Internet E-Mail Workshop/Internet E-Mail Workshop.iso/info/bionet.

Text File | 1993-11-24 | 83KB | 1,874 lines

Path: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!enterpoop.mit.edu!biosci!NET.BIO.NET!kristoff
From: [e-mail] (David Kristofferson)
Newsgroups: bionet.announce
Subject: BIOSCI Newsgroups Information
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 1 Apr 93 09:01:02 GMT
Sender: [e-mail]
Distribution: bionet
Lines: 324
Approved: [e-mail]

----------------------------------------------------------------------

      THE BIOSCI ELECTRONIC NEWSGROUP NETWORK INFORMATION SHEET

----------------------------------------------------------------------
This is the BIOSCI information sheet for the Americas and Pacific Rim
countries.  If you are located in Europe, Africa, or Central Asia,
please request that version of the BIOSCI information sheet by sending
e-mail to the Internet address:

               [e-mail].

New users of BIOSCI/bionet may want to read the "Frequently Asked
Questions" or "FAQ" sheet for BIOSCI.  The FAQ provides details on how
to participate in these forums and is available for anonymous FTP from
net.bio.net [134.172.2.69] in pub/BIOSCI/biosci.FAQ.  It may also be
requested by sending e-mail to [e-mail] (use plain English
for your request).  The FAQ is also posted on the first of each month
to the newsgroup BIONEWS/bionet.announce immediately following the
posting of the BIOSCI information sheet.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Introduction
------------

The BIOSCI newsgroup network was developed to allow easy worldwide
communications between biological scientists who work on a variety of
computer networks.  By having distribution sites or "nodes" on each
major network, BIOSCI allows its users to contact people around the
world without having to learn a variety of computer addressing tricks.
Any user can simply post a message to his/her regional BIOSCI node and
copies of that message will be distributed automatically to all other
subscribers on all of the participating networks, including the
Internet, USENET, BITNET, EARN, NETNORTH, HEANET, and JANET.


E-mail Subscription Requests and other Information
--------------------------------------------------

If you need to receive BIOSCI messages by e-mail, please send all
subscription requests, subscription cancellations, or any other
questions about using BIOSCI to the Internet address


               [e-mail]


As your request will be read by a human, there is no need for special
syntax in your message.  Simply select the newsgroups from the list
below to which you would like to subscribe.

**********************************************************************
DO NOT, REPEAT, DO NOT POST SUBSCRIPTION REQUESTS DIRECTLY TO ANY OF
    THE NEWSGROUP ADDRESSES.  PLEASE USE ONLY THE ADDRESS
              [e-mail]

Your posting could go to several thousand people.  Supposing that each
person spends a couple of seconds to figure out that you did this,
before they go on to the next message.  You will have wasted the
equivalent of several hours of one person's time, not to mention
the computer time and disk storage that are wasted.
**********************************************************************

PLEASE NOTE THAT IF YOU HAVE ACCESS TO USENET NEWS YOU DO NOT NEED AN
E-MAIL SUBSCRIPTION!!  Simply read and post to the newsgroups in the
"bionet" newsgroup heirarchy using your USENET news software (e.g.,
readnews, rn, vnews, ANU-NEWS, postnews).

WE STRONGLY ENCOURAGE ALL INTERESTED USERS TO EXPLORE GETTING USENET
NEWS SOFTWARE AT YOUR SITE.  THE SOFTWARE IS IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN, AND
YOU WILL FIND IT MUCH MORE CONVENIENT THAN SUBSCRIBING TO NEWSGROUPS
BY E-MAIL.  Please consult your systems manager or contact
[e-mail] for assistance if needed.


Canceling E-mail Subscriptions
------------------------------
**********************************************************************
AS WE NOTED ABOVE, PLEASE DO NOT SEND CANCELLATION NOTICES TO THE
NEWSGROUP E-MAIL POSTING ADDRESSES.  PLEASE USE ONLY THE ADDRESS
              [e-mail]
FOR CANCELLATION NOTICES.
**********************************************************************
If you have subscribed to a newsgroup and are now leaving an
institution or changing your e-mail address, it is IMPERATIVE that you
send a note to [e-mail] and cancel your subscription!
Non-existent addresses or overflowing mailboxes cause computer mail
programs to send back "daemon" messages which might bother everybody
on the newsgroup.  We will immediately remove any address causing such
a problem, but would prefer it if you would notify us in advance as a
courtesy to the rest of the user community.


Interruption of E-mail Service
------------------------------

It is our policy to remove any address from our mailing lists which
becomes inaccessible and causes mail to bounce back to the sender.
This might happen to you if your local computer or network fails for a
significant period of time.  If you notice that you are no longer
receiving BIOSCI postings, it may be because your address was removed
for the above reason.  It will be necessary for you to contact
[e-mail] and resubscribe.  Please see BIOSCI FAQ II,
mentioned at the beginning of this document, for more details on how
BIOSCI handles addresses which reject mail.


List of BIOSCI Newsgroups
-------------------------

NEWSGROUP NAME               TOPIC
--------------               -----
AGEING                       Discussions about ageing research
AGROFORESTRY                 Discussions about agroforestry research
ARABIDOPSIS                  Newsgroup for the Arabidopsis Genome Project
BIOFORUM                     Discussions about biological topics for
                which there is not yet a dedicated newsgroup
BIOLOGICAL-INFORMATION-
  THEORY-AND-CHOWDER-SOCIETY Applications of information theory to biology
BIONAUTS                     Question/answer forum for help using
                electronic networks, locating e-mail
                addresses, etc.
BIONEWS **                   General announcements of widespread
                interest to biologists
BIO-JOURNALS                 Tables of Contents of biological journals
BIO-MATRIX                   Applications of computers to biological databases
BIO-SOFTWARE                 Information on software for the biological
                sciences
CHROMOSOME-22                Mapping and Sequencing of Human Chromosome 22
COMPUTATIONAL-BIOLOGY **     Mathematical and computer applications in biology
EMBL-DATABANK                Messages to and from the EMBL database staff
EMPLOYMENT                   Job opportunities in biology (see BIOSCI
                   FAQ *before* posting commercial job openings)
GDB                          Messages to and from the Genome Data Bank staff
GENBANK-BB                   Messages to and from the GenBank database staff
GENETIC-LINKAGE              Newsgroup for genetic linkage analysis
HIV-MOLECULAR-BIOLOGY        Discussions about the molecular biology of HIV
HUMAN-GENOME-PROGRAM         NIH-sponsored newsgroup on human genome issues
IMMUNOLOGY                   Discussions about research in immunology
JOURNAL-NOTES                Practical advice on dealing with professional
                   journals
METHODS-AND-REAGENTS         Requests for information and lab reagents
MOLECULAR-EVOLUTION          Discussions about research in molecular evolution
NEUROSCIENCE                 Discussions about research in the neurosciences
N2-FIXATION                  Discussion about biological nitrogen fixation
PLANT-BIOLOGY                Discussions about research in plant biology
POPULATION-BIOLOGY           Discussions about research in population biology
PROTEIN-ANALYSIS             Discussions about research on proteins and
                messages for the PIR and SWISS-PROT databank
                staffs.
PROTEIN-CRYSTALLOGRAPHY      Discussion about crystallography of macromolecules
                and messages for the PDB staff
RAPD                         Discussions about Randomly Amplified Polymorphic
                DNA
SCIENCE-RESOURCES            Information from/about scientific funding
                agencies
TROPICAL-BIOLOGY             Discussions about research in tropical biology
VIROLOGY                     Discussions about research in virology
WOMEN-IN-BIOLOGY             Discussions about issues concerning women
                biologists

** Note that newsgroups flagged with ** are moderated, i.e., postings
are directed to a moderator (editor) who later forwards messages
(possibly edited or condensed) to the newsgroup.


Posting Messages to Newsgroups
------------------------------

The lists below include the addresses for posting messages and also
the names of the corresponding UNIX USENET newsgroups.  Messages can
either be posted into the USENET newsgroups using "postnews" or
similar software or they can be submitted by electronic mail to the
mailing addresses given below.  In most cases, messages are posted
directly to the newsgroups without editorial intervention.

USENET users who use the "postnews" or similar software on their local
computer should be sure to set the message distribution to "world" or
"bionet" or else your message may not be distributed beyond your local
computer.  USENET newsgroups are read using, e.g., the "readnews,"
"rn," or "vnews" software on UNIX systems.  USENET news software is in
the public domain and is available for most UNIX systems.  A public
domain USENET news software package named ANU-NEWS is also available
for VAX/VMS systems.  Your local BIOSCI node can point you towards
acquiring the software for use on your computer system.

