BOL: Related items

Integration Of Speciation Research : Workshop Announcement

Tue, 28 Apr 2026 07:07:57 -0500

We are excited to share that the ESEB- funded special topic network Integration Of Speciation Research (IOS - https://speciation-network.pages.ist.ac.at/) is hosting a second in-person workshop from 7â€“11 December 2026 at the Scottish Centre for Ecology & the Natural Environment (Glasgow, UK - https://www.gla.ac.uk/research/az/scene/).

This workshop is aimed at bringing together ~40 diverse speciation researchers:

- to collaborate on populating a database of published reproductive barriers based on a standardized RIO framework (https://ecoevorxiv.org/repository/view/10083/). This will involve working through papers during the workshop to extract RI measures and other metadata and entering them into a draft database (some preparatory work before the workshop may be requested to facilitate these steps during the workshop)

- to start working towards a manuscript using this database to answer an outstanding question in speciation

- to network, learn about reproductive isolation, and have fun!

If you are interested in applying to participate in the workshop, please fill out the form in the link below by ** May 20th **. Room & board will be covered by the organizers; all other travel costs are the responsibility of the attendee.

Application link:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSenAMqSdZjeRmKEDtBNa5tpjPn7IukPyT5BzfZ4JMpIk2YOEw/viewform

The previous IOS workshop was held in Finland in 2023 (see more details at https://speciation-network.pages.ist.ac.at/workshops) and resulted in new interactions between speciation researchers and the successful publication of an Integration of Speciation research manuscript (https://academic.oup.com/evolinnean/article/3/1/kzae001/7609448).

We look forward to seeing you in Glasgow!

INRAE organises open competitions to recruit research scientists on permanent positions.

Sun, 02 Feb 2020 23:08:36 -0600

Each year, INRAE organises open competitions to recruit research scientists on permanent positions. The recruitment campaign is generally aimed at researchers who have recently obtained their PhD. Candidates are recruited on the basis of their scientific competence which they will put to the service of INRAE's major research axes by responding to a research topic. Candidates must have published articles on the results of their PhD.

Campaign calendar:

- Opening date for applications: January 30, 2020
- Deadline for applications: March 5, 2020
- Pre-selections: April-May 2020
- Final selections: May-June 2020
- Starting date for appointments: from September 2020

More at https://jobs.inrae.fr/en/open-competitions/open-competions-research-scientists-crcn

Common Bioinformatics Interview Questions !

Jit — Sat, 23 Jan 2021 06:07:50 -0600

The possibility of an interview for a bioinformatics position in the life sciences may be very disquieting, but the same concerns emerge time and again in my experience. So, it is exceedingly worthwhile to plan for future bioinformatics interview questions. Doing this will really give you the advantage in obtaining the position.

The following 5 questions are those that I have heard many times during the job-search process. There is no reason for not planning responses in such situations.

1. Tell Us About Yourself
This is a very typical opener in interviews. It's a perfect question to ask, and getting something planned will really help you concentrate and ease in the conversation. However, you need to make sure that your response is applicable to the job you're interviewing.
It's probably better to keep your answer professional. Try to include these in the answer as well: where did your love of science and bioinformatics come from? How the heck did you end up in this field? Why programming and scripting ?

2. What is your plan for your bioinformatics career? / How do you look at yourself in five years? / How are your personal objectives to accomplish these goals / What are the plan for your research fundings ?

Your CV/resume has already impressed the selection panel if you have been invited for an interview. The questions from the bioinformatics interview team provide an incentive for you to market yourself and illustrate the work in question with the most appropriate knowledge.

3. What do you understand about the job description/What would your suggested research path be if you were a successful candidate?
Summarize the specifics of the advertised bioinformatics position in your own words. Follow on with some suggestions of how you want to extend your research and create your own projects within the community.

4. Will you work as a group or do you want to work on your own?
This requirement can vary from jobs to job, so when addressing, be alert. A company/research PI may need a bioinformatician that is able to work on a single project autonomously, or they may need a person who can help direct and organize a team. In your response, refer to the job description.

