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[
Worm Breeder's Gazette,
1980]
If you are peacefully picking worms one day and an eight-legged hairy monster walks into the field of your dissecting microscope, after you come down from the ceiling, you will know that you too have a mite infestation. You will also know the plot for a grade B horror flick. A piece of the moth crystals used in closets (paradichlorobenzene) placed in your incubator for a few weeks will kill them off with no detectable harm to worm stocks.
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[
Worm Breeder's Gazette,
1989]
The map is now widely distributed electronically (see WBG 10(3), 67), but we are once again providing a summary for the gazette in the form of an output from the routine CHPLT. Do note that this is a provisional best guess, and that some linkages may later go away: please enquire if you need to know about the status of particular areas. When you receive cosmid clones, as stabs, please IMMEDIATELY streak them out on selective medium, pick small colonies, and grow 4ml minipreps (protocol from Alan Coulson if needed). For some cosmids, larger preps are liable to yield deleted DNA. Check that cosmid DNA appears full size (runs slower than lambda on agarose gels), then freeze a sample of good cells in 20% glycerol at -70 C. MRC computer account 'ARC' does not exist; Alan and John share account JES. A database node is now open at Seattle: modem number 206-467-2957; operator Phil Meneely. The summary of clone types given on the next page may be helpful when you are deciding which clones to request for your research. To reveal the most suitable clones for microinjection, the buried clones need to be displayed by the routine CONTASS; we will help you to do this if you ask. [See Figures 1- 3]
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[
Worm Breeder's Gazette,
1993]
As some of you are already aware, Academic Press has asked Henry Epstein and myself to edit a volume of Methods in Cell Biology devoted to C. elegans. One of the useful appendices which we would like to include is a list of available antibodies and protocols for using them. If you have generated an antibody in your laboratory which you would like to see listed in a methods volume on C. elegans, please contact me as soon as possible. Incidentally, if you would like to make your antibodies widely available but are nervous about being swamped with requests, you might considered contributing your monoclonal antibodies to the Developmental Studies Hybridoma Bank sponsored by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. They are providing the wonderful service of growing up monoclonals and making the cells or supernatants available to researchers at reduced fees. I know from personal experience that their anti-tubulin antibody works well for C. elegans, and it is considerably cheaper than commercial products. Contact Dr. Thomas August, Johns Hopkins University at (410) 955-3985 for more information about receiving a catalog or making contributions. I have the impression that they are not anxious to handle hundreds of worm specific antibodies, but that they are interested in handling a limited set of the most widely used C. elegans specific antibodies as well as antibodies which are known to cross-react with other species.
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[
Worm Breeder's Gazette,
1995]
As many of you know, there is a gopher server at the CGC(elegans.cbs.umn.edu) and a World-Wide-Web (WWW) server in my lab inDallas
(http://eatworms.swmed.edu/) devoted to information about Celegans. These servers are heavily used.There are several other C elegans information servers, but they are notincluded here because I don't have their usage information.The table shows that, although many connections come from net-surfers whovisit once and never again (perhaps having expired from boredom), there isa large group of repeat offenders who use the servers over and over. Many, perhaps most, come from C elegans labs. (For instance,wormworld.ucsf.edu and horvitzlab3.mit.edu are pretty obvious.)My point is, if you need to reach the C elegans community, this is a goodway to do it. There is an Announcements page on both gopher and WWW. Inthe 55-day period analyzed it was read 203 times. If you have a jobopening or a conference or anything else you'd like worm people to knowabout, you probably should be advertising there. Announcements can besubmitted by e-mail to leon@eatworms.swmed.edu, and usually appear withina few hours.