Those who use e-mail to post messages should send their mail to the
following Internet addresses in the USA:

NEWSGROUP NAME              Mailing Address
--------------              ----------------
AGEING                      [e-mail]
AGROFORESTRY                [e-mail]
ARABIDOPSIS                 [e-mail]
BIOFORUM                    [e-mail]
BIO-INFORMATION-THEORY +    [e-mail]
BIONAUTS                    [e-mail]
BIONEWS **                  [e-mail]
BIO-JOURNALS                [e-mail]
BIO-MATRIX                  [e-mail]
BIO-SOFTWARE                [e-mail]
CHROMOSOME-22               [e-mail]
COMPUTATIONAL-BIOLOGY **    [e-mail]
EMBL-DATABANK               [e-mail]
EMPLOYMENT                  [e-mail]
GDB                         [e-mail]
GENBANK-BB                  [e-mail]
GENETIC-LINKAGE             [e-mail]
HIV-MOLECULAR-BIOLOGY       [e-mail]
HUMAN-GENOME-PROGRAM        [e-mail]
IMMUNOLOGY                  [e-mail]
JOURNAL-NOTES               [e-mail]
METHODS-AND-REAGENTS        [e-mail]
MOLECULAR-EVOLUTION         [e-mail]
NEUROSCIENCE                [e-mail]
N2-FIXATION                 [e-mail]
PLANT-BIOLOGY               [e-mail]
POPULATION-BIOLOGY          [e-mail]
PROTEIN-ANALYSIS            [e-mail]
PROTEIN-CRYSTALLOGRAPHY     [e-mail]
RAPD                        [e-mail]
SCIENCE-RESOURCES           [e-mail]
TROPICAL-BIOLOGY            [e-mail]
VIROLOGY                    [e-mail]
WOMEN-IN-BIOLOGY            [e-mail]

+ full name is BIOLOGICAL-INFORMATION-THEORY-AND-CHOWDER-SOCIETY

** Note that newsgroups flagged with ** are moderated, i.e., postings
are directed to a moderator (editor) who later forwards messages
(possibly edited or condensed) to the newsgroup.


List of USENET newsgroups
-------------------------

BIOSCI messages are distributed on the following USENET newsgroups in
the "bionet" heirarchy.  Contents of the USENET newsgroups and the
e-mail distributions listed above are the same, i.e., messages sent in
by e-mail are also forwarded to USENET and messages posted to USENET
newsgroups are also distributed to e-mail subscribers.


NEWSGROUP NAME             USENET Newsgroup Name
--------------             ---------------------
AGEING                     bionet.molbio.ageing
AGROFORESTRY               bionet.agroforestry
ARABIDOPSIS                bionet.genome.arabidopsis
BIOFORUM                   bionet.general
BIO-INFORMATION-THEORY +   bionet.info-theory
BIONAUTS                   bionet.users.addresses
BIONEWS **                 bionet.announce
BIO-JOURNALS               bionet.journals.contents
BIO-MATRIX                 bionet.molbio.bio-matrix
BIO-SOFTWARE               bionet.software
CHROMOSOME-22              bionet.genome.chrom22
COMPUTATIONAL-BIOLOGY **   bionet.biology.computational
EMBL-DATABANK              bionet.molbio.embldatabank
EMPLOYMENT                 bionet.jobs
GDB                        bionet.molbio.gdb
GENBANK-BB                 bionet.molbio.genbank
GENETIC-LINKAGE            bionet.molbio.gene-linkage
HIV-MOLECULAR-BIOLOGY      bionet.molbio.hiv
HUMAN-GENOME-PROGRAM       bionet.molbio.genome-program
IMMUNOLOGY                 bionet.immunology
JOURNAL-NOTES              bionet.journals.note
METHODS-AND-REAGENTS       bionet.molbio.methds-reagnts
MOLECULAR-EVOLUTION        bionet.molbio.evolution
NEUROSCIENCE               bionet.neuroscience
N2-FIXATION                bionet.biology.n2-fixation
PLANT-BIOLOGY              bionet.plants
POPULATION-BIOLOGY         bionet.population-bio
PROTEIN-ANALYSIS           bionet.molbio.proteins
PROTEIN-CRYSTALLOGRAPHY    bionet.xtallography
RAPD                       bionet.molbio.rapd
SCIENCE-RESOURCES          bionet.sci-resources
TROPICAL-BIOLOGY           bionet.biology.tropical
VIROLOGY                   bionet.virology
WOMEN-IN-BIOLOGY           bionet.women-in-bio

+ full name is BIOLOGICAL-INFORMATION-THEORY-AND-CHOWDER-SOCIETY

** Note that newsgroups flagged with ** are moderated, i.e., postings
are directed to a moderator (editor) who later forwards messages
(possibly edited or condensed) to the newsgroup.


BIOSCI "prototype" newsgroups
-----------------------------

To assist areas of research in developing their own electronic
communication forums, BIOSCI at net.bio.net will set up on request a
mailing list *without* an associated USENET newsgroup.  The mailing
list is created only at net.bio.net, the U.S. BIOSCI node, and all
subscription requests must be sent to [e-mail] regardless of
one's geographical location.  There is no charge for this or any other
BIOSCI service, as usual.

This procedure waives the rule that requires each new newsgroup
proposal to be put to a vote of the readership first (see
BIOSCI/bionet FAQ II, mentioned at the beginning of this document, for
details on creating new full-fledged newsgroups and prototype
newsgroups).  Each mailing list ("prototype newsgroup") must have a
scientist volunteer to serve as its discussion leader.  The prototype
newsgroup has six months to build up its readership after which time
it is put out for a vote for full newsgroup status (i.e., to have both
a mailing list *and* parallel USENET newsgroup created at both BIOSCI
nodes in the U.S. and U.K.).  If you are interested in establishing
such a forum for your research specialty, please contact
[e-mail].

The current prototype newsgroups are listed below.  Please send
subscription requests to [e-mail] and NOT to the newsgroup
posting addresses.  Prototype newsgroups are *not* archived, so please
be sure to save any messages that you may want to refer to again.

Posting Address         Purpose
---------------         -------
[e-mail]    Discussions about automated DNA sequencing
[e-mail]     Discussions about biothermal kinetics


FURTHER QUESTIONS???  Please address them to [e-mail].


  Inflating: BIONET.INF  <to console>

Path: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!enterpoop.mit.edu!gatech!udel!wupost!uwm.edu!biosci!net.bio.net
From: [e-mail] (Dave Kristofferson)
Newsgroups: bionet.announce
Subject: BIOSCI/bionet Frequently Asked Questions
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 1 Apr 93 09:03:03 GMT
Sender: [e-mail]
Lines: 1522
Approved: [e-mail]


        BIOSCI/bionet Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
        ----------------------------------------------
               (last revised - 3/10/93)

This document describes the general purpose and uses of the
BIOSCI/bionet newsgroups and provides details on how to participate in
these forums.  It is available for anonymous FTP from net.bio.net
[134.172.2.69] in pub/BIOSCI/biosci.FAQ.  This document may also be
requested by e-mail to [e-mail] (use plain English - this is
not a server address).  It is posted the first of each month to the
BIONEWS/bionet.announce newsgroup along with the BIOSCI information
sheet and the list of changes to the newsgroups during the preceding
month.  The FAQ is also posted monthly to the USENET newsgroup
news.answers and is archived along with other USENET newsgroup FAQs at
pit-manager.mit.edu [18.172.1.27].

                   Contents
                   --------

Common Questions about BIOSCI/bionet usage
------------------------------------------
*  What is BIOSCI and bionet?
*  What newsgroups are available on BIOSCI/bionet?
*  Who are the discussion leaders for the various newsgroups?
*  Where (and how many times) should I post my messages?
*  How does one post a message?
*  How do I find back issues of BIOSCI postings?
*  Is there a summary of METHODS-AND-REAGENTS postings?
*  What is USENET?
*  How can I get news software at my site?
*  How do I request or cancel e-mail subscriptions to BIOSCI newsgroups?
*  How can I get a list of newsgroups or my subscriptions?
*  Why are BIOSCI e-mail subscription requests not processed by machine?
*  Why are there two BIOSCI sites?
*  How does one know to which newsgroup a message was posted?
*  What is the "BIOSCI-REQUEST" address?
*  Why have I stopped getting messages?
*  I posted a message and got back an error message from a daemon!!
*  How does one start a new BIOSCI newsgroup/mailing list?
*  What journals are available on BIO-JOURNALS?  How can one locate articles?
*  Why didn't my USENET posting show up elsewhere?
*  Why are my messages are going to bionet.followup?

Common questions posted to BIOSCI/bionet newsgroups
---------------------------------------------------
*  How do I report a problem in a biological data base?
*  What about submitting sequence data to GenBank, EMBL, DDBJ or PIR?
*  Please help me find the e-mail address for Dr. ...
*  What are all of these references to FTP, WAIS, Gopher, and WWW?

Other questions to add to this list???  Please send them to
[e-mail].  We would also appreciate your sending the
*answer* to the question if possible.  All contributions will be
gratefully acknowledged by including the author's name along with the
answer provided.


