Category: Misc.

Provost’s Forums Steering Committee | Publicizing Chris Newfield – Monday, Feb. 8th

The Provost’s Forums on the Public University and the Social Good

Monday, February 8thChris Newfield.
Multipurpose Room
Student Community Center
3-5:30 p.m.

Chris Newfield- 2-8-16.pdf

Tandy Warnow at #UCDavis on species trees and gene trees

//storify.com/phylogenomics/tandy-warnow-at-ucdavis-on-gene-trees-vs-species-t/embed?template=slideshow//storify.com/phylogenomics/tandy-warnow-at-ucdavis-on-gene-trees-vs-species-t.js?template=slideshow[View the story “Tandy Warnow at #UCDavis on Gene Trees vs. Species Trees” on Storify]
——–
This is from the “Tree of Life Blog”
of Jonathan Eisen, an evolutionary biologist and Open Access advocate
at the University of California, Davis. For short updates, follow me on Twitter.

——–

Vagina Monologues Event 2/5 @ #UCDavis Cancer Center Auditorium

What is Vagina Monologues? http://www.eveensler.org/plays/the-vagina-monologues/




	


	





	

		
		
Evolution 2016 and art
	


	
	
	

		
From Laura Vann via Evoldir


Attention artists! The deadline for submission of evolution-themed works

(or proposed-works) for the ‘Evolution 2016 Art Exhibit’ is quickly

approaching (Jan. 18).


The 2016 Evolution conference (the annual meeting of the Society for

the Study of Evolution, the Society of Systematic Biologists, and

the American Society of Naturalists) will be held from June 17-21 in

beautiful Austin, TX. In conjunction with the meeting, the societies

and a local art gallery (Art.Science.Gallery) are co-sponsoring an

evolution-themed art exhibit. The exhibit will provide an opportunity for

meeting attendees and others to showcase their creative talents, increase

the visibility of the meeting and the societies to the local community,

and provide opportunities for public education about evolutionary

biology through the exciting lens of visual arts. The exhibit will run

at the Art.Science.Gallery leading up to, and during, the conference,

and a selection of the works will be on display at the Austin Convention

Center as a pop-up exhibit during the evening of the opening reception

of the meeting.


Art.Science.Gallery has issued an open call seeking submissions for this

exhibition. Works may explore (but are not limited to) the sub-disciplines

within evolutionary biology, notable evolutionary biologists, current

research topics, important discoveries and concepts, and the history of

evolutionary thought. You need not be a member of any of the societies

to submit something for consideration.


Pass the word along and, if you’re at all artistically inclined, consider

submitting something. Additional details can be found on our permanent

meeting website (www.evolutionmeetings.org) under the ‘News’ heading, or

on Art.Science.Gallery’s website (http://artsciencegallery.com/opencall).


The open call closes on Jan. 18.


Sincerely,

Your Evolution2016 organizers

	


	





	

		
		
Darwin Day in Sacramento 2/13
	


	
	
	

		
Just got this, from NCSE and others …


Dear Sacramento-area friends of NCSE,


I thought that you might like to know that Matthew J. James of Sonoma

State University will be speaking on "Collecting Evolution: The

1905-06 Galápagos Expedition that Vindicated Charles Darwin" at

Sacramento’s Darwin Day, taking place from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. on

February 13 in the John Smith Hall in the La Sierra Community Center,

5325 Engle Road in Carmichael.


James "will entertain and inform us about the 1905-06 scientific

collecting expedition to the Galápagos Islands conducted by the

California Academy of Sciences. His presentation will include the

history of the expedition’s two-masted schooner Academy (ex-Earnest),

built in 1875 for the U.S. Coast Survey." There will also be

refreshments, entertainment, and displays.


Tickets are $10.00 in advance (before February 6, 2016), $15.00 at the

door; tickets for students with ID are $10.00. For further

information, visit:

http://sacdarwinday.info/

	


	





	

		
		
Undergraduate Research Opportunity at #UCDavis in Marine Microbial Ecology
	


	
	
	

		
From Matthias Hess:


Would you mind to spread the word regarding an Undergraduate Research Opportunity in Marine Microbial Ecology? This is a joint project of Anne Todgham (also Animal Science) and myself that has the objective to enhance our understanding of understand the microbiome associated with marine fishes endemic to Antarctica. I think that this might be of particular interest to students interested in Evolution and Ecology. Candidates can apply at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/JMBGLKN.


Thank you for helping to spread the word!!!


