see the syllabus below) would be directed to those people who already have some experience with TNT, those who are capable at least of running an entire standard analysis by means of commands (and, ideally, those with some specific problems which need scripts for resolution). The course will start from the simplest ideas and build up from there; no previous scripting or programming knowledge is required (although it doesn't hurt). It will cover the main aspects of the scripting possibilities, with Goloboff and Siddall tutoring exercises directed at solving gradually more complex problems. The last day will be dedicated to people's projects, helping them design (the initial stage, at least) of their own specific projects. People should bring their own laptops (any operating system is OK).

Course syllabus and more information here >>>

Superstars of botany: Rare specimens

Tomado de: Nature | News Feature

A handful of plant collectors has shaped the field of botany. Now they are disappearing, and there are no clear successors.

• John Whitfield

25 April 2012

John Wood has had malaria twice, and Dengue fever once. He has shaved leeches off his legs with a machete in southeast Asia — “you're supposed to use a lit cigarette, but I don't smoke” — had his car stolen in Bolivia and lain face down in the Yemeni desert while local tribes exchanged gunfire over his head.

He encountered such inconveniences in the process of collecting more than 30,000 plant specimens over 40 years of travelling the globe, mostly as a hobbyist.

More than 100 of his finds have become type specimens, from which new species are described. Those numbers elevate him to the ranks of a star collector — the top 2% of botanical gatherers, who have accumulated more than half of the type specimens in some of the world's most important collections1. These elite field workers have probably numbered fewer than 500 people throughout history. But they have contributed much of what scientists know about plant diversity, ecology and evolution, and have been crucial in the race to document the world's plants before they are lost to deforestation, development, invasive species and climate change. 

Lea la nota completa aqui: http://www.nature.com/news/superstars-of-botany-rare-specimens-1.10498