          Common Questions about BIOSCI/bionet usage
          ******************************************


What is BIOSCI and bionet?
--------------------------

We'll spare you the fascinating historical details and say simply that
BIOSCI is a series of freely accessible electronic communication
forums (i.e., electronic bulletin boards or "newsgroups") for use by
biological scientists worldwide.  No fees are charged for the service.
The system is intended to promote communication between professionals
in the biological sciences.  All postings to the newsgroups should be
made in that spirit.  BIOSCI messages are distributed without
editorial intervention in most cases.  Dissemination is by normal
electronic mail and also over USENET in the form of the "bionet"
newsgroups (see below for USENET details).  The contents of the
electronic mail distribution is identical to the USENET news
distribution, but we encourage BIOSCI users to access the system
through USENET news software whenever possible.  E-mail distributions
may eventually be phased out.  As of October 1992, 59% of our readers
used USENET news software instead of e-mail.

We provide a summary about USENET further below.  More detailed
information has been collected from the USENET newsgroup
news.announce.newusers and placed in two files in the pub/BIOSCI
directory in the anonymous FTP area on net.bio.net [134.172.2.69].
The file "usenet.info" contains the following articles:

     How to become a USENET site
     USENET Software: History and Sources
     What is Usenet?
     How to Get Information about Networks

The file "usenet.info2" contains

     Answers to Frequently Asked Questions about Usenet
     Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette
     Hints on writing style for Usenet

Another file in the same directory entitled "internet.info" provides
starting information on how to get your site connected to the
Internet.  Any or all of these files may be requested by e-mail to
[e-mail].


What newsgroups are available on BIOSCI/bionet?
-----------------------------------------------

This is the list of the mailing lists and the corresponding USENET
newsgroup names as of 12/92.  A posting of the latest list of
newsgroups and other information about subscribing/unsubscribing,
etc., to BIOSCI (the "BIOSCI info sheet") is posted the first of each
month on the BIONEWS/bionet.announce newsgroup along with this FAQ
posting.  Two versions of the BIOSCI info sheet are available, one for
the Americas and the Pacific Rim countries, and the second for Europe,
Africa, and Central Asia.  The former may be requested by e-mail to
[e-mail], while the latter may be requested from
[e-mail].

MAILING LIST NAME          USENET Newsgroup Name
-----------------          ---------------------
AGEING                     bionet.molbio.ageing
AGROFORESTRY               bionet.agroforestry
ARABIDOPSIS                bionet.genome.arabidopsis
BIOFORUM                   bionet.general
BIO-INFORMATION-THEORY +   bionet.info-theory
BIONAUTS                   bionet.users.addresses
BIONEWS **                 bionet.announce
BIO-JOURNALS               bionet.journals.contents
BIO-MATRIX                 bionet.molbio.bio-matrix
BIO-SOFTWARE               bionet.software
CHROMOSOME-22              bionet.genome.chrom22
COMPUTATIONAL-BIOLOGY **   bionet.biology.computational
EMBL-DATABANK              bionet.molbio.embldatabank
EMPLOYMENT                 bionet.jobs
GDB                        bionet.molbio.gdb
GENBANK-BB                 bionet.molbio.genbank
GENETIC-LINKAGE            bionet.molbio.gene-linkage
HIV-MOLECULAR-BIOLOGY      bionet.molbio.hiv
HUMAN-GENOME-PROGRAM       bionet.molbio.genome-program
IMMUNOLOGY                 bionet.immunology
JOURNAL-NOTES              bionet.journals.note
METHODS-AND-REAGENTS       bionet.molbio.methds-reagnts
MOLECULAR-EVOLUTION        bionet.molbio.evolution
NEUROSCIENCE               bionet.neuroscience
PLANT-BIOLOGY              bionet.plants
POPULATION-BIOLOGY         bionet.population-bio
PROTEIN-ANALYSIS           bionet.molbio.proteins
PROTEIN-CRYSTALLOGRAPHY    bionet.xtallography
SCIENCE-RESOURCES          bionet.sci-resources
TROPICAL-BIOLOGY           bionet.biology.tropical
VIROLOGY                   bionet.virology
WOMEN-IN-BIOLOGY           bionet.women-in-bio

+ full name is BIOLOGICAL-INFORMATION-THEORY-AND-CHOWDER-SOCIETY

** Note that newsgroups flagged with ** are moderated, i.e., postings
are directed to a moderator (editor) who later forwards messages
(possibly edited or condensed) to the newsgroup.


NEWSGROUP NAME               TOPIC
--------------               -----
AGEING                       Discussions about ageing research
AGROFORESTRY                 Discussions about agroforestry research
ARABIDOPSIS                  Newsgroup for the Arabidopsis Genome Project
BIOFORUM                     Discussions about biological topics for
                which there is not yet a dedicated newsgroup
BIOLOGICAL-INFORMATION-
  THEORY-AND-CHOWDER-SOCIETY Applications of information theory to biology
BIONAUTS                     Question/answer forum for help using
                electronic networks, locating e-mail
                addresses, etc.
BIONEWS **                   General announcements of widespread
                interest to biologists
BIO-JOURNALS                 Tables of Contents of biological journals
BIO-MATRIX                   Applications of computers to biological databases
BIO-SOFTWARE                 Information on software for the biological
                sciences
CHROMOSOME-22                Mapping and Sequencing of Human Chromosome 22
COMPUTATIONAL-BIOLOGY **     Mathematical and computer applications in biology
EMBL-DATABANK                Messages to and from the EMBL database staff
EMPLOYMENT                   Job opportunities
GDB                          Messages to and from the Genome Data Bank staff
GENBANK-BB                   Messages to and from the GenBank database staff
GENETIC-LINKAGE              Newsgroup for genetic linkage analysis
HIV-MOLECULAR-BIOLOGY        Discussions about the molecular biology of HIV
HUMAN-GENOME-PROGRAM         NIH-sponsored newsgroup on human genome issues
IMMUNOLOGY                   Discussions about research in immunology
JOURNAL-NOTES                Practical advice on dealing with professional
                   journals
METHODS-AND-REAGENTS         Requests for information and lab reagents
MOLECULAR-EVOLUTION          Discussions about research in molecular evolution
NEUROSCIENCE                 Discussions about research in the neurosciences
PLANT-BIOLOGY                Discussions about research in plant biology
POPULATION-BIOLOGY           Discussions about research in population biology
PROTEIN-ANALYSIS             Discussions about research on proteins and
                messages for the PIR and SWISS-PROT databank
                staffs.
PROTEIN-CRYSTALLOGRAPHY      Discussion about crystallography of macromolecules
                and messages for the PDB staff
SCIENCE-RESOURCES            Information from/about scientific funding
                agencies
TROPICAL-BIOLOGY             Discussions about research in tropical biology
VIROLOGY                     Discussions about research in virology
WOMEN-IN-BIOLOGY             Discussions about issues concerning women
                biologists

** Note that newsgroups flagged with ** are moderated, i.e., postings
are directed to a moderator (editor) who later forwards messages
(possibly edited or condensed) to the newsgroup.


Who are the discussion leaders for the various newsgroups?
----------------------------------------------------------

Most scientific specialty newsgroups (except for a few created several
years ago) have individuals who are responsible for stimulating
discussion on the newsgroup.  General purpose forums such as
METHODS-AND-REAGENTS do not have discussion leaders.  If a group that
you are interested in does not seem to have much activity recently,
please contact the discussion leader and ask why 8-).

NEWSGROUP NAME               Discussion Leader and their e-mail address
--------------               ------------------------------------------
AGEING                       Sydney Shall ([e-mail])
AGROFORESTRY                 Gerry Lawson ([e-mail])
ARABIDOPSIS                  Chris Somerville ([e-mail])
BIOFORUM                     None
BIOLOGICAL-INFORMATION-
  THEORY-AND-CHOWDER-SOCIETY Tom Schneider ([e-mail])
BIONAUTS                     Rob Harper ([e-mail])
BIONEWS **                   David Kristofferson ([e-mail])
BIO-JOURNALS                 David Kristofferson ([e-mail])
BIO-MATRIX                   Dan Davison ([e-mail])
BIO-SOFTWARE                 None
CHROMOSOME-22                Robert L. Nussbaum ([e-mail])
COMPUTATIONAL-BIOLOGY **     Phil J. Curtiss ([e-mail])
EMBL-DATABANK                None ([e-mail])
EMPLOYMENT                   None
GDB                          Kerryn Brandt ([e-mail])
GENBANK-BB                   Dennis Benson ([e-mail])
GENETIC-LINKAGE              Steve Bryant ([e-mail])
HIV-MOLECULAR-BIOLOGY        Mika Salminen ([e-mail])
HUMAN-GENOME-PROGRAM         Jane Peterson ([e-mail])
IMMUNOLOGY                   Donald Forsdyke ([e-mail])
JOURNAL-NOTES                Donald Forsdyke ([e-mail])
METHODS-AND-REAGENTS         None
MOLECULAR-EVOLUTION          Dan Davison ([e-mail])
NEUROSCIENCE                 Vincent A Mazzarella ([e-mail])
PLANT-BIOLOGY                Tony Travis ([e-mail])
POPULATION-BIOLOGY           None
PROTEIN-ANALYSIS             Amos Bairoch ([e-mail]) and
                 John Garavelli ([e-mail])
PROTEIN-CRYSTALLOGRAPHY      Morten Kjeldgaard ([e-mail])
SCIENCE-RESOURCES            David Kristofferson ([e-mail])
TROPICAL-BIOLOGY             Matti Nummelin ([e-mail])
VIROLOGY                     Robert Coelen ([e-mail])
WOMEN-IN-BIOLOGY             Cassandra Smith ([e-mail])


Where (and how many times) should I post my messages?
-----------------------------------------------------

The list of newsgroups above gives a brief description of the purpose
of each newsgroup.  Please select the appropriate forum for your
posting with the newsgroup's purpose in mind.  The groups designated
as "Scientific Interest Group" are for discussions of professional
interest in the area designated by the newsgroup name, i.e.,
population biology issues should obviously be directed to the
POPULATION-BIOLOGY newsgroup.