5. What particular methods have you used to date with your experiments?
You might have experience with all the laboratory techniques described in the job description, but stress the ones you highly experienced with. Highlight your professional abilities and stress that you are extremely capable of mastering new techniques with others ...

At the end of the day, remember that you're questioning the jury as well as they're interviewing you. You will ought to think of any questions you would like the interview panel to pose. This indicates that you have done your homework and serious about the position.

All the best for your future job interview.

16sRNA Database Download

LEGE — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 04:33:15 -0500

Downloading 16S rRNA databases can be crucial for various bioinformatics analyses, especially in microbiome research. However, it's important to note that databases can vary based on your specific needs, such as the taxonomic coverage you require or the type of analysis you're performing. Here's a general guideline on how you can obtain 16S rRNA databases:

NCBI (National Center for Biotechnology Information):
- NCBI provides various databases related to genetic information, including 16S rRNA sequences.
- You can access the 16S ribosomal RNA sequences from NCBI's Nucleotide database (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nucleotide/).
- Perform a search using keywords like "16S rRNA" or specific bacterial names to find relevant sequences.
- You can download sequences individually or in batches using the provided tools.
GreenGenes:
- GreenGenes is a widely used 16S rRNA gene sequence database.
- You can access it at http://greengenes.secondgenome.com/.
- GreenGenes provides precompiled databases for various purposes, including classification, alignment, and phylogenetic analysis.
SILVA:
- SILVA (https://www.arb-silva.de/) is another comprehensive database for ribosomal RNA (rRNA) sequences.
- It covers not only 16S rRNA but also other ribosomal RNA sequences.
- SILVA provides precompiled databases for various purposes, including taxonomic classification and alignment.
Ribosomal Database Project (RDP):
- RDP (http://rdp.cme.msu.edu/) is a curated database that offers 16S rRNA sequences.
- It provides tools for sequence analysis and classification.
- You can download sequences and taxonomy information from their website.
QIIME (Quantitative Insights Into Microbial Ecology):
- QIIME (https://qiime2.org/) is a widely used bioinformatics platform for microbiome analysis.
- It provides tools for analyzing microbial communities, including processing 16S rRNA sequences.
- QIIME often includes its own preprocessed 16S rRNA databases that can be used for analysis within the platform.

Before downloading any database, make sure to read the terms of use and citation requirements, as some databases may have specific usage policies. Additionally, consider the compatibility of the database with your analysis pipeline and software tools.

NCBI 16s RNA database location ftp://ftp.ncbi.nih.gov/blast/db/16SMicrobial.tar.gz

XAMPP: Starting Apache fail Ubuntu

Ram Yash Pal — Sat, 07 Jun 2014 05:52:35 -0500

Once you install XAMMP on linux, the most common problem you face is Apache failure. To fix the issues please use following command to first stop and then again start it.

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 stop

sudo /etc/init.d/mysql stop

sudo /etc/init.d/proftpd stop

sudo /opt/lampp/lampp start

PhpMyAdmin “Wrong permissions on configuration file, should not be world writable!”

Once the Xammp is installed, it might be possible to set up the configuration file in writable mode. Try the following steps:

Just chmod 0755 the file

sudo chmod 0755 config.inc.php

SLURM

Jit — Wed, 04 May 2016 05:13:21 -0500

SLURM workload manager software, a free open-source workload manager designed specifically to satisfy the demanding needs of high performance computing.

This page is a HOWTO guide for setting up a SLURM installation, currently focused on a CentOS 7 Linux OS. Please send feedback to Ole.H.Nielsen /at/ fysik.dtu.dk.

See the SLURM homepage (also https://computing.llnl.gov/linux/slurm/).

Address of the bookmark: https://wiki.fysik.dtu.dk/niflheim/SLURM

Binding Site Prediction in Protein !