Matthias


Undergraduate Research Opportunity in Marine Ecology & Microbial Ecology – Todgham and Hess Lab – 2015 12 09 Final.pdf

	


	





	

		
		
Today at #UCDavis: Dr. Natasha Raikhel: Chemical Biology and Endomembrane trafficking in Plants
	


	
	
	

		
FINAL Reminder




Please post and distribute 




Raikhel Flyer FN Nov 2015.pdf

	


	





	

		
		
1/15 at #UCDavis: Tandy Warnow: New methods for species tree estimation in the presence of gene tree heterogeneity
	


	
	
	

		
Special Seminar:




Tandy Warnow


The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign




New methods for species tree estimation in the 


presence of gene tree heterogeneity




Friday, January 15, 2016


1:30 PM


GBSF 1005






Abstract.


Estimating the Tree of Life will likely involve a two-step procedure, where in the first step trees are estimated on many genes, and then the gene trees are combined into a tree on all the taxa. However, the true gene trees may not agree with the species tree due to biological processes such as deep coalescence, gene duplication and loss, and horizontal gene transfer. Statistically consistent methods based on the multi-species coalescent model have been developed to estimate species trees in the presence of incomplete lineage sorting; however, the relative accuracy of these methods compared to the usual “concatenation” approach is a matter of substantial debate within the research community.


I will present results showing that coalescent-based estimation methods are impacted by gene tree estimation error, so that they can be less accurate than concatenation in many cases. I will also present two new methods, ASTRAL (Mirarab et al., Bioinformatics 2014) and statistical binning (Mirarab et al., Science 2014, Bayzid et al., PLOS One 2015) for estimating species trees in the presence of gene tree conflict due to ILS.  Statistical binning and weighted statistical binning are used to improve gene tree estimation, while ASTRAL is a coalescent-based method that is provably statistically consistent and that can construct very accurate large species trees. Finally, I will present theoretical results investigating whether statistically consistent accurate species tree estimation is possible when gene trees have estimation error, and discuss the controversy about statistical binning (Liu and Edwards, Science 2015, Mirarab et al. Science 2015).


See Dr. Warnow’s home page for more information on her work: http://tandy.cs.illinois.edu


Host: Jonathan Eisen


 


 

	


	





	

		
		
Today’s Ecology and Evolution Seminar: Brian Gaylord
	


	
	
	

		
Forwarding this:


Dear Colleagues,


A friendly reminder that our first seminar speaker is our own Brian Gaylord from Bodega Marine Lab and the Department of Evolution and Ecology. This talk will be at 4:10pm today in Storer 1322 and is entitled "Marine ecomechanics: Exploring the biology of ocean acidification, intertidal thermal stress, and near shore turbulence." As the title suggests and as many of you know, Brian does really cool work at the interface of biomechanics and marine ecology. In addition to hearing his talk, you can learn more about his work by visiting his website


http://bml.ucdavis.edu/research/faculty/brian-gaylord/




Graduate students please sign up for the seminar as either ECL 296 (CRN 20461) or PBG 292 (CRN 34948). Undergraduates are also welcome to sign up. Please have interested ones contact me.

	


	





	

		
		
Introducing The Hacker Within – Davis, First meetup is 1/14
	


	
	
	

		
From Jason Moore:


I’d like to invite you to the first meetup of the new Hacker Within Davis Chapter [1]. The monthly meetup’s purpose is to build community around scientific computing and data technologies. The meeting is structured as a tutorial or discussion, followed by lightning talks, and a collaborative programming session. It is modeled after the successful chapters at University of Wisconsin-Madison and UC Berkeley.


The first tutorial topic will be "Web Scraping" given by Duncan Temple Lang. See this page for more information on preparing for the tutorial and information about the speaker:


http://www.thehackerwithin.org/davis/posts/web-scraping/


It will be held in the Data Science Initiative Room in Shields Library (Room 360, Third Floor) on Thursday January 14th at 5:10pm.


During this first meeting we will also spend some time getting to know each other and planning the goals and future topics of the group.


Everyone with interest in the group and its future is welcome to attend.


If you’d like to give a lightning talk at the first meetup, let me know or submit a pull request to the website repository [2].


Spread widely!


Jason K. Moore, PhD


Lecturer, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department

University of California, Davis


faculty.engineering.ucdavis.edu/moore

jkm


[1] http://www.thehackerwithin.org/davis/

[2] https://github.com/thehackerwithin/davis