Generally only one copy of a message should be posted to the most
appropriate forum.  Crossposting the same message to multiple
newsgroups can aggravate readers who participate by e-mail.  These
people will receive multiple copies of a message if they are on the
mailing lists for the groups that receive the crosspostings.

A few guidelines on some of the other newsgroups:

BIONAUTS/bionet.users.addresses: This newsgroup was designed to help
biologists "voyaging" into the new world of electronic networking.
This is also the appropriate forum for requesting electronic mail
addresses of other biologists (no guarantees they'll respond
personally, of course, but someone else might; e-mail directory
services still leave much to be desired).  In addition, this forum can
be used for asking questions if you need any help with mail and news
software or other aspects of electronic networking, e.g. "What is
WAIS, gopher, and all of these other newfangled things that I have
been hearing about?" (see below for answers to this last question!).

BIONEWS/bionet.announce: This is a moderated newsgroup designed to be
low-volume, high content and intended primarily for announcements of
interest to most users on the network, e.g., for general announcements
such as for scientific meetings, courses, etc.  We recommend that
*all* participants subscribe to this newsgroup to keep up with the
items above and also to receive the latest information about changes
to BIOSCI/bionet.

BIOFORUM/bionet.general: BIOFORUM is intended for discussions on
topics that do not fit in to any of the specialty newsgroups.  If you
want to start a new newsgroup, you might begin by trying to raise
interest by opening up a discussion in this forum.

BIO-JOURNALS/bionet.journals.contents: This newsgroup is not for
postings by readers.  It is used to distribute the Table of Contents
for the following journals approximately a week or two in advance of
publication:

Anatomy & Embryology
Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology
Applied and Environmental Microbiology
CABIOS*
Cell and Tissue Research
Chromosoma
Current Genetics
EMBO Journal*
European Journal of Biochemistry
European Journal of Physiology
Experimental Brain Research
Histochemistry
Human Genetics
Immunogenetics
Journal of Bacteriology
Journal of Biological Chemistry
Journal of Comparative Physiology B: Biochemical, Systemic, and
    Environmental Physiology
Journal of Membrane Biology
Journal of Molecular Evolution
Journal of Virology
MGG - Molecular and General Genetics
Mammalian Genome
Microbial Releases
Molecular Microbiology
Molecular and Cellular Biology
Nucleic Acids Research*
Plant Cell Reports
Planta
Protein Science
Roux's Archives of Developmental Biology
TAG - Theoretical and Applied Genetics

BIO-SOFTWARE: Intended for discussions about software in the
biological sciences.  There are other USENET newsgroups and mailing
lists for questions about word processors, etc., i.e., for general
purpose software.  BIO-SOFTWARE is intended for discussions about
software for biologists.  For USENET users only, please note that
there is an accompanying newsgroup bionet.software.sources used for
distributing biological software source code and binaries.  This
service is *not* available by e-mail.

COMPUTATIONAL-BIOLOGY: This newsgroup is moderated, i.e., postings
made to the group are reviewed by a moderator before being
distributed.  You can post messages without editorial intervention to
other BIOSCI/bionet newsgroups.

EMPLOYMENT: These are the posting regulations for
EMPLOYMENT/bionet.jobs as formulated by the U.S. National Science
Foundation.  Readers outside of the U.S. should check with their local
network authorities to determine what rules apply to their usage.
EMPLOYMENT/bionet.jobs is to be used for the posting of job openings
in the biological sciences or professional level jobs that support the
work of biological scientists (such as for computer/systems
programming/support).  There are no restrictions on the content of the
postings if these jobs are in the non-profit sector.  Individuals
regardless of their place of employment may post their CVs/resumes to
this newsgroup or simply place a request for work if they are looking
for jobs in this area of endeavor.  Commercial companies can post jobs
intended for professional people in the areas just mentioned provided
that the postings are limited to the format described below.  Extended
commercial job/benefit descriptions and promotional material are not
allowed, nor may commercial firms post openings for non-professional
positions (if in doubt about the appropriateness of a posting, please
check with [e-mail] *before* proceeding).


Commercial job posting format:
-----------------------------

The posting should include

        o job title
        o one or two line factual description of the position
        o an e-mail contact address for further information;
          a regular surface mail address and contact telephone
          number is also permissible.

To repeat, commercial job postings that do not comply with the above
format or that are for jobs in areas outside of the range described
above are not permissible in this newsgroup.  Your cooperation is
greatly appreciated.


SCIENCE-RESOURCES: This newgroup is used solely to distribute funding
agency announcements such as the "NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts"
and is not to be used for postings by readers.

Most other BIOSCI newsgroups are dedicated to professional discussions
in the area defined by the name of the newsgroup.  You are free to
post anything of interest within the specialty served by the
newsgroup.  Please note that the lack of face-to-face contact often
emboldens some of our readers.  While we can wish that everyone
learned manners in grade school or at home, please be aware that
discussions can sometimes become a bit more heated than a new user
might be accustomed to (our readership is usually composed of "sober"
Ph.D.s, or so I used to think 8-).

NOTE: To understand what 8-) means tilt your head to the left; other
variants: :-) and :-(.  These symbols try to add emotional connotations
to the electrons such as "that's a joke, son!"


How does one post a message?
----------------------------

If you use USENET, run your posting program and follow the prompts
(e.g., postnews, please check with your local systems administrator
for details on using your local news software; general information on
USENET and how to get news software is provided further below).  Enter
the appropriate newsgroup from the list of USENET names (above) when
prompted.  Be sure to set your news distribution to "world" (or
"bionet" if the option is available) if you want your message to be
seen by others.  Some USENET systems may default to "local" which
means that only people on your local computer will see the message.
You can limit the extent of distribution of your message by choosing
other distribution options, e.g., "usa" distributes only to the U.S.A.
Usually pressing "?" or "h" at the Distribution: prompt will show you
your options.

If you are using e-mail, first select the newsgroup that you wish to
post to from the list above and find the mailing address.  The latest
list of mailing addresses is found in the BIOSCI information sheet for
your region.  For example, to post to the METHODS-AND-REAGENTS
newsgroup you would use one of the following two addresses depending
upon your location:

Address                               Serving
-------                               -------
[e-mail]                   The Americas and Pacific Rim
[e-mail]               Europe, Africa, and Central Asia

The BIOSCI information sheet containing the latest list of e-mail
addresses for each of the above regions can be requested from
[e-mail] or [e-mail] respectively.


How do I find back issues of BIOSCI postings?
---------------------------------------------

The BIOSCI node at net.bio.net maintains the entire collection of
BIOSCI/bionet messages.  They are available via WAIS (biosci.src and
biology-journal-contents.src) and anonymous ftp from net.bio.net
[134.172.2.69].  Gopher retrieval will also be available soon.
Contact [e-mail] for further help.  If you do not have WAIS
software running locally, but do have access to the Internet, try

telnet quake.think.com

and login in as "wais" to experiment with the software.  Both of our
WAIS sources, biosci.src and biology-journal-contents.src, may be
selected from the menu for searching.

All the Bionet newsgroup postings since December 1991 are stored for
Gopher searching and retrieval and anonymous ftp archive at
ftp.bio.indiana.edu, the IUBIO archive maintained by Don Gilbert.  The
ftp directory in the anonymous account is usenet/bionet.



Is there a summary of METHODS-AND-REAGENTS postings?
----------------------------------------------------

Yes.  A FAQ for the METHODS newsgroup was created by Paul Hengen of
Frederick Cancer Research and Development Center.  It can be obtained
via anonymous FTP from net.bio.net in
pub/BIOSCI/METHDS-REAGNTS/METHODS.FAQ or from ncifcrf.gov in
pub/methods/FAQlist.

Note, however, that maintaining such a FAQ is a gargantuan task.  We
also recommend searching the METHODS archives for keywords through the
use of the WAIS and Gopher software as described in the "archives"
question above.


