[
Worm Breeder's Gazette,
1993]
It would be useful if worm labs had access to each other's strain lists. For instance, one lab may have put away in the freezer as uninteresting a mutation that is just what a second lab wants. Unfortunately, there have always been practical difficulties to sharing strain lists: they change frequently, and there is no common format. A new network program called Gopher (see contribution from Mike Cherry on previous page of this WBG issue, which discusses the use of Gopher in connection with accessing the ACEDB database) may be the solution to these problems. Gopher sends an inquiry over the Internet directly to the source, without the user having to know about any messy details. The reply is current, and comes back as text, so that format problems don't arise. Other kinds of information (e.g., pictures) can also be made available. To test the feasibility of Gopher for data sharing, we have set up Gopher service at the CGC (elegans.cbs.umn.edu; IP address 134.84.210.1) and the Avery lab (eatworms.swmed utexas.edu; IP address 129.112.11.21). By gopher to either of these addresses you can get the CGC bibliography, strain list, WBG subscriber directory, recent WBG tables of contents, Avery lab strain lists, pictures of mutants, manuscripts in press, and (thanks to Mike Cherry at Massachusetts General Hospital) access to ACEDB information. Gopher is available for Macintosh, IBM-PC, Unix, and Xwindows by anonymous ftp from boombox.micro.umn.edu (134.84.132.2). If you don't know how to get it, send e-mail to leon@eatworms.swmed.utexas.edu and we will try to help. Also, we would like to urge other labs to make data available by Gopher. If you do, send us e-mail so you can be included in the CGC menu. If you would like to make your strain lists available but don't know how, send e-mail and we'll see if we can help with that.