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{ C O N T E N T S } Volume 8, Issue 2 President's
Letter Advertising and Sponsorship Dr. Janet Thornton PLoS Computational Biology Student Council Undertakes ISCB Student Travel ISMB 2006 Magnificent Madrid to Host Post Your Events and News President Elect Student Council Activities Student Symposium Public Affairs & Policies
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© 2005 International Society for Computational Biology. |
ISMB 2006: Come for the Science, Stay for the Beauty of Brazil
1. For the first time we plan to offer a Nobel Laureate keynote address each conference day. In addition, the most prominent scientists in the area of Molecular Biology and its Computational branches will be addressing the audience in what is known as the World's Largest Bioinformatics Conference. 2. For the first time the ISMB Conference will be held in a tropical country rich in tourist destinations. Consequently, delightful opportunities abound for the participants to enjoy tropical flavors before and after our scientific encounters. 3. SwissProt will be celebrating 20 years since their services were initiated and are putting together a special celebrative event immediately before the ISMB, making Fortaleza the World's Capital of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology for 12 whole days. Few countries are able to offer as great a variety of tourist options as Brazil. With a land mass the size of a continent - more than 8 million km2 - the nation is fifth largest in the world, exceeded only by Russia, Canada, the USA and China, occupying almost half of South America. The distances from north to south and from east to west are greater than from New York to Los Angeles and from Moscow to Lisbon. Intersected to the north by the Equator and to the south-east by the Tropic of Capricorn, Brazil covers an area equivalent to 16 Frances, 23 Germanys or 23 Italy's. Brazil embraces contrasting ecosystems such
as the Amazon and Atlantic Forests with their incredibly luxuriant
woodlands, the Cerrado (scrublands) and the Caatinga (arid lands)
with unusually twisted trees and landscape that changes radically
according to the seasons, the Pantanal (marshland) with its flood
plains teeming with an amazingly rich chain of animal reproduction.
But dwarfing all other features of this huge country is the world's
greatest rain forest, the Amazon, with its river basin holding one-fifth
of all the freshwater on earth. |
