****** INTERNATIONAL * ***** * * * ****** SOCIETY FOR * ****** * * ****** EVOLUTIONARY * * ****** * ****** PROTISTOLOGY ======================================================= EMAIL NEWSLETTER - 26 OCTOBER 1994 ======================================================= In This Issue: 1) ISEP on Internet 2) ISEP Officers 1994-1996 3) President's Message 4) ISEP Membership drive 5) The Money Hunt a) PEET (Partnerships for Enhancing Expertise in Taxonomy; US National Science Foundation) b) ISEP Input Request - PEET White Paper c) NRICGP (National Research Initiative Competitive Grants Program; US Department of Agriculture) d) American Philosophical Society 6) National Science Foundation documents online 7) News of Colleagues 8) Upcoming Meetings 9) Membership Form 10) Illustrated Guide to the Protozoa - Prepublication Sale
Charley O'Kelly, Newsletter Editor Tim Littlejohn, tim@bch.umontreal.ca
We're away! With this first number of the Email Newsletter, and the establishment of an archive in Netspace, the International Society of Evolutionary Protistology is positioning itself on the onramp to the information superhighway. We will try to avoid crashing the vehicle.
If you have had trouble getting this newsletter, or if you know of an ISEP member who has email but has not received a copy, please let us know so we can get that person into the system.
We invite you to try out the archive, which is, by unanimous preference of the membership, open to all. It currently has a copy of the trial newsletter mailing, this newsletter, and separate listings for the ISEP Officers, the "Money Hunt" and "Upcoming Meetings" sections. It can be accessed through the World Wide Web (WWW) at:
http://megasun.bch.umontreal.ca/isep/isep.htmlFor those of you who may not be familiar with WWW addresses, the line means something like this:
http:// says "use the WWW methodology (HyperText Transfer Protocol") megasun.bch.umontreal.ca the computer where the archive resides /isep/ the directory (or "folder") on the computer where the archive resides isep.html the name of the summary document for the archive including the titles of the archived subsections (e.g. newsletters, membership directory).If you've not used the WWW before, contact your local computer system administrator for help in the first instance. Let us know if you you have any problems accessing this site, or don't have a particularly helpful system administrator.
NOTE: You do not need a high speed Internet connection or a graphical interface (e.g. Windows) to access this archive. There are some very nice "text-only" World Wide Web browsers available.
All future issues of the email newsletter, as well as updated versions of the other files, will be deposited in this archive. Also, as soon as we have it, we will set up a Directory of ISEP members.
2) ISEP Officers 1994-1996 Compiled by Mark Ragan, ISEP President
Results of elections at the Business Meeting in Halifax, 9 August 1994. This information is available in the WWW Archive (Officers subsection of the ISEP Directory).
PRESIDENT Mark A. Ragan NRC Institute for Marine Biosciences 1411 Oxford St Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 3Z1 Canada tel: (1) 902 426 1674 fax: (1) 902 426 9413 e-mail: mark@imb.lan.nrc.ca PRESIDENT-ELECT OEjvind Moestrup Institute for Sporeplanter OEster Farimagsgade 2D DK-1353 Koebenhavn K Denmark tel: (45) 33 32 67 69 fax: (45) 33 14 57 19 e-mail: moestrup@bot.ku.dk IMMEDIATE PAST-PRESIDENT Michael Melkonian Botanisches Institut I Universitaet zu Koeln Gyrhofstrasse 15 D-50931 Koeln Germany tel: (49) 221 470 2475 fax: (49) 221 470 5181 e-mail: mmelkon@biolan.uni-koeln.de SECRETARY Lynn J. Rothschild Ecosystems Science NASA - Ames Research Center Mail Stop 239-12 Moffitt Field, CA 94035 USA tel: (1) 415 