Poonam Mahapatra — Wed, 25 Apr 2018 04:35:57 -0500

The interaction between proteins and other molecules is fundamental to all biological functions. In this section we include tools that can assist in prediction of interaction sites on protein surface and tools for predicting the structure of the intermolecular complex formed between two or more molecules (docking).

Pockets Identification

CASTp

Automatic Identification of pockets and cavities in proteins structure, and quantitation of their volumes using Delaunay triangulation. Available also as PyMOL plugin

Pocket-Finder

Automatic identification of pockets and cavities in proteins structure, and quantitation of their volumes.

PocketPicker

Grid-based technique for the analysis of protein pockets. PocketPicker available as a plugin for PyMOL

Binding Site Prediction

ConSurf

Identification of functional regions in proteins by surface-mapping of phylogenetic information

CRESCENDO

Identification protein interaction sites. It uses sequence conservation patterns in homologous proteins to distinguish between residues that are conserved due to structural restraints from those due to functional restraints.

Ligand Binding Sites

3DLigandSite

The server utilizes protein-structure prediction to provide structural models of the binding site. Ligands bound to structures are superimposed onto the model and use to predict the binding site.

FINDSITE

A threading-based method for ligand-binding site prediction and functional annotation based on binding-site similarity across superimposed groups of threading templates.

LIGSITE^csc

Prediction of binding site by pocket identification using the Connolly surface and degree of conservation

metaPocketA meta server for ligand-binding site prediction. metaPocket use LIGSITE^csc, PASS, Q-SiteFinder and SURFNET

Installing ELGG on Ubuntu !

Jit — Thu, 25 Nov 2021 01:45:59 -0600

Follow this:

Settings file

Error

Your web server does not have permission to create the settings.php file in your installation directory. You have two choices:

1. Change the permissions on the elgg-config directory of your Elgg installation

2. Copy the file elgg-config/settings.example.php to elgg-config/settings.php and follow the instructions in it for setting your database parameters.

To resolve this --

Change the permision

chmod 777 elgg-config

Web server

Warning

Your server does not support automatic testing of the rewrite rules and your browser does not support checking via JavaScript. You can continue the installation, but you may experience problems with your site. You can manually test the rewrite rules by clicking this link: test. You will see the word success if the rules are working.

create a .httaccess

and provide detail in it

Installation of Elgg

(Note: Elgg requires installing an instance of MySQL.)

Steps to make adjustment and disposal of trial installations easier.

MySQL

At this point, we assume you've set up your MySQL database

Start your mysqld server daemon.
(For the sake of this example, we'll assume we're running on port 9999; you shouldn't actually use this port because only one daemon can run on any port number.)
Login to the server as root user, using the mysql client.
Create a database to store Elgg's tables. We'll call the database elggalpha.
mysql> create database elggalpha;

Grant access to a user — for this example we'll call him/her elggalphauser.

mysql> grant all privileges on elggalpha.* to 'elggalphauser'@'moxie'
    -> identified by 'secretpassword';

Elgg

Type umask 022
Change into your public_html directory (aka folder).
cd public_html
make a directory called elgg
mkdir elgg
Change into the elgg subdirectory of public_html.
cd elgg
download elgg into this directory
you'll end up with a file named
/home/your-user-id/public_html/elgg/elgg-X.X.X.X.zip
(It's not literally X.X.X.X, it might be elgg-1.8.0.1.zip, for example.)
unzip elgg
unzip -q elgg-1.8.0.1.zip
you'll end up with a directory (folder) named
/home/your-user-id/public_html/elgg/elgg-X.X.X.X
make a symbolic link (aka shortcut) to this
ln -s elgg-X.X.X.X alpha
(For example, ln -s elgg-1.8.0.1 alpha)
Give user nobody access to this directory
/usr/misc/bin/acl.sh -r -u nobody elgg-1.8.0.1
create a data directory for elgg (get into your home directory first):
```
cd
mkdir -p elgg/alpha/data
chmod -R 755 elgg/alpha/data
```
Change into the elgg/alpha directory.
cd elgg/alpha
Give user nobody access to this subdirectory data
/usr/misc/bin/acl.sh -u nobody data

In your browser, navigate to your elgg installation
http://moxie.cs.oswego.edu/~your-user-id/elgg/alpha/
You'll have a screen which includes this message:

Welcome

Installing Elgg has 6 simple steps and reading this welcome is the first one!

