In my inbox this morning, an intriguing email from Timo Hannay, Tim O’Reilly and Chris DiBona: Obviously I’m thrilled to bits to receive such an email, I’ve been to scifoo once before and it was a fantastic mind-blowing experience. This time, I’m invited as a consolation prize for being a runner-up in the international science blogging challenge 2009 which challenged younger scientists to get a senior scientist to blog.

Slides from the seminar today, for those that asked for them. Thanks to everyone who came, we had a good turn out, much better than expected.

Casey Bergman suggested it, Jean-Marc Schwartz organised it, so now I’m going to do it: a seminar on our Defrosting the Digital Library paper as part of the Bioinformatics and Functional Genomics seminar series.

A Fistful of Papers is a Journal Club with a simple recipe We pick interesting papers We read them We periodically meet to discuss said papers in the pub local saloon It’s all good fun, if you’d like to join us, details of the next gathering on Friday 27th February, can be found over at fistful.wordpress.com (Journal Club for Gunslingers). [Clint Eastwood picture by Lego Man Andrew Becraft a.k.a. Dunechaser]

In a curious case of mistaken identity, Google seems to think I’m Maurice Wilkins. Here is how. If you Google the words DNA and mania (google.com/search?q=dna+mania) one of the first results is a tongue-in-cheek article I wrote two years ago about our obsession with D eoxyribo n ucleic A cid.

I’m not much of a fan of Janet Street-Porter, neither am I a regular viewer of the BBC Money programme but right now they are screening an interesting series of three half-hour programmes on the impact of the internet on newspapers, books and television. It’s a familiar tale of the power-and-money struggle between old media and new media that, if the first programme is anything to go by, is worth watching.

Despite what some people think (see “the myth of the lone inventor” in [1]) most scientists are usually pretty sociable people. Science is an inherently social activity [2], just take a look around you. Most laboratories are full of like-minded people working on related problems, our lab is no exception.

Donald Braben was in Manchester last week, to give a seminar on scientific freedom, here is the abstract of his talk: So who is Donald Braben? Don has held a senior position at the Cabinet Office in Whitehall, and a has a visiting Professorship at University College London (UCL) . He has written two books [3,5], going against the currently prevalent views on science funding.

Data Integration in the Life Sciences (DILS 2009) is the sixth in an international workshop series that aims at fostering discussion, exchange, and innovation in research and development in the areas of data integration and data management for the life sciences.

One of the most important Christmas traditions in Europe, aside from drinking too much, excessive eating and generally conspicuous over-consumption, are the Royal Institution Christmas lectures. This year, they are being given by Professor Christopher Bishop (pictured right), Chief Scientist at Microsoft Research and are on the subject of the Quest for the Ultimate Computer.

At the Microsoft e-Science workshop in Indianapolis, earlier this week Carole Goble was awarded with the first Jim Gray 2008 e-Science award, pictured here collecting the prize from Tony Hey of Microsoft Research. You can read all about it in the Seattle Tech Report which says: It is very inspiring when colleagues win prizes and awards.