604 6525 e-mail: lynn_rothschild@qmgate.arc.nasa.gov TREASURER (1994-1995) Jerome J. Motta Department of Botany University of Maryland College Park, MD 20742 USA tel: (1) 301 405 1654 fax: (1) 301 314 9082 e-mail: jm102@umail.umd.edu e-mail: jerome_j_motta@mailsrv0.umd.edu TREASURER (1995-1996) Gary W. Saunders School of Botany University of Melbourne Parkville, Victoria 3052 Australia tel: (61) 3 344 7604 fax: (61) 3 347 5460 e-mail: u6065597@ucsvc.unimelb.edu.au [Gary will begin his duties during mid-1995, after he takes up his new position at the University of New Brunswick, Canada.] CANADIAN COUNCILLORS Susan E. Douglas NRC Institute for Marine Biosciences 1411 Oxford Street Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 3Z1 Canada tel: (1) 902 426 8495 fax: (1) 902 426 9413 e-mail: douglass@imb.lan.nrc.ca **** B. Franz Lang Departement de Biochimie Universite de Montreal C.P. 6128, Succursale Centre-Ville Montreal, Quebec H3C 3J7 Canada tel: (1) 514 343 5842 fax: (1) 514 343 2210 e-mail: langf@bch.umontreal.ca U.S. COUNCILLOR Mark A. Farmer Center for Ultrastructural Research Barrow Hall University of Georgia Athens, GA 30602-2403 USA tel: (1) 706 542 4080 fax: (1) 706 542 4271 e-mail: farmer@emlab.zoo.uga.edu EUROPEAN COUNCILLOR Martin Schlegel Spezielle Zoologie Universitaet Leipzig Talstrasse 33 D-04103 Leipzig Germany tel: (49) 341 7165 450 fax: (49) 341 9603 099 e-mail: schlegel@rz.uni-leipzig.de COUNCILLOR-AT-LARGE Geoff McFadden School of Botany University of Melbourne Parkville, Victoria 3052, Australia tel: (61) 3 344 5053 fax: (61) 3 347 1071 e-mail: mc_fadden@botany.unimelb.edu.au NEWSLETTER EDITOR Charles J. O'Kelly Departement de Biochimie Universite de Montreal C.P. 6128, Succursale Centre-Ville Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3C 3J7 tel: (1) 514 343 6111 ext 5149 fax: (1) 514 343 2210 e-mail: okellyc@bch.umontreal.ca
3) President's Message Mark Ragan
Dear fellow ISEPers,
The life of an organization such as ISEP is measured not so much in years as in cycles -- in our case, the number of biennial conferences we've sponsored. With ISEP-10 behind us, we're entering our eleventh cycle, which will culminate with ISEP-11 in Cologne in 1996. Although ISEP isn't (and was never meant to be) a mass organization, we have a strong, diverse membership which together accounts for a substantial portion of international protistological research today.
On behalf of ISEP, I extend to our past-President Michael Melkonian a hearty Thank You! for guiding our Society during the past two years. Michael's service to ISEP will continue as chairman of ISEP-11.
Congratulations are also in order to our two new Honorary Members: John O. Corliss and I. Brent Heath. Both have made major contributions not only to protistology but also to ISEP over many years. John and Brent join ISEP's "mother and father", Lynn Margulis and F.J.R. "Max" Taylor, as Honorary Members.
Thanks to Charley O'Kelly and Tim Littlejohn, ISEP is inaugurating an electronic newsletter / bulletin board; those of us on e-mail will already have received an initial mailing (ISEPers not on e-mail will receive a biennial hardcopy version). As Charley and Tim have pointed out, electronic communication will provide more-rapid dissemination of news while saving our Society some money and effort. In their initial mailing, Charley and Tim ask us what we'd like our electronic newsletter / bulletin board to look like; please send them your considered thoughts. Of course, this service will evolve as the Internet itself evolves and as new network software becomes more widely available.
I encourage all protistologists who know Paddy Patterson to send a cheerful note or anecdote to him. Mail sent to his university address (postal or e-mail) will be forwarded.