If you haven't already, read through the installation instructions included with Elgg (or click the instructions link at the bottom of the page).

If you are ready to proceed, click the Next button.

Follow configuration process:

The first screen probably will contain a success message in green and a failure message in pink:
```
Requirements check

Your server failed the requirements check. After you have fixed the below issues, refresh this
page. Check the troubleshooting links at the bottom of this page if you need further assistance.
PHP
```
Your server's PHP satisfies all of Elgg's requirements.
```
Web server
```
We think your server is running the Apache web server. The rewrite test failed and the most likely cause is that AllowOverride is not set to All for Elgg's directory. This prevents Apache from processing the .htaccess file which contains the rewrite rules. A less likely cause is Apache is configured with an alias for your Elgg directory and you need to set the RewriteBase in your .htaccess. There are further instructions in the .htaccess file in your Elgg directory.
```
Database
```
The database requirements are checked when Elgg loads its database.
To correct this, replace the .htaccess file that Elgg created with one that you can edit:
```
cp -ip .htaccess temp-htaccess
rm .htaccess
mv temp-htaccess .htaccess
```
Edit the .htaccess file: Go to approximately line 101 (where it says #RewriteBase /) and add the line:
RewriteBase /~your-user-id/elgg/alpha/
Be sure to save the edited file.
Click the Refresh button.
If this hasn't fixed things, seek professional help.
Click the Next button.

Fill in the parameters appropriate to your MySQL installation.

Database installation

If you haven't already created a database for Elgg, do that now. Then fill in the values below to
initialize the Elgg database.

Database Username

elggalphauser

User that has full priviledges to the MySQL database that you created for Elgg

Database Password

secretpassword

Password for the above database user account

Database Name

elggalpha

Name of the Elgg database

Database Host

^‡

moxie:9999

Hostname of the MySQL server (usually localhost)
‡You might need to use 127.0.0.1:9999 for the host
    if you haven't set up MySQL as we've done.



Database Table Prefix

elgg_

The prefix given to all of Elgg's tables (usually elgg_)

Continue filling in forms as requested.

Configure site

Database has been installed.

We need some information about the site as we configure Elgg. If you haven't created a data directory for Elgg, you need to do so now.

Site Name

My Elgg Site version Alpha

The name of your new Elgg site

Site Email Address

your-user-id@oswego.edu

Email address used by Elgg for communication with users

Site URL

http://moxie.cs.oswego.edu/~your-user-id/elgg/alpha/

The address of the site (Elgg usually guesses this correctly)

Elgg Install Directory

/home/your-user-id/public_html/elgg/elgg.1.8.0.1/

The directory where you put the Elgg code (Elgg usually guesses this correctly)

Data Directory

/home/your-user-id/elgg/alpha/data

The directory that you created for Elgg to save files (the permissions on this directory are checked
when you click Next)

Default Site Access

Public

The default access level for new user created content

Create admin account

Site settings have been saved.

It is now time to create an administrator's account.

Display Name

The name that is displayed on the site for this account

Email Address

Username

Account username used for logging in

Password

Account password must be at least 6 characters long

Password Again

Retype password to confirm

Stay Connected and Productive: Unlock the Power of Screen, Tmux, and Mosh for Bioinformatics

BioStar — Wed, 22 Jan 2025 00:29:52 -0600

If you are a bioinformatician, chances are you have spent hours running long, complex analyses on remote servers only to lose your session because of an unstable connection. Frustrating, isnt it? Fear not! With tools like screen, tmux, and mosh, you can safeguard your workflow and stay productive, no matter where you are.

