Due to a very unsettled August schedule, regular meetings of the Wine Cheese and Bullshit club will resume in September.  Feel free to bullshit on your own in the meantime.

Really interesting story coming out of the Heliconius genome:

Butterfly genome reveals promiscuous exchange of mimicry adaptations among species

Hey everybody, the first summer meeting of the WCB club is this Friday, 4-5 pm.  Artyom will talk about the following paper:

Fluorescent fusion protein knockout mediated by anti-GFP nanobody

It’s official – Dave rocks!  He just got the university-wide award for excellence in postdoctoral research.  It is awarded for, well, “outstanding achievements in the areas of teaching and academic research”.  As fancy as they come.

This year, Daniel and Nancy are giving talks, and Emmanuel, George, Lisa, and Margaret are presenting posters at the UC-Davis Undergraduate Research Conference.  They will be describing their recent work on subjects that include sex-specific neural circuits, cell motility, evolution of alternative splicing, tissue-specific transcriptome analysis, and ecological innovations.  Here is the time and place:

Poster Presentations • Friday, April 27, 2012 • Freeborn Hall • 3 – 5:30 p.m.
Oral Presentations • Saturday, April 28, 2012 • Wellman Hall • 9:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

See here for more details

The review paper on the role of DM-domain genes in the development and evolution of sexual dimorphism is published in Trends in Genetics:

http://www.cell.com/trends/genetics/abstract/S0168-9525%2812%2900017-0?script=true

And check the journal cover for a nice picture of the sex comb of D. ficusphila:

http://www.cell.com/trends/genetics/issue?pii=S0168-9525%2812%29X0004-0#

This quarter, WCB will be 3-4 pm on alternate Fridays.  Dave led the first club session with a lucid explanation of why sticklebacks are goofy. We will resume April 27.

Angus receives the College of Biological Sciences Dean’s Mentorship Award for his work with undergraduate students.  This award fosters excellence in research and mentorship for undergraduate students seeking careers in the sciences.  Congratulations to Angus and his undergraduate colleagues, Pam and Nancy!

This year’s lab snowshoe trip was moderately successful.  As luck would have it, the first major storm of the season rolled in just as we were ready to head to Peter Grubb cabin for an easy overnighter.  The good news is that everyone came back in one piece; not so good news is that we did not even make it to the cabin after wallowing waist-deep in fresh snow for half a day.  See Thad’s Snow Awards post for details.  Let’s hope we have better luck next year.

And in the meantime – it’s time to start planning our summer backpacking trip.  Let’s see what natural disasters that will precipitate.

Angus wins the 2011-2012 Chancellor’s Achievement Award for Diversity and Community!  This award recognizes contributions in enhancing inclusiveness and diversity within the campus community, and is awarded to one and only one graduate student each year.  Angus received the award at the reception held at the Chancellor’s Residence.  This was the first time I saw him wearing a tie.