One of the immediate tasks of the new Executive will be to update our membership list (names, addresses, numbers) and our e-mail directory of protistologists and other friends of ISEP. If you move, change your phone or fax numbers, or get a new e-mail address, please drop a note to our Treasurer (Jerry Motta) and to Charley or myself.
I also call on all former ISEP executives who have ISEP archival material to contact me. First we hope to make an inventory of relevant material (newsletters, records, minutes of business meetings, programmes from early ISEPs, correspondence, special ISEP issues of journals, etc.); later we may try to collect some of this information in one place. This information will serve not only our Society, but should become a valuable historical resource.
International organizations, including the new Inter-Union IUMS/IUBS Committee on Microbial Diversity chaired by Rita Colwell, are organizing interesting initiatives under the Biodiversity umbrella. These include reconsideration of the microbial species concept; harmonization of nomenclatural codes; preservation of microbial habitats, germ plasm and culture collections; and coordination toward an international inventory of microorganisms. These efforts are being driven by recognition of the scientific and societal importance of microbial biodiversity, and of potential biotechnological and commercial applications. Funding will be sought for at least some of these initiatives under the Diversitas programme. ISEP may have a role to play in some of these initiatives. ISEPers with specific information or ideas should contact me.
4) Membership Drive Charley O'Kelly
Among the beauties and strengths of ISEP is its small size. Members can get to meet with and know each other, and their work, without having to worry about the hassles and headaches of The Big Meeting.
But, as Mark Ragan, Jerry Motta and I have worked to put together updated membership lists, and the email mailing list for the Newsletter, we've discovered a surprising number of people who have been associated with ISEP in one way or another over the past decade.
Unfortunately, many of these good people are not current ISEP members. We'd like to sign you up! US$25 for two years, such a deal you won't see very often in the science marketplace.
How to find out your membership status? If you get this issue of the email newsletter but -not- the next one (on or before 24 November, targeting the 15th), you probably aren't on our "dues paid" list. If you don't like suspense, contact Jerry, Mark or myself by phone, fax or email and find out what our records say your status is.
New members are always welcome, students especially. Near the end of the Newsletter is a "clip and send" membership application/renewal form. Pass the word!
5) The Money Hunt Charley O'Kelly
"The Money Hunt" highlights potential sources of funds for investigators in protistology, compiled for whatever sources I can get my actual or virtual hands on. Anyone who has information on funding sources, please let me know. I would especially like to know about programs from outside North America, and to have tips on accessing the private funding markets.
This information is available in the Money Hunt section of the ISEP WWW Archive.
a) PEET (Partnerships for Enhancing Expertise in Taxonomy; US National Science Foundation)
This is the "taxonomic research on protists" initiative that I mentioned in the earlier email "mininewsletter". The full description is found in document NSF 94-109 from the Directorate of Biological Sciences, Division of Environmental Biology, (US) National Science Foundation. To quote from the "Descriptions and Objectives" section of the document ...
"The National Science Foundation (NSF), in partnership with academic institutions, botanical gardens, freshwater and marine institutes, and natural history museums, seeks to enhance and stimulate taxonomic research ... NSF announces a special competition ... to support competitively reviewed research projects that target groups of poorly known organisms. ... Three major elements are required of a project submitted ...: 1. Monographic Research; 2. Training; and 3. Computer Infrastructure.
"1. Monographic Research. Applicants must present a plan of research for taxonomic revision or monograph, with emphasis to be given to organisms that are little studied or to groups in which taxonomic expertise is limited or vanishing (microbes, protists, fungi, and invertebrates). Specialists on such groups are encouraged to apply.
"2. Training. An internship or traineeship is a required element ... The anticipated five-year duration of projects is designed to ensure continuous support of project personnel and to enable completion of major taxonomic revisions and monographs. ...
"3. Computer Infrastructure. ... projects are expected to incorporate computerization ...; specimen databases, artificial intelligence systems, computer-aided image analysis, or interactive identification keys are examples."