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[
Worm Breeder's Gazette,
1993]
Most of the points covered in the accompanying 'Nomenclature Guidelines -- New Recommendations' contribution were circulated by e-mail before the June 1993 meeting, to principal investigators with e-mail addresses, for their comments and reactions. This procedure appeared to be efficient and helpful. We wish to expand our e-mailing list for nomenclature issues, and for recommended methods of data submission. For this reason, we sent a message in August 1993 inviting other potentially interested parties to join this list, using the e-mail addresses from the 1993 WBG Subscriber Directory. We repeat this message below, for the benefit of readers who have e-mail access but did not receive our invitation. If you are interested, send us an e-mail message asking to be added to the list. From cgc@mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk Dear WBG subscriber At present, CGC e-mail messages about methods of data submission, nomenclatorial issues and so on, are sent to all investigators with assigned lab codes (strain and allele designations) and known e-mail addresses. We would like to extend this mailing list to other interested parties who can be reached by e-mail. If you wish to be included on this expanded e-mailing list, please reply to this message, and you will be added to the list. Investigators already on the list need take no action. Regardless of whether you join the list, you will still be able to take note of any significant new recommendations, because these will be duly announced in issues of the Worm Yours sincerely, Jonathan Hodgkin Mary O'Callaghan
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[
Worm Breeder's Gazette,
1997]
We are preparing a supplementary vector kit for release February 1 1997. If you are interested in obtaining these kits or documentation concerning their use, please email us (fire@mail1.ciwemb.edu), and we will return the relevant release forms. The 1997 supplementary kit contains the following goodies:
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[
Worm Breeder's Gazette,
1992]
After tabulating the results of the Worm Plate Survey. we have come up with some interesting results. Most notably. the high variability in prices that labs are paying for their plates, even for the exact same plates from the same supplier, and the fact that most plates are marked up considerably over the actual cost. The replies can be separated into 4 categories: Labs that get plates from Fisher ($29-$58). but wish they had non-vented plates Labs that get non-vented plates via Applied Scientific (~$38) Labs that get plates from Falcon (vented) or Nunc (non-vented) and pay much more Most labs' plates were "slipable" or "semi-stackable", but all labs wanted plates that stack well for easy manual pouring, seeding, carrying, and using. Everyone wanted plates with shallow lids such that the bottoms can be lifted out of the tops for inverted use. Some labs expressed an interest in plates slightly smaller than "60 mm". That number is in quotes because all of the companies' plates have bottoms smaller than 60 mm (e.g. Fisher -54 x 14 mm). We have negotiated with the plastic companies that really make the plates for Fisher, Applied Scientific, etc. (that actually just resell them to you). I have come to the conclusion that we can provide you with better worm plates, the same worm plates cheaper, or in most cases better worm plates cheaper. This is true for every lab. The bottom line is that we can get you top quality non-vented "60 mm" plates (like Applied Scientific's, except fully stackable) for about $29 per 500 case INCLUDING shipping depending on your usage and how many cases you can receive at one time. Several labs have found the non-vented plates last longer without drying out or getting contaminated, compared with normal vented plates, so you should save that way, too. We offer full service shipping (e.g. standing orders and same-day telephone orders, free. Similarly low prices are available on 100 mm and 150 mm plates that exceed industry standards for flatness (reducing media usage) and clarity. The 100 mm are about $27 per 500 case plus shipping; The 150 mm dishes (good for DNA & RNA preps and library platings, with more than 2.25x the surface area of 100 mm dishes) are made thicker and deeper than industry standards and are about $21.50 per 100 case plus shipping. The shipping charge is very low for labs, or groups of labs in one city, that can take delivery of many cases in a single shipment. You can even suggest that your stockroom order plates from us. Call us for an exact price quote depending on your usage and how many cases you can receive at one time. In any case, we'll work things out to save you money. In the future, we can offer inexpensive 35 mm dishes if the community at large can order about 2000 cases per year, so let me know about your needs for other sizes. The response was very mixed about pre-poured plates. We may set that up later, but for now we can help the most by saving you lots on empty petri dishes (and later, maybe media .supplies). We are happy to send out free samples so you can examine the dishes. If we haven't contacted you yet, just give us a call. Respondents: 38 (including 5 anonymous) "Winners": Horvitz = 550, Meyer = 400, Thomas = 400, Greenwald = 300 200-299 cases 8 labs 100-199 cases 7 labs 4-99 cases 19 labs Highest price per case: US = 118.75, Canada = $117 (non-vented) Lowest price per case: US = $29, Canada = $25 (vented) Farthest away response: Malta! No responses from MRC or anyone else in Europe or Asia. It is possible that we can save money and/or provide better plates for these labs, including, shipping, too. Let us know.
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[
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.
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[
Worm Breeder's Gazette,
1988]
I've written a little primer on how to use Word (version 3.0 or higher) to automatically generate references (reference number or author-year citation) and cross-references (to page number) within a document using a combination of Word's merge function and table of contents generation facility. Also included in the article are directions for using reference information stored in a database to automatically generate a reference list according to a given style using Word's merge function. The utility of all this is likely to be superseded by future versions of Word and commercially available add- on programs. However, if you are interested, drop me a line and I'll send you a copy of my article.
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[
Worm Breeder's Gazette,
1990]
It will not come as a surprise that yet another computer system can be used to access the contig libnraries, but I thought I'd send it in for the sake of completeness. The Amiga can be used for this purpose and is considerably easier than the IBM based system Smarterm 240 (at least in my hands). The emulator for the Amiga is called A-Talk III and is specifically for a Tektronix 4014. The settings are the same as described for the IBM. The nice thing about the Amiga is that it is multi-tasking so you can access the library while your really big time consuming program is running in the background. In addition, since the Amiga supports an IBM (MS-DOS) domain on its hard drive, if you're married to IBMness you can also access the library from this domain using Smarterm. I haven't tried it, but I think you could access the library through two numbers at the same time (need two modems) since the machine is multi-tasking.