Why Remote Session Management is a Must-Have

In bioinformatics, tasks like genome assembly, RNA-seq analyses, and phylogenetic computations often take hours or days. A dropped SSH connection can result in:

Lost Progress: Restarting a job from scratch wastes valuable time.
Workflow Interruptions: Disruptions can derail your focus and productivity.
Corrupted Data: Interrupted processes may lead to incomplete or corrupted outputs.

By integrating screen, tmux, or mosh into your workflow, you can avoid these setbacks and ensure a seamless experience.

Screen: The Classic Workhorse

Screen is a terminal multiplexer that comes pre-installed on most Linux systems. It allows you to manage multiple terminal sessions and reconnect to them even after being disconnected.

Getting Started with Screen:

Start a Session:

screen
Detach from a Session:
Press Ctrl+A, then D.
Reattach to a Session:

screen -r

Pro Tip: Enhance your screen experience with a customized .screenrc configuration file. Download one here: Get .screenrc.

Tmux: A Modern Alternative

Tmux takes everything great about screen and adds modern features, including better key bindings and intuitive session management. It\u2019s perfect for bioinformaticians who want more control over their workflow.

Getting Started with Tmux:

Start a Session:

tmux
Detach from a Session:
Press Ctrl+B, then D.
Reattach to a Session:

tmux attach

Customize Your Tmux Experience:
Use a .tmux.conf file to personalize your setup. Grab one here: Download .tmux.conf.

Mosh: The Mobile Shell for Unreliable Connections

SSH works well for stable networks, but it struggles in areas with spotty connectivity. Enter Mosh, the Mobile Shell. Designed for intermittent networks, Mosh keeps your session alive even when the connection drops temporarily.

Why Mosh is a Game-Changer:

No lag over high-latency networks.
Automatically reconnects when the network is restored.
Ideal for working on the go, from cafes to trains.

Getting Started with Mosh:

Install Mosh:

sudo apt install mosh # For Debian/Ubuntu
Connect to a Server:

mosh username@server

Learn more at mosh.org.

Why This Matters for Bioinformatics

Every bioinformatician knows the value of time and data integrity. Tools like screen, tmux, and mosh provide a lifeline when running long analyses, enabling you to:

Safeguard your work against disconnections.
Easily manage multiple workflows in parallel.
Stay productive, even in challenging environments.

Quickstart Cheat Sheet

Screen:

screen # Start a session Ctrl+A, D # Detach screen -r # Reattach
Tmux:

tmux # Start a session Ctrl+B, D # Detach tmux attach # Reattach
Mosh:

mosh username@server

Final Thoughts

As a bioinformatician, your time is too valuable to spend restarting analyses due to technical hiccups. With screen, tmux, and mosh in your toolkit, you can work smarter, protect your progress, and stay productive no matter where you are. Start using these tools today and transform the way you work with remote systems.

Let me know how these tools work for you, and don\u2019t forget to follow for more bioinformatics tips!

How to set up SSH on Ubuntu 18.04

AnHo — Thu, 22 Nov 2018 10:12:00 -0600

SSH, also known as Secure Shell or Secure Socket Shell, is a network protocol that gives users, particularly system administrators, a secure way to access a computer over an unsecured network. SSH also refers to the suite of utilities that implement the SSH protocol.

Here are the commands used to connect by Secure SHell:

On the server side

sudo apt-get install ssh
sudo apt-get install openssh-server
sudo /etc/init.d/ssh start
sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config
Uncomment port 22
Uncomment HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key
Uncomment AuthorizedKeysFile .ssh/authorized_keys .ssh/authorized_keys2
Set pubkey authentication to "yes"

sudo systemctl restart sshd.service # or sudo /etc/init.d/ssh reload

On the client side:
in ~/.ssh

ssh-keygen -t rsa # set passphrase or not
ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa user@100.100.10.100

--> write "yes" then password in

ssh user@100.100.10.100

--> write password --> you should be in

--> in /home/user/.ssh/config type:
Host WhateverName
HostName 100.100.10.100
User username
ForwardX11 yes
ForwardAgent yes
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa

--> you should now be able to connect with :

ssh WhateverName