Who may submit? Quoting again:
"Proposals ... will be accepted from US institutions including botanical gardens, marine or freshwater institutes, and natural history museums that are eligible for awards from the National Science Foundation. Non-academic instituions with university- affiliated training programs are especially encouraged to apply. Where appropriate, collaborating scientists at foreign institutions can be accommodated through consultant or subcontract mechanisms ..." Students from outside the US, but enrolled in US institutions, are also eligible for funding.
A qualifier: "Normally, NSF does not support research with disease-related goals ..."
How much?
"Projects designed for five years (60 months) of effort are encouraged, with yearly budgets not to exceed $150,000 (direct plus indirect costs), or $750,000 total. ... NSF anticipates making 10-20 awards as continuing grants in Fiscal Year 1995 ..."
What's the deadline?
1 March 1995
Further information: Division of Environmental Biology (PEET) National Science Foundation 4201 Wilson Boulevard, suite 635 Arlington, VA 22230 USA tel: (1) 703 306 1481 fax: (1) 703 306 0367 email: sysrev@nsf.gov To get the whole document by electronic mail: Mail to: stisserve@nsf.gov Leave the subject line blank. Include exactly and only the following line in the message: get nsf94109 you should get a confirming message and the document, in ascii format, within the hour.
b) ISEP Input Request - PEET White Paper
Your bumble Editor has been asked to attend a meeting in Washington DC at the end of November, to help NSF determine guidelines for PEET proposal evaluation. The main question: what are the essential features of a monographic treatment of protist taxa, anno 1995?
What do you think? Send me your opinions. If there are lots of them, I will print a summary in the Newsletter. And I will do my best to be a voice for protistology in Washington.
c) NRICGP (National Research Initiative Competitive Grant Program; US Department of Agriculture)
A full list of NRICGP grants, plus program information and application kits, may be obtained from:
National Research Initiative Competitive Grants Program c/o Proposal Services Branch AMD/CSRS/USDA AG Box 2245 Washington, DC 20250-2248 tel: (1) 202 401 5048Most of these programs appear to be targeted directly at research on the physiology, biochemistry, molecular biology and food science of agricultural and horticultural species. However, the following programs may (no guarantees) have some space for protist researchers.
Code Name Deadline Phone (202)- ------------------------------------------------------------- 51.1 Plant Pathology 5 Dec 94 401 4310 54.1 Photosynthesis/Respiration 5 Dec 94 401 6030 25.0 Soils and Soil Biology 12 Dec 94 401 4082 51.5 Biological Control Research 19 Dec 94 401 5114 44.0 Sustaining Animal Health ... 9 Jan 95 401 6303 23.0 Forest/../Aquatic Ecosystems 23 Jan 95 401 4082
d) American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society makes grants towards the cost of scholarly research in all areas of knowledge except those where support by government or corporate enterprise is more appropriate. Projects likely to culminate in publications are preferred; projects in the creative or performing arts, and educational materials for classroom use are not included. Grants cover travel to the objects of research, purchase of photoreproductions of documents, and consumable supplies not available at the applicant's institution. The Society makes no grants for study, salary replacement, travel to conferences, of the purchase of permanent equipment, telephone calls or stationery.
Eligibility: Applicants are expected to have held the doctorate for at least one year. Foreign nationals applying from abroad must state precisely what objects of research, ONLY available in the United States, need to be consulted.
Deadlines: January 1 for decision by mid-April March 1 for decision by mid-June July 1 for decision by mid-October November 1 for decision by mid-February
Amount of award: $5,000 maximum ($4,000 for full professors); average award in 1993: $2,800.00.
Obtaining forms: Written requests for forms must indicate eligibility, specify the area of research and state the proposed use of grant funds. Telephone requests for forms cannot be honored. Although our premises will not change, either of two addresses will be valid for 1995.
Committee on Research American Philosophical Society 104 S. 5th Street -or- 150 S. Independence Mall East Philadelphia, PA 19106-3387. USA
6) US National Science Foundation documents on Internet Charley O'Kelly
NSF documents are available online through email, ftp and gopher. Although most documents are in ascii format only, some, especially major proposal documents complete with forms, are in Adobe Postscript or WordPerfect formats. What's more, you can get via email a weekly update of new NSF documents - which is how I found out about PEET.
