‘Dangerous goods’ classification removed The DNA barcoding community is welcoming the news that natural history specimens shipped via commercial air will no longer be classified as “dangerous goods.” In a press release, the Natural Science Collections Alliance said that the new policy, issued by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), also removes a requirement for [...]
Category: Announcements
View other posts in this category
iBOL, CBD pledge to work together towards common goals
Memorandum signed at COP10 in Nagoya A new agreement between iBOL and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Secretariat commits the two organizations to identify and exploit opportunities for collaboration in areas of mutual interest. At a ceremony held during the 10th Conference of Parties to the CBD in Nagoya (CBD COP10), iBOL Board Chair [...]
India announces $10M barcoding initiative
Focus on plants, insects and fishes Plants, insects and fishes will take priority in a new $US10 million DNA barcoding initiative announced by the Director General of the Indian Council on Agricultural Research (ICAR), Dr. S. Ayyappan (pictured), during an international consultation on DNA barcoding held November 6-7 in New Delhi. By year’s end, ICAR [...]
Official launch of iBOL activates world’s largest biodiversity genomics initiative
Toronto – The largest biodiversity genomics initiative ever undertaken – an international effort to build a digital identification system for all life on Earth – will be officially activated this week. The International Barcode of Life Project (iBOL) will be launched by the Minister of Research and Innovation, Glen Murray, during an event at Toronto’s [...]
Romania completes library of butterfly barcodes
Romania is now the first country to have barcoded its entire butterfly fauna – all 180 species. DNA barcoding aims to accelerate species identification and discovery, but performance tests have shown marked differences in identification success. As a consequence, there remains a great need for comprehensive studies which objectively test the method in groups with [...]
Peter Freeman named newExecutive Director of iBOL
The interim chair of the International Barcode of Life Consortium (iBOL) Board of Directors, Dr. Christian Burks, has announced the appointment of Dr. Peter Freeman as the new Executive Director of iBOL. Dr. Freeman took up his post on July 1. He will be responsible for the overall operations of the iBOL Secretariat, including keeping [...]
iBOL releases 156K barcode records to BOLD, GenBank
The first large blocks of iBOL data have been released to NCBI GenBank and are publicly accessible on the Internet from the Barcode of Life Data (BOLD) Systems web site. The release was made in two stages: 1) 102,772 sequences for 101,214 specimens analyzed at the Canadian Centre for DNA Barcoding during the first two [...]
No worming out of the worminess in mescal
A Canadian study shows even if you don’t swallow the worm at the bottom of a bottle of the Mexican liquor mescal, you may not have avoided the worm’s DNA. Researchers at the University of Guelph’s Biodiversity Institute of Ontario say they’ve determined the distilled alcoholic beverage itself contains the DNA of the agave butterfly [...]
New building will be hub for iBOL
Construction of the new C$18 million Centre for Biodiversity Genomics…
iBOL releases 100K barcode records to BOLD, GenBank
The first large block of iBOL data has been released….