What is USENET?
---------------

USENET (short for Users Network) is an electronic bulletin board
network which utilizes various public domain versions of the "netnews"
software for message transmission.  The software can operate over
physical networks ranging from as simple as a telephone UUCP link (via
modem) to networks as sophisticated as the Internet.  Netnews has been
optimized to transmit messages without loss and also to avoid possible
mail loops and other errors which plague simple electronic mail
"broadcasting."  It is for this reason that we strongly encourage our
users to adopt netnews software at their sites as soon as possible.
News software also keeps messages segregated into their respective
newsgroups, making it easier to follow the thread of a discussion.  If
you only use e-mail, messages from all of the newsgroups to which you
subscribe will be sent to your one personal e-mail address and will be
mixed in with each other and with your other personal messages.  This
is obviously a suboptimal means of organizing messages.


How can I get news software at my site?
---------------------------------------

Contact [e-mail] for information on getting started with
USENET.  News software can be obtained free of charge from anonymous
FTP sources.  The file "usenet.info" available by anonymous FTP from
net.bio.net in pub/BIOSCI contains the following articles:

     How to become a USENET site
     USENET Software: History and Sources
     What is Usenet?
     How to Get Information about Networks



How do I request or cancel e-mail subscriptions to BIOSCI newsgroups?
---------------------------------------------------------------------

If you have access to USENET news software, then YOU DO NOT NEED AN
E-MAIL SUBSCRIPTION!  Only those people who need to receive postings
by e-mail must request to be added to the mailing lists.  USENET users
can simply read the various bionet newsgroups using their news
software.  If your site has USENET news but does not get the bionet
newsgroups, please request help by sending a message to
[e-mail].

For those who need e-mail subscriptions or who want to cancel current
e-mail subscriptions, please send a request to one of the following
addresses.  Please choose the site that serves your location.  Simply
pick the newsgroup(s) from the list above that you wish to subscribe
to and request that your address be added to the chosen mailing lists.
Please use plain English; no special message syntax is required in
your subscription or cancellation request.

Address                               Serving
-------                               -------
[e-mail]                    The Americas and Pacific Rim
[e-mail]                Europe, Africa, and Central Asia

****If you are changing e-mail addresses****, please be sure to send a
message to your appropriate biosci address above and request that your
subscriptions be changed or canceled!!


How can I get a list of newsgroups or my subscriptions?
-------------------------------------------------------

As with any other subscription correspondence, simply send a request
to your appropriate BIOSCI distribution site:

Address                               Serving
-------                               -------
[e-mail]                    The Americas and Pacific Rim
[e-mail]                Europe, Africa, and Central Asia

The most recent list of BIOSCI newsgroups/mailing addresses and the
latest revision of the BIOSCI/bionet FAQ are posted the first of each
month on the BIONEWS/bionet.announce newsgroup.  You should save these
postings for future reference.


Why are BIOSCI e-mail subscription requests not processed by machine?
---------------------------------------------------------------------

To date the daily volume of BIOSCI subscription requests is small and
can typically be handled in under 15 minutes a day.  We have preferred
to handle requests through the use of semi-automated scripts at the
two BIOSCI distribution nodes instead of requiring our readers to
learn a special syntax for processing subscriptions automatically.
Use of the newsgroups is rapidly growing, however, so we are taking
steps to provide automated subscription handling in the future.


Why are there two BIOSCI sites?
-------------------------------

Originally there were *four* BIOSCI distribution sites (nodes), but
due to administrative complexities, the number of nodes was scaled
back to two.  Although 99% of you never have to pay for any BIOSCI
messages, rest assured that network resources are not free and should
not be squandered.  We established BIOSCI distribution sites on each
side of the Atlantic to minimize network e-mail traffic.  For example,
if a message is posted to the U.S. site, only one copy is sent on to
the U.K. site **via netnews software, not by mail** before being
"exploded" for mail distribution to all of the final e-mail
destinations on the "other side of the pond."  This is more efficient
than sending hundreds of copies of the same message across the
Atlantic.  A trade-off for this efficiency is slightly increased
complexity in the distribution network, i.e., the mailing lists for
each newsgroup are split between two sites.  In the past BIOSCI
experienced sporadic problems with "bounced" mail, but the reduction
in the number of BIOSCI distribution sites and the implementation of
U.S. to U.K. message transfer via news rather than by e-mail has
eliminated this problem.  Everyone would be better served if USENET
news was used exclusively, and we have the eventual elimination of
e-mail subscriptions as a **long term** goal.  Currently, however, too
many biologists still have no other means of access to BIOSCI other
than through e-mail.


How does one know to which newsgroup a message was posted?
----------------------------------------------------------

If you use USENET news software, all messages are sorted by newsgroup
so there is no problem identifying the source.  If you receive BIOSCI
postings in your mail file, all postings are funneled into your one
mail file and you must be a little discerning.

The best way to determine the news forum is to look at the line in the
mail header that starts with "To:".  For example, if you see "To:
[e-mail]" or "To: [e-mail]" then you know
that the address for sending a reply to everyone on the newsgroup is
"[e-mail]" or "[e-mail]."  The "From:"
line in the mail header indicates who sent the message.  If you want
to reply only to the author of the message, use the address on the
"From:" line.  If you want to reply to everyone on the newsgroup, use
the address on the "To:" line.

Please note that replies to BIOSCI messages are *not* automatically
sent back to the newsgroup address.  The default reply will be (in
most cases, your local mail configuration might alter this) to the
address that you see on the "From:" line, i.e., only to the person who
posted the original message.  You must consciously decide to send a
copy of your reply to the newsgroup by including the newsgroup posting
address in your e-mail response.  This default reply (to the original
sender only) is an Internet newsgroup standard and is the opposite of
that used by the BITNET LISTSERV software (for those who may be
familiar with the latter; the Internet standard is designed to
minimize wasted network bandwidth, i.e., to avoid the *automatic,
unthinking* posting by many people of the same answer to a particular
question).


What is the "BIOSCI-REQUEST" address?
-------------------------------------

The [e-mail] address was established to trap mailing
error messages ("bouncers").  The address is not normally seen by
BIOSCI readers in the messages that they receive.  Unfortunately some
proprietary (read "VMS") and other oddball mail systems misread the
information used to transmit Internet e-mail messages and may end up
putting the BIOSCI-REQUEST address on the From: line in the mail that
you may receive.  If this happens at your site and you want to reply
to a message, please use either the newsgroup address on the To: line
of the message or try to find the author's e-mail address elsewhere in
the message (people often append this at the end of their text in
their "signature").  If you send a message back to
[e-mail], the BIOSCI managers at net.bio.net will be
the only ones who will see it (we will try to forward it to the
appropriate newsgroup, but would appreciate it if you would determine
the correct address yourself first).


Why have I stopped getting messages?
------------------------------------

If your computer or network connection is down, mail sent to your
address will "bounce" back to the sender of the message and often to
the BIOSCI-REQUEST address at net.bio.net.  Given the number of people
using BIOSCI around the world, this can become quite a problem, so we
have to take prompt action to eliminate troublesome addresses from our
mailing lists.  Offending addresses are "commented out" of the mailing
lists.  If your system is down, there may be no way to reach you, so
it is your responsibility to contact your BIOSCI distribution site and
request reinstatement if you notice a lapse in distribution.  There is
an automatic reminder system at net.bio.net in the U.S. that sends a
message to all "commented out" addresses on the mailing lists at
net.bio.net each Monday for three weeks. After that if no response is
received to [e-mail], the bad addresses are completely
removed from the mailing lists.


I posted a message and got back an error message from a daemon!!
----------------------------------------------------------------

Don't panic!!  The devil is not in the employ of BIOSCI!  It is a rare
day when every single computer and e-mail address in the world is
functional.  Mail systems are programmed to alert you if mail does not
go through to a particular address which could be on any of our BIOSCI
lists.  Rest assured that your message was received by the *vast
majority* of readers.  You may either just delete these "bouncers" or
send them on to your local BIOSCI distribution node (in most cases we
will probably be aware of them already).  It is not uncommon to
receive one or two bouncers for any e-mail posting that you make.
Note once again that if everyone used news software and if we didn't
have to bridge so many incompatible e-mail networks to bring the
biology community together, we wouldn't have to deal with this
problem.

Note that the BIOSCI-REQUEST address at net.bio.net was established to
trap daemon bouncers instead of passing them back to the person who
posts a message.  Unfortunately due to network incompatibilities, the
BIOSCI-REQUEST trapping mechanism is often disabled when the bad
address is not on the Internet.


How does one start a new BIOSCI newsgroup/mailing list?
-------------------------------------------------------

BIOSCI's goal is to promote the use of electronic communications among
biologists and we are here to assist you in establishing new forums at
no charge.  There are currently two options - create a full newsgroup
or a prototype (mailing lists only):

For full-fledged BIOSCI newsgroup status:

Proposals for new groups must contain a statement of purpose for the
group and the name of a person designated as discussion leader unless
the group is in the service category such as METHODS, EMPLOYMENT, etc.
Discussion leaders are responsible for ensuring that a reasonable
level of activity is sustained on the newsgroup (see Newsgroup
Termination Policy below).  The discussion leader can also propose the
creation of moderated newsgroups if he/she agrees to serve as
moderator (this requires access to USENET news software at the
moderator's site).  Proposals should be sent to [e-mail].