If you don't already know about all this, the easiest way to find out is to send an empty email message to stisfly@nsf.gov. The machine will send you back document NSF 94-4, the "STIS (Science and Technology Information System) Flyer".
The weekly update of NSF (and US National Institute of Health) documents also is made available on the Usenet bulletin board "bionet.sci-resources". If you don't know about Usenet at your site, ask your local system administrator. There is even a "bionet.protista" group on Usenet ... about which more next issue.
7) News of Colleagues
Perhaps you won a Nobel Prize (please oh please let it not be an Ig Nobel!), or had an addition to family. Maybe there's a paying job available in your lab or department. Whatever. Anytime you have a piece of news, let me know so I can share it with fellow ISEPers in this space.
Paddy Patterson
Word from Protsville is that Paddy is now out of the hospital and back in Sydney. According to Alastair, his graduate student, "He can walk around some but has some sort of supporting exoskeleton on. He apparently gets tired quickly. His left hand works okay but I don't know how his right hand is doing (the right was the badly damaged one). He is apparently trying to work himself back up to speed again." Paddy had previously sent out word that he intends to return to business as usual as soon as possible, and that persons planning to visit or otherwise work with Paddy should continue with these plans.
Detlef Leipe Detti has a new job, and therefore a new address. Detlef Leipe National Center for Biotechnology Information N.I.H Building 38A Bethesda, MD 20894 U S A Tel.: 301-496-2475, extension 702 Facs: 301-480-9241 email: leipe@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov Louise Goggin Louise is returning to Australia from her previous post at the University of Prince Edward Island, Canada. Louise Goggin Department of Parasitology The University of Queensland Brisbane, Queenland 4072 Australia. fax: 61 7 365 1588 email: TBA
8) Upcoming Meetings
This information is available in the Upcoming Meetings section of the ISEP WWW Archive.
Have I missed a meeting of interest? Drop me a line!
27-30 December 1994 Western Society of Naturalists, Monterey, CA, USA. WSN Secretariat Moss Landing Marine Laboratories PO Box 450 Moss Landing, CA 95039 USA 3-6 January 1995 British Phycological Society Winter Meeting, Portsmouth University, England C.J. Barwell University of Portsmouth Institute for Coastal and Marine Studies Park Building King Henry 1 Street Portsmouth PO1 2DZ England (UK) tel: (44) 705 842 641 fax: (44) 705 842 628 22-27 May 1995. Fourth International Chrysophyte Symposium. Jorgen Kristiansen Botanical Institute Department of Phycology Oster Farimagsgade 2D 1353 Copenhagen K Denmark FAX: (45) 35 32 23 21. May 1995. 8th Chinese National Meeting of Society of Protozoologists, Shanghai. Professor Guan Wei-bin Department of Parasitology Second Military medical University 800 Xiang Yin Road Shanghai 200433 China Tel. (86) 21 549 0018 Ext. 41586, 41476 FAX: (86) 21 549 0555. 21-27 July 1995. 2nd European Protozoology Congress & Eighth European Conference on Ciliate Biology. Universite Blaise Pascale, Clermont-Ferrand, France. C A Groliere or G. Brugerolle Laboratoire de biologie des protistes Universite Blaise Pascal de Clermont-Ferrand F-63177 Aubiere Cedex France. tel: (33) 73 40 74 54, (33) 73 40 74 79 fax: (33) 73 40 76 70 2-7 July 1995 Ciliate Molecular Biology Meeting, Copper Mountain, Colorado. The meeting is one of the FASEB summer research conferences for 1995. Jim Forney 1153 Biochemistry Building Purdue University West Lafayette, IN 47907-1153 USA email: forney@biochem.purdue.edu Carol Greider Cold Spring Harbor Labs Delbruck Building Cold Spring Harbor, NY 11724 USA email: greider@cshl.org 6-10 August 1995. Phycological Society of America annual meeting, Breckenridge, Colorado. Paul Kugrens Department of Biology Colorado State University Fort Collins, CO 80523 USA Tel: (1) 303 491-7551 FAX: (1) 303 491-0649 9-13 August 1996. 