Wordle of the blog

The Wordle (http://www.wordle.net/) of the blog. This utility generates word clouds from the text that is inserted. In this case the whole blog. Unfortunately I've had little time to update the blog recently. I will try to catch up soon. Sorry....

Plant Flow Cytometry - Far Beyond the Stone Age Commentary on Cytometry Journal

In a close association with the review of Sergio Ochatt on the application of flow cytometry in plant breeding (see previous post) that appears in the current issue of Cytometry Part A journal we have been invited to write a commentary on the current state of flow cytometry in plant sciences. It is a short overview of the applications of flow cytometry to analyse plant cells and once again the blog, forum and FLOWer database were not forgotten. We hope that you enjoy the reading.

You can download it for free in here: Plant Flow Cytometry - Far Beyond the Stone Age

The first reference in a manuscript to the Plant FCM blog and forum

In the last issue of Cytometry a review on the application of flow cytometry to plant breeding is presented by Sergio J. Ochatt from INRA (Dijon Cedex, France). The manuscript explores some of the interesting uses of flow cytometry in the area of plant breeding and, by the end, in an overview of the progress in recent years, both this blog and the plant flow cytometry forum are referred with the respective web address. We are very thankful for this mention and it is already a victory that we are slowly gaining some visibility within the plant FCM community.

Thank you all for being so supportive.

Flow Cytometry Blog

While surfing the net for some information about FCM courses I found this blog (link provided bellow) that lists some of the courses that will be lectured this year.


There are not Plant FCM-specific courses listed, but the basis of FCM is the same for all the fields of biology, so if you are interested in learning more about FCM, you should try some of the courses listed in that page, some are hands-on so you will get a lot of practical knowledge as well.

http://www.squidoo.com/flowcytometrycourses

Cheers

FLOWer database version 1.0 has just been launched

I am very pleased to announce that version 1.0 of the FLOWer database is finally ready and online (http://flower.web.ua.pt/). After some serious problems with the programming of the previous version of the database, we are very glad that the first release of the database is up and running. You are welcome to visit it and I encourage you to use the database as a unique resource of publications on DNA flow cytometry in plant sciences. Your opinion is very important to us, so it would be nice to receive any feedback through the shoutbox available in the home page or directly to this e-mail. The database presently harbours 826 publications, and you are welcome to provide us with any missing ones through the contribution area available in the menu bar of the home page.

This is part of the e-mail that was sent to many colleagues of the plant flow cytometry area, where this blog and the forum of plant flow cytometry were also promoted. I hope that you like all these resources that were made available to you.

Many thanks for stopping by.

The first week of the forum and blog

Since the publicity of the forum a week and some days ago, we have received a nice feedback from the plant FCM community with 22 new members, totalling 26 members from diverse locations around the world (see figure).

More importantly, there has been some posting activity from some newly registered members. Below you can find the link to each of the topics started by the new members:
- Calibrating plant standards for flow cytometry (by alaacraddock);
- Substituting PVP (by pkron);
- DNA content using PI on FACScan (by georgina);
- The application of flow cytometry to count pollen grains (by scastro).

The questions that were posed are all very interesting, but members feedback/answer is still reduced.

Also, a new forum "Troublesome Plant Material" has been created and it is expected that members post the name of plant species which were impossible to analyse by FCM. Therefore, if other members had some previous experience with any of the posted species, some advice and solutions can be given.

This blog itself has received many visits, once again from the whole world (see image above). I hope that the blog is a nice complement to the forum and we promise to post any interesting news when appropriate. So please be aware of new posts and visit us regularly. Also, if you want you can comment any of the posts made so far. It is always nice to have some feedback from the readers.

The first days of the newly born...

Dear colleagues,

Many thanks for your output in what concerns this blog and the forum on plant flow cytometry. Since the publicity made last Friday, we've seen a considerable increase of visits to the blog (please see the world map in the right column) and more than 10 new user registration's to the forum. I hope that both tools are of your interest.

So, the next phase to which I encourage you all, is to interact with both web platforms, i.e. to comment the posts of the blog (you can do this by clicking on the link below each post) and to post any interesting topics on the forum.

Also, I ask all of you if it is possible to forward the e-mail message of the post below, to the people of your list of contacts that may be interest on the topics covered in the blog and in the forum.

Finally, if you want to see a link to your laboratory webpage in the right column, please send me the details (i.e., name and head of laboratory, link), either by e-mail (jloureiro@ua.pt) or by posting them in the comments to this post.

The day zero

May this be the day 0 of this Blog and of the Forum of Plant Flow Cytometry. Today I sent an e-mail to more than 390 corresponding authors of publications concerning plant flow cytometry and included in the FLOWer database, publicizing the blog and forum. Despite many of those e-mails came back with errors (possibly due to e-mail updates since appearance in publications), I believe that in many cases they arrived at the author's mailboxes with success. As a result, we've seen many visits to the blog and some registrations in the Forum, with the first non-jloureiro topic being posted. So, I must say that I am quite happy with the impact that the e-mail had today and I hope that it continues in the following days.

I encourage all of you to contribute either with comments to these posts or/and with topics in the forum. I also stimulate you to make as much publicity as possible, to see if we can gather a huge amount of researchers to this on-line community. Please remember that these new web resources will only work if you participate actively on them.

Below follows the e-mail that was sent today:

Dear colleagues,

It is with great pleasure that I announce the first forum and blog on plant flow cytometry. These two new platforms are at your disposal to discuss general topics in plant flow cytometry, to post any doubts or questions related to (the analysis of plant cells using flow cytometry) PLANT FLOW CYTOMETRY, to announce upcoming congresses and courses, etc.

Such platforms are only valuable if you participate actively and if there is a regular number of new posts and comments. Therefore, I invite you to register in the forum and use it on your best interests. The blog can be a very informal way of communicating and posting new and interesting information on plant flow cytometry, and you are encouraged to comment on the various topics that will be regularly posted.

You can access the forum at the following address: http://flowerdatabase.20.forumer.com/index.php and the blog at: http://flowerdatabase.blogspot.com/ .

These (two) new tools of communication appeared first as a companion to the FLOWER database (the Plant DNA Flow Cytometry Database: http://flower.web.ua.pt/), but are now directed to plant flow cytometry in general. Please consider that the FLOWER database is still in its beginning (beta version), and thus it still presents some flaws.

With best regards,

João Loureiro