The first 30,000 pages of a massive online Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) were unveiled today as scientists assemble for the prestigious Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) Conference in Monterey, California.

BioMed Central, the world’s largest publisher of open access scientific journals, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) today announced a membership agreement under which HHMI will pay the article processing charges for all research published by HHMI investigators in BioMed Central journals. Articles published under this agreement will be made immediately and freely available on the web in their final published form, and will be deposited in international archives including PubMed Central (PMC). The agreement between HHMI and BioMed Central takes effect for articles submitted after September 1, 2007.

Just a quick note to warn that I wont be able to update the site in the next 3 days - scuba diving course on a boat, on the Great barrier reef, no less! Were the weekend right now so not much I can post before I go off, I'll post the most relevant news of the next few days when I get back!

First real vacations in three years, whats the worse that could happen? My hosting provider having trouble on the server hosting the Biology News Net, of course. The outage lasted at least for 5 days, but now were on a dedicated server and things should improve significantly - I hope it wont happen again, troubleshooting server problems on the other side of the world (australia) without a reliable internet connection isnt exactly fun!

Sorry for the trouble this outage might have caused!

Just a quick note to say that updates on the site might be a little slower on the site for the next month or so; I'll be at the 4th IAS conference (a conference on AIDS and HIV-1) in Sydney, Australia (and for some vacation there too after that).

Today, delegates representing the 19 member states of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) offered Australia associate membership in EMBL’s international community. The membership is planned to start officially in January 2008 and will initially last for seven years.

This week's BMJ investigates a bitter row over a scientific paper that is putting Korea's scientific community under scrutiny once again.

This week’s BMJ raises concerns over whether journal rankings (known as impact factors) are distorting publishing and science.

Sorry for the problems the site experienced tonight; it appears that spammers hammered our search function, causing the site to go down. It has been disabled until we find a suitable solution. After that, an error by a technician at our hosting company caused many errors on the site (which you might have witnessed). We apologize for the downtime; everything should be back to normal right now!

Today is the International Women's Day and the UNESCO in association with L'Oreal awarded distinctions to five leading women researchers, one per continent - the awards identify exceptional women as role models for the generations to come.

Until now, online scientific journals have been little more than electronic versions of the printed copy. Today, that all changes with the launch of PLoS ONE, which publishes primary research from all areas of science and employs both pre- and post-publication peer review to maximize the impact of every report it publishes. PLoS ONE is published by the Public Library of Science (PLoS), the open access publisher whose goal is to make the world's scientific and medical literature a public resource.

Eleven journals published by BioMed Central, the open access publisher, received their first Impact Factor this month. With nine journals in the top 10 of their 2005 Journal Citation Report* category, and ten journals with a 2005 Impact Factor exceeding 3.00, open access journals are confirmed as publishing high-quality, highly cited research.

In an online survey of public attitudes conducted recently and released today by Harris Interactive®, 8 out of 10 (82%) adults polled said they believe that "if tax dollars pay for scientific research, people should have free access to the results of the research on the Internet."

Sorry for the slow news update - I'm currently at the CAHR (Canadian Association for HIV Research) meeting in Quebec City. The situation will last throught Sunday; after that, I'll be back to provide you the most interesting biology-related news I can find!

The single most important issue obstructing the productivity of biomedical scientists today is the culture of research funding. This finding challenges the belief of some that the lack of "open access" to journal content is a major barrier to scientific productivity.

Low traffic today; understandably, it's Easter! You should be eating chocolate and visiting your family, what are you doing here?!

Last week I added what could be the last changes to Biology News Net for some time, as I'm starting a new (biology-related) project. Notably, the Jobs section (in partnership with career.edu), the headlines section (from the newsfeed), and some utility links to submit stories to popular websites (Digg, Newsvine and Del.icio.us). Hopefully this will help the community around here grow; I'm a bit disappointed in the total absence of discussion even after a year.

If you spot any bugs or if you have anything to suggest, now is the time! The best way is via the contact form.

I promised a biology-specific news aggregator a while ago, and its finally done! It checks several science related sites for biology related news (using a bayesian filter) every hour; be sure to check it out! If you think of some more websites I missed, just contact me and I'll add them. A single rule: no paid content. That's the reason the NY Times, The Scientist and New Scientist aren't there. Sites that only display Associated Press news are excluded too, because AP:Health and Science already are in the list. I may add them in the future if there's enough request for them however.

Tell me what you think about this new feature. Any suggestions are welcome (this is true for the rest of the website, too!) And be sure to contact me if you notice any bugs! I know that there's lots of ads on the page; they're tests and some may or may not stay there.

As of 2006 more than 130 environmental journals from the scientific publisher Springer will be part of the initiative Online Access to Research in the Environment (OARE), a digital library for developing countries. Public and non-profit institutions in underdeveloped nations in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean and Eastern Europe will have free access to the peer-reviewed scientific literature of Springer and other leading international publishing houses.

BioMed Central is pleased to announce the launch of Biology Direct, a new online open access journal with a novel system of peer review. Biology Direct will operate completely open peer review, with named peer reviewers' reports published alongside each article. The journal also takes the innovative step of requiring that the author approach Biology Direct Editorial Board members directly to review the manuscript.

It's been a year since the official launch of Biology News Net! We improved a lot since then... if you want to see the website in its first incarnation, visit the defunct The Scientist Blog! That's right... for those who didn't knew, this website was started as a blog as I was writing my Masters thesis. There's still room for improvement I'm sure; if you have ideas / suggestions / comments, use the comment form, the forum or the contact form!