11th Biennial meeting of the International Society for Evolutionary Protistology (ISEP). University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany. Meeting held in conjunction with 1st European Phycological Congress (11-18 August 1996; below). Prof. Michael Melkonian Universitat zu Koln Botanisches Institut Gyrohofstrasse 15 D-50931 Koln Germany FAX: (49) 221 470 5181 email: mmeLkon@bioLan.uni-koeLn.de. 11-18 August 1996. 1st European Phycological Congress Prof. Michael Melkonian Universitat zu Koln Botanisches Institut Gyrohofstrasse 15 D-50931 Koln Germany FAX: (49) 221 470 5181 email: mmeLkon@bioLan.uni-koeLn.de. October 1996. 8th International Congress of Culture Collections (ICCC-VIII), Baarn, Netherlands. Dr. D.v.d. Mei CBS P.O. Box 273 3740 Baarn The Netherlands. July 1997. 10th International Congress of Protozoology (ICOP-10), University of Sydney, Australia. Professor D.J. Patterson School of Biological Sciences Zoology A08 University of Sydney Sydney, NSW 2006 Australia. Professor A.M. Johnson Department of Microbiology School of Biological and Biomedical Sciences University of Technology Sydney P.O. Box 123 Broadway, NSW 2065 Australia.
9) ISEP Membership Form
[ 1 ] Make a hard copy of the form below. [ 2 ] Airmail it, with your dues, to the ISEP Treasurer. [snip] - - [snip] - - [snip] - - [snip] - - [snip] - - [snip] INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR EVOLUTIONARY PROTISTOLOGY MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION/RENEWAL Name: Postal address: City, state/province, country: Postal code: Telephone number: Fax number: E-mail address: Membership dues are US$ 25 (*) for two years. [ ] I enclose for ISEP membership for the years 199__ through ____ . Signature: Date: (*) Please remit US$ 25 per two years' membership to: Dr Jerome J. Motta Department of Botany University of Maryland College Park, MD 20742 USA Payment may be made by personal cheque (within the USA), bank money order or bank draft, international money order, or postal money order. Currently, payment must be made in U.S. dollars. Checks should be payable to "International Society for Evolutionary Protistology". We can accept payment for two, four, or more years. [snip] - - [snip] - - [snip] - - [snip] - - [snip] - - [snip]
10) Illustrated Guide to the Protozoa - Prepublication Sale
ILLUSTRATED GUIDE TO THE PROTOZOA 2nd Edition (including all groups classically considered protozoa) Editors John J. Lee, Gordon F. Leedale, David Patterson & Phyllis Bradbury *Completely revised and updated by 68 experts in their fields. *Expanded coverage (with a goal to mention every valid modern genus). Estimated 750 pages. *Over 4,200 figures, illustrations, and drawings (more than half new). *Organized by monophyletic assemblages using latest higher group taxonomic consensus wherever clear. *Easy to use taxonomic keys to each chapter. *Glossary explaining all the technical terms used int he book. *Organism and subject indices. *Desk top published by the Society of Protozoologists to keep costs low and purchase price affordable for students. Prepublication Sale Publication due Fall, 1995 Payment must accompany order. Advance payment will help underwrite costs of publication. Checks payable to "Society of Protozoologists". Advance Sale Price $65.00 Offer good only until June 30, 1995 - (Post publication price $75 - 85.00) _________________________________________________________________ Cut-off Name_____________________________ Mail to: Address _________________________ Society of Protozoologists C/O Allen Press _________________________________ P.O. Box 1897 Lawrence, Kansas 66044-9997 _________________________________ USA Enclosed is a check or money order for ______ copies of the I.G. II.