When a proposal is received it will be posted on
BIONEWS/bionet.announce.  A ten day period for discussion on
BIOFORUM/bionet.general will follow and precede the call for votes.
After the discussion, the person proposing the newsgroup may modify or
withdraw the proposal prior to the call for votes.  The modified
proposal will then be included in a call for votes on
BIONEWS/bionet.announce.  The proposal must collect 80 YES votes in 30
days and the number of YES votes must exceed the number of NO votes by
at least 40 to pass.

BIOSCI management must be informed in advance of any intended efforts
to advertise the newsgroup proposal in other forums.  While BIOSCI
wishes to inform potential users of the creation of newsgroups that
might be of interest to them, promotional efforts should be focussed
in forums likely to be utilized by professionals in the subject area
covered by the newsgroup proposal, and should seek participation in
the discussion of the proposal within bionet.general/BIOFORUM rather
than promoting separate discussions in other forums to which portions
of the BIOSCI readership may not have ready access.

If a proposal is not passed by the readers, there will be a three
month period before it can be brought up for another vote.


Newsgroup Termination Policy

Any group with less than 52 msgs in the previous calendar year will be
put on notice by posting an announcement to the newsgroup (not to
bionet.announce) that it faces cancellation.  It can be reprieved if
80 readers respond within two weeks (this policy will be stated in the
termination announcement).  It then has two months to reach a usage
level of one message per 3 days or else it will be abolished.  Appeals
to the BIOSCI management about high content albeit low volume on the
group will be considered.


BIOSCI "prototype" newsgroup creation policy

We will be happy to establish and administer a straight *mailing* list
*without* an associated USENET newsgroup for a six month trial period
for anyone that wants to try to form a new electronic community in the
biological sciences (We stress that the topics are limited to
professional communications though.).

The mailing lists will be maintained *initially* only at net.bio.net
instead of at both BIOSCI sites.  It will be the responsibility of the
person who proposes the list to get it up and running within the six
month period.  They will have to handle promotion; our involvement at
BIOSCI at net.bio.net will be limited to creating the list, putting
out one announcement about it, and handling subscription requests.

After six months, the list will be put out for discussion and a vote
according to our procedures for full-fledged newsgroups above (unless
the organizer decides to bow out).  If it passes it will become a
full-fledged BIOSCI newsgroup at both net.bio.net and daresbury.ac.uk
and will also have a parallel USENET newsgroup.  If it fails, the
prototype mailing list at net.bio.net will be shut down.

Note that this service does not preclude people who have an idea that
has widespread appeal from following our current newsgroup creation
policy and going to a vote after a 10 day discussion.

If you have an idea for a prototype newsgroup, please send it to
[e-mail].


What journals are available on BIO-JOURNALS?  How can one locate articles?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

The following journals appear regularly.  This list will be expanded
in 1993.

Applied and Environmental Microbiology
CABIOS
EMBO Journal
Journal of Bacteriology
Journal of Biological Chemistry
Journal of Virology
Molecular and Cellular Biology
Molecular Microbiology
Nucleic Acids Research

Table of Contents for the journals above are available for FTP from
net.bio.net in pub/BIOSCI/BIO-JOURNALS.  One can use the WAIS source
biology-journal-contents.src at net.bio.net to retrieve individual
article references from the journals above.  If you do not have WAIS
software running locally, but do have access to the Internet, try

telnet quake.think.com

and login in as "wais" to experiment with the software.  Both of our
WAIS sources, biosci.src and biology-journal-contents.src, may be
selected from the menu for searching.


Why didn't my USENET posting show up elsewhere?
-----------------------------------------------

Your local USENET software may have defaulted to "local" distribution.
If this option is selected, only other readers of the bionet
newsgroups on your local computer will see your posting.  If you want
your message to be delivered to all BIOSCI/bionet readers, please be
sure to specify "world" or "bionet" when prompted for the
Distribution:.  Generally, if you press "?" or "h" when prompted, you
will see your options for controlling the distribution of your
messages on USENET.  If your message does not reach one of the two
BIOSCI nodes in the U.S. or the U.K. it will not be distributed to
people who participate in BIOSCI by e-mail.


Why are my messages are going to bionet.followup?
-------------------------------------------------

This is a problem that might plague users of older versions of the
"rn" newsreading program when they try to reply to messages on
BIOFORUM/bionet.general.  bionet.followup is a non-existent newsgroup.
In the "good old days" there was a newsgroup called "net.general" and
replies to net.general were posted to "net.followup."  Unfortunately
the USENET name of the BIOFORUM newsgroup, bionet.general, contains
the text "net.general" as a subset.  Older versions of news software
can latch on to this text string and redirect replies to
bionet.general messages to bionet.followup.  If you are plagued by
this problem, please call the following fixes, provided by Roy Smith
and Wayne Rindone, to the attention of your local systems manager:

----------------------------------------------------------------------
The problem is indeed in the rn sources, specifically in intrp.c.  In
the version I have (intrp.c,v 4.3.2.11 90/12/31 11:47:44 sob Exp),
It's the following code at lines 664-670:

            if (h = instr(s,"net.general")) {
                off = h-s;
                strncpy(scrbuf,s,off+4);
                strcpy(scrbuf+off+4,"followup");
                safecpy(scrbuf+off+12,h+11,sizeof(scrbuf));
                s = scrbuf;
            }

    What's going on is that there used to be the convention that
followups to articles in the newsgroup net.general (which doesn't
exist anymore and hasn't for something like 5 years) should be placed
in net.followup.  For better or for worse, the rn code attempted to
enforce this convention.  What's going on in the above code is that
the string "net.general" in the Newsgroups line of an article being
follow-ed-up to gets changed to "net.followup".  Unfortunately, that
means "bionet.general" gets changed to "bionet.followup".  I would
suggest simply deleting the above code entirely.  I'm not even sure
why it's still there, other than nobody bothered to take it out, and
until bionet.general came around, it never bit anybody.

    Old code never dies.  It simply gets integrated into the host
genome of the program it's part of waiting for the right environmental
conditions to appear.

--
[e-mail] (Roy Smith)
Public Health Research Institute
455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016, USA
"Arcane?  Did you say arcane?  It wouldn't be Unix if it wasn't arcane!"

----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Wayne Rindone <[e-mail]>
Subject:  Another source of bionet.followup problem

     Thought you might like to know that there are other potential
reasons for the appearance of the bogus bionet.followup group name. A
couple of months ago, I installed rn 4.4 on my workstation, expecting
that to fix the bionet.followup problem, among other things. I was
very surprised to discover that I still had bionet.followup appearing,
even though it was quite clear there was nothing in the new rn sources
to account for that.

     It turned out that the following lines were included in
/usr/local/news/rn/Pnews.header:

case $ng in
*net.general*)
    follow=`echo "$ng" | sed 's/net\.general/net.followup/g'`
    ;;
*)
    follow=""
    ;;
esac

     Once these were removed the problem disappeared. I have no idea
if this logic was created locally at BBN or not, or if it came from
elsewhere or had wider dissemination beyond BBN. Although the problem
is solved for me, I have a bad feeling that it will turn up many
places around the world for many years to come.

     Feel free to mention Pnews.header as another potential source of
the problem the next time someone asks if you think that helpful.

                Wayne Rindone, BBN
----------------------------------------------------------------------



     Common questions posted to BIOSCI/bionet newsgroups
     ***************************************************


How do I report a problem in a biological data base?
----------------------------------------------------
(answer contributed by Dr. John Garavelli of PIR)

Brookhaven Protein Data Bank    bionet.xtallography
PIR or SWISS-PROT               bionet.molbio.proteins
NCBI GenBank DataBank           bionet.molbio.genbank
EMBL Databank                   bionet.molbio.embldatabank
Human Genome Database (GDB)     bionet.molbio.gdb
Museums and Herbaria            bionet.plants, or private inquiry
                  to [e-mail]

Since staff members of these databases usually monitor the
corresponding newsgroups fairly closely, a posting about a problem on
the appropriate board will usually get a response from someone on a
database staff fairly quickly.  Problems that might not be of general
interest or corrections to particular entries should be directed as
follows.

Database      address
--------      -------
Brookhaven    [e-mail], [e-mail]
PIR           [e-mail], [e-mail]
SWISS-PROT    [e-mail]
GenBank       [e-mail]
EMBL          [e-mail]
GDB           [e-mail]
Herbaria      [e-mail]


What about submitting sequence data to GenBank, EMBL, DDBJ or PIR?
------------------------------------------------------------------
(answer contributed by Dr. John Garavelli of PIR)

Researchers should submit nucleotide sequence data directly to GenBank
or EMBL for assignment of an accession number prior to publication.
Derived amino acid sequence data may also be included at the same
time.  Amino acid sequence data submitted in this way to GenBank, EMBL
or DDBJ is eventually passed on to PIR, and need not be submitted
separately to PIR.  This is done so correct cross-references can be
made between nucleotide and protein sequence accession numbers.  All
other determined amino acid sequences may be submitted directly to PIR
when the authors permit their public release prior to publication.

