12/21/05

The Fungal Genetics Newsletter, Volume 52 was mailed out today. Within the USA we ship them by US Postal Service mail. For international recipients, we use FedEx International Mailservice. This should assure that people get their copies in time to read before school starts up again in 2006.

Also today, we set up a 'shop' where people can purchase FGSC and Fungal Genetics Conference stuff. There are mostly t-shirts but also sweatshirts, mugs, mousepads, clocks and more. The site is called 'theFGSC' because FGSC was already taken by the "Forest Grove Swim Club."  If you do not see the specific item you want, please let us know as we can change things around to suit people. We are limited in what we offer because we have only a "basic" site. We also are not marking anything up, so the prices you see are all Cafe Press prices. The FGSC gets nothing back from these products but we did want to make them available.

Happy Holidays from the FGSC!

12/15/05

David Perkins of Stanford University has sent several new Neurospora crassa strains, including what will forever be known as strain FGSC # 10,000. This strain has the genotype  arg-12 In(IIR)UCLA191 eas trp-3 and is mating type a.

The 52nd edition of the Fungal Genetics Newsletter goes to the printers today. Submissions for FGN 53 are already being accepted and should be sent to Matt Sachs.

The online abstract submission site for the Neurospora 2006 meeting is closed now (2/06). Please remember that if you submit an abstract, you still need to register with Dr. R. L. Weiss at the University of California, Los Angeles.

We are making Lyophils at the FGSC this week. Part of this is because we are systematically testing the Aspergillus lyophil collection and re-making stocks for strains that we have only a few remaining lyophils. Part of it is because Dave Jacobson sent 54 new strains.  We used to make our own lyophil blanks, but now we get them from Bellco

Greg Jedd sent along this picture of oncham

12/8/05

Kansas City got about a foot of snow. That's something like 25 cm. It is about as light and fluffy as can be imagined. Because we do not often get such nice snow, all the schools are closed. We were to have a seminar speaker today, but the University is closed. That also means that the gym and pool are closed. We received 54 wild Neurospora discreta strains from Dave Jacobson. Most of them are from warm places that look nothing like KC today! Registration materials for the 2006 Neurospora meeting at Asilomar are available online at the FGSC web-site. Abstract submissions will be online here beginning in a few days.

12/6/05

The evolution/creation debate continues in Kansas. A University of Kansas professor offered to teach a class on intelligent design but posted some disparaging remarks on a web-site and had to step down from teaching. Then, some thugs followed him in his car and beat him up. That's not very pious.

So, soccer is a popular activity among the youth of the midwest. My handsome son joined a new team a little over a year ago and they have come very far, even winning their last tournament. Way to go boys! This club is named for Avellino, Italy a mid-sized town in the ankle of the boot that is Italy. As it turns out, one of their exports is Truffles. It is a small world, indeed.