Only one thing bothers me: 276 registered users and almost no comments! I just revamped the comments section at the bottom of each article; hope it will help!

So happy 1st year to Biology News Net!

I don't know how many people the issue affected, but for some odd reason, people who didn't vote in the poll would have a messed up layout (bottom right sidebar displaying all over the place). This issue is fixed now; please let me know of any problems you have with the website! There's a contact form on the right sidebar menu. Suggestions are also appreciated ;)

New features incoming :

- Newsfeed displaying links to the most recent biology news on the net, automatically. Bayesian filtering is cool to play with!

- Print format. When you will print articles, only what's interesting will be printed! No ads, no sidebars! How cool is that?

So yeah, new year, new design! Everything isn't 100% complete - the site is still missing some features. Most of the ads are tests - I'm trying to find good spots for them, they will probably change. Only the 'Biology Forum' button at the top will stay there - the other 2 are placeholders for features to come in a near future (I hope).

So what's new? A newsletter, a poll, a cool new look, better search, mail-to-a-friend feature on every article, rss feeds for every category, and a script to display our news our your website!

What's coming next? Faster & better search, printer-friendly format for every article, a genetic-algorithm (or bayesian, we'll see) based news aggregator displaying links to biology website, in (near) real-time (would need help with this one, if someone has know-how for this kind of stuff), and (almost) everything you will suggest! Use the comments form (click on the title for the full entry, it's a the bottom) or contact me directly if you have some suggestions / comments!

If the design is broken or is not displaying properly, contact me (via the new contact form!) and describe the problem and your OS / browser / screen resolution.

Oh, a big thanks to designer Amanda Wray for the cool looking logo!

Slow news / traffic today, as it should, cause its Christmas! Just wanted to thank everyone for making Biology News Net a success - the new redesign is almost finished, with new features which should help you get the biology news you need, when and where you want to! If you have suggestions, its always time to contact me (see my email at the bottom of the page)! I'll try to keep news updated even during the Holidays, but I have to admit I need a well deserved vacation - doing a Phd is time / energy consuming :-)

Happy Christmas to everyone!

Dinosaurs had appetite for grass
Butterfly wings work like LEDs
Skull fragments may be Beethoven's
Is Tamiflu safe for children?
Aids may help spread of bird flu
Gene therapy may help cure pancreatic cancer
Malaria may raise HIV risk to fetuses
Vietnam finds new strains of bird flu virus

DNA tests don't identify Jamestown skeleton
'Intersex' Fish Found Off Calif. Coast
Free-for-all over generic drugs in Europe
Harriet the tortoise turns 175
U.N.: World forest loss still alarming
China will vaccinate its poultry population
In search of the smart orangutan

Notice something new? We have a new (and cute!) icon for the "general" section (don't remember the old one? That's why we changed it!). I have to say a big thanks to Dan Meyer who allowed us to use the little penguin from his Maximum Cool illustration! Now if only we could find something suitable for our "biotechnology" icon...

Mother Nature tops Time person of the year list
Light could trigger super-fast synthetic muscles
Two pandas tie the knot
Baby Panda at San Diego Zoo Named Su Lin
N.J. Biologist Studies Ice-Hardy Worms

Illegal logging devours Honduran forests
China measures tackle bird flu
Mexico coral reef set back 100 years by Wilma
World Bank to offer bird-flu loans
Pilot tracks monarch butterflies on long migration
Marauders continue to plunder the oceans
Americans split over buying cloned meat: poll
Gloomy estimate of bird flu costs
Japan's whaling fleet sets sail
Hazards in the hunt for flu bug
Resurgent monarchs fluttering to Mexico

I was just thinking : strange, I didn't received a message since I left for Mexico! And then, I tried to send myself an email (to the admin account, see at the bottom of the page for the address). Didn't receive it! Turns out that my mailbox had a very small default quota (10 megs), was setup to keep every message since the beginning AND had a special 'spam' folder that I didn't have access to using my POP email reader on my desktop.

Cleaned the mess, and now I can receive emails again. I apologize in advance if you tried to contact me; just do so again! admin @ biologynews.net ... comments, suggestions, design ideas, problems, etc... I always love to hear from you ;)

Anyone knows of a student in design or graphism? Looking for some new icons and logo (I designed the current ones, and can't say I'm 100% satisfied). Obviously I would love to hire a professional, but I really don't think I can afford it. Just drop me a mail if you know of someone!

Anonymous sperm donor traced on internet
Scientists explain why viruses thrive during winter
How a disease can change the world
Young hockey player injuries studied - surprising findings
New treatment for multiple sclerosis tested

So, I have a little free time on my hands... what to do with it? Improve the site, obviously! I have lots of ideas of my own, but I want to have your input! After all, I didn't built this commenting system for nothing! Something you want to see? Something you would change? Browser specific bugs you encountered? Is the site easy to read? Drop a comment! Don't be shy ;)

I'd love to hire a professional designer to help me, but obviously, I'm a poor PhD student, so I think I couldn't afford it (maybe I'm wrong? If you know about this stuff, feel free to email me!). Everything on this website was done by me on my spare time, and I'm no graphic artist! I'd love to give a Mac style to this site, at least for icons (you know what I mean, the OS X kind of icons with glare)... even if I hate using Mac computers! If you feel you could do better category icons or site logo feel free to contact me (email at the bottom of the page).

Greenpeace fined for reef damage
Modified rice relieves allergies in mice
Rabid vampire bats kill in Brazil
Panda cub to go on limited display
Caterpillar contest predicts mild winter