Authors are strongly urged to use the sequence submission software
package AUTHORIN to submit their sequence data to the databanks; a
free copy (for either the IBM PC or Macintosh) can be obtained by
sending your request and regular postal mailing address to:
  [e-mail]
Please be sure to specify the IBM or Mac version when sending your
request.

Japanese authors who use the NEC 9801 PC should communicate directly
with DDBJ, as these machines use a version of DOS that is
significantly different enough to render the discs unreadable on
MS-DOS computers here. The staff at DDBJ will forward the data to the
appropriate databank via electronic mail.  DDBJ may be contacted at:
  [e-mail]

The address for GenBank submissions is:
  GenBank Submissions
  Mail Stop K710
  Los Alamos National Laboratory
  Los Alamos, NM  87545
  U.S.A.
  Telephone: [phone]
  Electronic mail:  [e-mail]

The address for EMBL submissions is:
  EMBL Data Submissions
  Postfach 10.2209
  D-6900, Heidelburg
  Federal Republic of Germany
  Telephone [phone]
  Electronic mail: [e-mail]

The address for DDBJ submissions is:
  DNA Database of Japan
  Center for Genetic Information Research
  National Institute of Genetics
  111 Yata
  Mishima, Shizuoka 411
  JAPAN
  Telephone [phone]
  Electronic mail:  [e-mail]

The address for PIR submissions is:
  PIR Submissions
  National Biomedical Research Foundation
  3900 Reservoir Road, NW
  Washington, DC  20007
  U.S.A.
  Telephone: [phone]
  Electronic mail:  [e-mail], [e-mail]

While we would again urge that AUTHORIN be used as the first choice in
data submission tools, the GenBank/EMBL/PIR Data Submission Form can
be obtained by sending a message consisting of the words

  SEND SUBFORM

to the PIR FILESERV address.  This form can be filled in using any
text editor, saved in ASCII (text) format, and mailed electronically
or on disk to the databanks.

Please, do not submit data either by electronic mail or on disk in
files that are formatted for word processing programs.  Such files are
almost always unreadable except by systems with the same configuration
of computer, operating system and word-processing program.  For files
sent by disk, either DOS or Mac formatted disks can be used but
regular "double density" disks are preferred to "high density" disks.


Please help me find the e-mail address for Dr. ...
--------------------------------------------------

If you can not get this information by calling the person in question,
there are at least three other resources that can be of help.  The
easiest route is to post your request to the
BIONAUTS/bionet.users.addresses newsgroup managed by Rob Harper.  Odds
are that you will get a response fairly promptly, but, if not, there
are two other routes described below.

If the person in question has posted to BIOSCI/bionet or another
USENET newsgroup, they will be listed in the "usenet-addresses" WAIS
source.  If you are on the Internet, telnet to quake.think.com and
login as "wais" (lowercase).  After entering your terminal type,
select the usenet-addresses source from the list presented to you (use
the up-arrow key to get there more quickly since it is near the end of
a long list).  When the source is highlighted, press the return key
and then enter the person's surname at the Keywords: prompt to begin
the search.  Available commands are listed at the bottom of the
screen.  When finished, press "s" to return to the source menu and
then "q" to quit.

For those who do not have access to the Internet, the usenet-addresses
source can also be accessed by e-mail.  Please send mail to
[e-mail] with "help" in the body of the message
in order to receive more information.

Another source of information for finding Internet, but not BITNET,
addresses is netfind.  Use the command

telnet bruno.cs.colorado.edu

and login as "netfind" without a password.  The program is menu-driven
and pretty self-explanatory.  Unfortunately it is not available to
people on BITNET.

None of the above methods is guaranteed to return you an answer, so
you may still have to resort to the telephone or (groan) regular mail
to make contact 8-(.


What are all of these references to FTP, WAIS, Gopher, and WWW?
---------------------------------------------------------------

                 FTP
                 ---
FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol and is a method for transmitting
files at high speed over the Internet.  There are also e-mail servers
at various BITNET sites which provide e-mail access to FTP archives.
Send the word "HELP" to [e-mail] for details.  A sample
session of using FTP to access the BIOSCI archives follows.  Keyboard
input is underlined.  ### highlights comments about the procedure.

net<1>ftp net.bio.net     ### connect to the BIOSCI computer
      ---------------
Connected to net.bio.net.
220 net.bio.net FTP server (SunOS 4.1) ready.
Name (net.bio.net:kristoff): anonymous     ### login as anonymous
                 ---------
331 Guest login ok, send ident as password.
Password:               ### enter any password; typically your e-mail address
     ----------
230 Guest login ok, access restrictions apply.
ftp> ls     ### display the directories.  sometimes "dir" is used here
     --
200 PORT command successful.
150 ASCII data connection for /bin/ls (134.172.2.69,3225) (0 bytes).
bin
dev
etc
lost+found
misc
pub
usr
226 ASCII Transfer complete.
72 bytes received in 0.1 seconds (0.7 Kbytes/s)
ftp> cd pub     ### change to the "pub" public directory.  Most FTP
     ------     ### sites place public material in this directory
250 CWD command successful.
ftp> ls     ### list the files again.  BIOSCI archives are in BIOSCI 8-)
     --     ### Be sure to strictly follow upper/lower case in filenames
        ### when accessing FTP sites running UNIX such as net.bio.net
200 PORT command successful.
150 ASCII data connection for /bin/ls (134.172.2.69,3227) (0 bytes).
BIOSCI
README
doc
dos
mac
unix
vms
226 ASCII Transfer complete.
42 bytes received in 0.05 seconds (0.82 Kbytes/s)
ftp> cd BIOSCI
     ---------
250 CWD command successful.
ftp> ls
     --
200 PORT command successful.
150 ASCII data connection for /bin/ls (134.172.2.69,3228) (0 bytes).
ADDRESSES
AGEING
AGROFORESTRY
ARABIDOPSIS
BIO-INFO
BIO-JOURNALS
BIO-MATRIX
BIO-SOFTWARE
BIOFORUM
BIONEWS
CHROMOSOME-22
COMPUTATIONAL-BIOLOGY
EMBL-DATABANK
EMPLOYMENT
GDB
GENBANK-BB
GENETIC-LINKAGE
HIV-BIOL
HUMAN-GENOME
IMMUNOLOGY
JRNLNOTE
METHDS-REAGNTS
MOLECULAR-EVOLUTION
NEUROSCIENCE
PLANT-BIOLOGY
POPULATION-BIOLOGY
PROTEIN-ANALYSIS
PROTEIN-CRYSTALLOGRAPHY
SCIENCE-RESOURCES
TROPICAL-BIOLOGY
VIROLOGY
WOMENINBIOLOGY
biosci-uk.infosheet
biosci-us.infosheet
biosci.FAQ
internet.info
usenet.info
usenet.info2
226 ASCII Transfer complete.
562 bytes received in 0.1 seconds (5.5 Kbytes/s)
ftp> cd PROTEIN-ANALYSIS   ### We want to look at PROTEIN-ANALYSIS archives
     -------------------
250 CWD command successful.
ftp> ls
     --
200 PORT command successful.
150 ASCII data connection for /bin/ls (134.172.2.69,3233) (0 bytes).
8912
9001
9002
9003
9004
9005
9006
9007
9008
9009
9010
9011
9012
9101
9102
9103
9104
9105
9106
9107
9108
9109
9110
9111
9112
9201
9202
9203
9204
9205
9206
9207
9208
9209
9210
9211
current
226 ASCII Transfer complete.
225 bytes received in 0.12 seconds (1.8 Kbytes/s)
ftp> get 9211     ### Retrieve the file for November 1992.
     --------
200 PORT command successful.
150 ASCII data connection for 9211 (134.172.2.69,3234) (208763 bytes).
226 ASCII Transfer complete.
local: 9211 remote: 9211
213849 bytes received in 1.4 seconds (1.5e+02 Kbytes/s)
ftp> bye     ### End the FTP session.  Some systems use quit or exit.
     ---
221 Goodbye.

Liberal use of the ? key and help at the ftp> prompt will provide
information on other options.


                 WAIS
                 ----
WAIS stands for Wide Area Information Server.  WAIS software allows
information to be stored at many sites around the Internet in to a
particular format.  Computers running WAIS software can query these
sources remotely using a standard protocol.  Free software is
available for many popular hardware platforms, but requires some
systems expertise to install.  Now that you know how to use FTP
(above), you can use anonymous ftp to think.com and cd to the "wais"
directory for software and more information.  A public WAIS account is
accessible to Internet users by using the command

telnet quake.think.com

and logging in as "wais" (lowercase).


