Category Archives: BEACON Researchers at Work

3rd Annual Big Data in Biology Summer School

This post is by UT Austin graduate student Rayna Harris The Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics at The University of Texas at Austin is proud to host the 3rd Annual Big Data in Biology Summer School May 23–26, 2016. The 2016 … Continue reading

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Introducing BEACON’s New Science Outreach and Communication Postdocs

This post is by MSU postdoc Wendy Smythe. Dr. Wendy F. Smythe is an environmental scientist who came to BEACON from CMOP who looks at how microbes influence their environment, by examining geochemistry, microbial ecology, microbial diversity, and biomineralization of iron … Continue reading

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An Evolutionary Computation Perspective at AAAI 2016

This post is by UT Austin grad student Elliot Meyerson  I spent February 12-17 in Phoenix at the 30th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence. AAAI covers artificial intelligence “broadly conceived”, with focus on “traditional topics such as search, machine learning, planning, knowledge representation, reasoning, natural … Continue reading

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Manipulating evolution to conserve species

This post is by MSU Postdoc Sarah Fitzpatrick working at the Kellogg Biological Station Consider a native fish population in a small headwater stream with low genetic diversity due to genetic drift and founder effect (loss of variation that occurs when … Continue reading

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Evolutionary signal processing and its application for brain information flow modeling

This post is by MSU PhD Candidate Jinyao Yan. There are two aspects of biomedical engineering which attract me: the quest for new knowledge, and its power for fostering innovation and promoting society’s development. These pursuits hold my heart; and I am … Continue reading

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Studying the Evolution of Division of Labor with Digital Organisms

This post is by MSU Postdoc Heather Goldsby. Why do you have different types of cells in your body? Why do honeybees perform different roles, including forager, undertaker, nurse, and queen? Why do factory workers perform jobs as specific as … Continue reading

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Evolution’s Pet Cemeteries: museum collections are haunted by ghosts of natural selection

This post is by MSU Postdoc Eben Gering. Several of my most exciting workdays last year were spent rummaging through drawers of dead birds. I was on the hunt for a few dozen of the 640,000 specimens that makeup the … Continue reading

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Introducing BEACON’s New Science Outreach and Communication Postdocs

This post is by MSU postdoc Travis Hagey. Late in 2015 BEACON advertised for an Evolution Outreach and Education postdoctoral fellowship. As a result of that posting, we would like to introduce three new postdocs, Dr. Wendy Smythe, Dr. Travis … Continue reading

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Receiving Advice, Exercising, Tweeting, Chairing & Networking at Conferences

This post is by UT Austin graduate student Rayna Harris. Also posted on Medium. This blog post is based upon my experience at the 2016 Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology Meeting. These are my thoughts about what works best … Continue reading

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Avida-ED for classroom research

This post is by MSU postdoc Mike Wiser. Reposted from the DevoLab blog. Laboratory components are often integral parts of both K-12 and college science courses. I certainly had a lot over the course of my science education; 5 courses … Continue reading

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