We are pleased to announce the release of Biopython 1.48. Some new functionality has been added, a few bugs have been fixed, the documentation has been updated, plus several obsolete modules have been deprecated (or explicitly labelled as obsolete). The following additional file formats are now supported in Bio.SeqIO and Bio.AlignIO: reading and writing “tab” format (simple tab separated) writing “nexus” files reading “pir” files (NBRF/PIR)

This is a belated news entry announcing the second BioSQL v1.0 (code-named Tokyo) release, v1.0.1, which was made on August 2, 2008. It is available from the BioSQL downloads page. This version of the schema should be fully backwards compatible with the v1.0.0 schema for nearly all software and queries. The only change is relaxing a column width constraint. Migration scripts are for those who want to simply upgrade their existing database.

We are pleased to announce the release of Biopython 1.47. This release includes a new Bio.AlignIO module, updates to Bio.Blast, parsers for NCBI’s Entrez E-Utilities, numerous other code improvements and fixes, and an extended and updated documentation. In particular if you use Biopython to access NCBI’s E-Utilities, we encourage you to download and install this release to ensure full compliance with NCBI’s access rules.

The BOSC 2008 Organizing Committee is pleased to announce that Julian Lombardi will be giving the keynote address this year. Dr. Lombardi is one of the original architects of the open-source, peer-to-peer OpenCroquet platform for creating and deploying deeply collaborative multi-user online applications and virtual worlds. For further information about Dr. Lombardi, see the Wikipedia entry about him, his blog, and the OpenCroquet website.

We are pleased to announce the release of Biopython 1.45. This release includes numerous code improvements and fixes, including in Bio.Seq, Bio.SeqIO, Bio.Entrez, Bio.PopGen, Bio.SwissProt, Bio.Cluster, Bio.SCOP, Bio.InterPro, Bio.GenBank, Bio.ExPASy, BioSQL, and the Biopython documentation. Too many to list them all here! Source distributions and Windows installers are available from the Biopython website at http://biopython.org.

After a long wait and several earlier attempts, version 1.0.0 (code-named Tokyo, see below) of BioSQL has finally been released. The release can be downloaded at http://biosql.org/DIST/ as .tar.gz, .tar.bz, and Zip (which also has Windows-style end-of-line characters) archives. The full release announcement can be found in the BioSQL mailing list archives, and in the distribution itself.

Our application to hold BOSC as a two-day SIG (Special Interest Group) meeting in conjunction with ISMB has been accepted for this year. BOSC will take place July 18 and 19 in Toronto, Canada. For the first time this year, the second conference day will overlap with the ISMB tutorial day, in an attempt to make the overall stay shorter for those who want to attend both BOSC and ISMB.

We are pleased to announce the release of Biopython 1.44. This release includes lots of code improvements and fixes in the Blast interface and parsers, sequence input/output, the SwissProt parser, the clustering routines, as well as a brand new module for population genetics. For reasons of compatibility, some radical changes were necessary in some parts of the code; please let us know if you find some functionality missing.

Venue: Cafe Prückl, Vienna Date: 7/21/2007, 5.30pm Attending: Jason Stajich (OBF President), Hilmar Lapp (OBF Parliamentarian), Darin London, Kam Dahlquist BOSC Had 94 attendees registered specifically for BOSC as of July 9th Do we have an audience? Is there a niche that BOSC continues to fill? The numbers seem to speak a clear voice.

If you’ll be at BOSC or ISMB - please see this page and sign your name if you would like to try and meet up.  We’ll do a developer’s dinner as well as have a BoF.

So Mailing list summaries have stopped because we need someone else to help post these summaries. Not a light job unfortunately. If you are interested, please post to the mailing list or contact Jason, Sendu, or Chris for more details. This is one way you can help BioPerl without contributing code if you aren’t comfortable with that type of commitment.