                Gopher
                ------
Gopher is both a user-friendly interface to the FTP program described
above and a network searching tool similar to WAIS (which can also
utilize WAIS information sources).  Gopher software is available as
described below for many platforms; TurboGopher on the Macintosh is
especially slick!  Don Gilbert ([e-mail]) at
ftp.bio.indiana.edu runs the excellent IUBIO Gopher Hole with many
services of use to biologists, including search and retrieval of
GenBank entries and BIOSCI/bionet newsgroup postings among many other
information resources.  In Europe Rob Harper ([e-mail])
has set up a similar gold mine of information at gopher.csc.fi.

The following information is excerpted from the Gopher FAQ.  Many
questions have been cut out for brevity.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Common Questions and Answers about the Internet Gopher, a
client/server protocol for making a world wide information service,
with many implementations.  Posted to comp.infosystems.gopher and
news.answers every two weeks.

The most recent version of this FAQ can be gotten through gopher, or
via anonymous ftp:

pit-manager.mit.edu:/pub/usenet/news.answers/gopher-faq

Those without FTP access should send e-mail to [e-mail]
with "send usenet/news.answers/finding-sources" in the body to find out
how to do FTP by e-mail.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
List of questions in the Gopher FAQ:

Q0:  What is Gopher?
Q1:  Where can I get Gopher software?
Q2:  What do I need to access Gopher?
Q3:  Where are there publicly available logins for Gopher?

Q5:  Who Develops Gopher Software?

Q12: What is the relationship between Gopher and (WAIS, WWW, ftp)?
Q13: Are papers or articles describing Gopher available?
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Q0:  What is Gopher?

A0:  The Internet Gopher client/server provides a distributed
     information delivery system around which a world/campus-wide
     information system (CWIS) can readily be constructed.   While
     providing a delivery vehicle for local information,  Gopher
     facilitates access to other Gopher and information servers
     throughout the world.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Q1:  Where can I get Gopher software?

A1:  via anonymous ftp to boombox.micro.umn.edu.  Look in the directory
     /pub/gopher

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Q2:  What do I need to access Gopher?

A2:  You will need a gopher "client" program that runs on your local PC
     or workstation

     There are clients for the following systems.  The directory
     following the name is the location of the client on the anonymous
     ftp site boombox.micro.umn.edu (134.84.132.2) in the directory
     /pub/gopher.

      Unix Curses & Emacs   :  /pub/gopher/Unix/gopher1.03.tar.Z
      Xwindows              :  /pub/gopher/Unix/xgopher1.1a.tar.Z
      Macintosh Hypercard   :  /pub/gopher/Mac_client/
      Macintosh Application :  /pub/gopher/Macintosh-TurboGopher
      DOS w/Clarkson Driver :  /pub/gopher/PC_client/
      NeXTstep              :  /pub/gopher/NeXT/
      VM/CMS                :  /pub/gopher/Rice_CMS/ or /pub/gopher/Vienna_CMS/
      VMS                   :  /pub/gopher/VMS/
      OS/2 2.0              :  /pub/gopher/os2/
      MVS/XA                :  /pub/gopher/mvs/

     Many other clients and servers have been developed by others, the
     following is an attempt at a comprehensive list.

      A Macintosh Application, "MacGopher".
    ftp.cc.utah.edu:/pub/gopher/Macintosh

      Another Macintosh application, "GopherApp".
    ftp.bio.indiana.edu:/util/gopher/gopherapp

      A port of the UNIX curses client for DOS with PC/TCP
    oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu:/public/dos/misc/dosgopher.exe

      A port of the UNIX curses client for PC-NFS
     bcm.tmc.edu:/nfs/gopher.exe

      A beta version of the PC Gopher client for Novell's LAN Workplace
      for DOS
     lennon.itn.med.umich.edu:/gopher

      A Xwindows/DECwindows client
     job.acs.ohio-stat.edu:


     Most of the above clients can also be fetched via a gopher client
     itself.  Put the following on a gopher server:

       Type=1
       Host=boombox.micro.umn.edu
       Port=70
       Path=
       Name=Gopher Software Distribution.


     Or point your gopher client at boombox.micro.umn.edu, port 70 and
     look in the gopher directory.

     There are also a number of public telnet login sites available.
     The University of Minnesota operates one on the machine
     "consultant.micro.umn.edu" (134.84.132.4) See Q3 for more
     information about this.  It is recommended that you run the client
     software instead of logging into the public telnet login sites.  A
     client uses the custom features of the local machine (mouse,
     scroll bars, etc.)  A local client is also faster.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Q3:  Where are there publicly available logins for Gopher?

A3:  Here is a short list, use the site closest to you to minimize
     network lag.

     Non-tn3270 Public Logins:

     Hostname                  IP#              Login   Area
     ------------------------- ---------------  ------  -------------
     consultant.micro.umn.edu  134.84.132.4     gopher  North America
     gopher.uiuc.edu           128.174.33.160   gopher  North America
     panda.uiowa.edu           128.255.40.201   panda   North America
     gopher.sunet.se           192.36.125.2     gopher  Europe
     info.anu.edu.au           150.203.84.20    info    Australia
     gopher.chalmers.se        129.16.221.40    gopher  Sweden
     tolten.puc.cl             146.155.1.16     gopher  South America
     ecnet.ec                  157.100.45.2     gopher  Ecuador

     tn3270 Public Logins:

     Hostname                  IP#              Login   Area
     ------------------------- ---------------  ------  -------------
     pubinfo.ais.umn.edu       128.101.109.1    -none-  North America


     It is recommended that you run the client software instead of
     logging into the public login sites.  A client uses the
     custom features of the local machine (mouse, scroll bars, etc.)
     and is local client is also faster.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Q5:  Who Develops Gopher Software?

A5:  Gopher was originally developed in April 1991 by the University
     of Minnesota Microcomputer, Workstation, Networks Center to help
     our campus find answers to their computer questions.

     It has since grown into a full-fledged World Wide Information
     System used by a large number of sites in the world.

     Many people have contributed to the project, too numerous to
     count.

     The people behind the much of the gopher software can be reached
     via e-mail at [e-mail], or via paper mail:

      Internet Gopher Developers
      100 Union St. SE #190
      Minneapolis, MN 55455  USA

     Or via FAX at:

      [phone]

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Q12: What is the relationship between Gopher and (WAIS, WWW, ftp)?

A12: Gopher is intimately intertwined with these two other systems.
     As shipped the Unix gopher server has the capability to:

       - Search local WAIS indices.
       - Query remote WAIS servers and funnel the results to gopher
     clients.
       - Query remote ftp sites and funnel the results to gopher
     clients.
       - Be queried by WWW (World Wide Web) clients (either using
     built in gopher querying or using native http querying.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Q13: Are papers or articles describing Gopher available?

A13: Gopher has a whole chapter devoted to it in :

     _The_Whole_Internet_, Ed Kroll, O'Reilly, 1992 (Editors note:
                 ..Great book, go out and buy a bunch!)

     Other references include:

     _The_Internet_Gopher_, "ConneXions", July 1992, Interop.

     _Exploring_Internet_GopherSpace_ "The Internet Society News", v1n2 1992,

     (You can subscribe to the Internet Society News by sending e-mail to
      [e-mail])

     _The_Internet_Gopher_Protocol_, Proceedings of the Twenty-Third
      IETF, CNRI, Section 5.3

     _Internet_Gopher_, Proceedings of Canadian Networking '92

     _The_Internet_Gopher_, INTERNET: Getting Started, SRI
      International, Section 10.5.5

     _Tools_help_Internet_users_discover_on-line_treasures, Computerworld,
      July 20, 1992

     _TCP/IP_Network_Administration_, O'Reilly.

      Balakrishan, B. (Oct 1992)
    "SPIGopher: Making SPIRES databases accessible through the
      Gopher protocol".  SPIRES Fall '92 Workshop, Chapel Hill, North
      Carolina.

      Tomer, C.  Information Technology Standards for Libraries,
      _Journal of the American Society for Information Science_,
      43(8):566-570, Sept 1992.


-------------------------------------------------------------------


                 WWW
                 ---
The World-Wide Web is yet another network information tool.  You can
experiment with WWW if you have Internet access by using the command

telnet info.cern.ch

This will take you automatically into the WWW software on this host
computer.  Choosing menu item 3 displays the following information:

                WORLD WIDE WEB

   The WorldWideWeb (W3) is a wide-area hypermedia[1] information retrieval
   initiative aiming to give universal access to a large universe of documents.

   Everything there is online about W3 is linked directly or indirectly to this
   document, including an executive summary[2] of the project, Mailing lists[3]
   , Policy[4] , November's  W3  news[5] , Frequently Asked Questions[6] .

  What's out there?[7]    Pointers to the world's online information,
             subjects[8] , W3 servers[9] , etc.

  Help[10]                on the browser you are using

  Software Products[11]   A list of W3 project components and their current
             state. (e.g. Line Mode[12] ,Midas[13],  Viola[14] ,
             NeXTStep[15] , Servers[16] , Tools[17] , Mail
             robot[18] , Library[19] )

  Technical[20]           Details of protocols, formats, program internals etc

  Bibliography[21]        Paper documentation on  W3 and references.