Description
This article is from the Biological
Information Theory and Chowder Society FAQ, by Thomas
D. Schneider toms@ncifcrf.gov.
01 What is the biological information theory and chowder society?
The Biological Information Theory and Chowder Society (BITCS) is a group of
scientists interested in the biological applications of information theory
(thus the "BIT") who meet informally for dinner (thus the "CS") from time to
time in the Washington, DC, area. At our dinners we have only one rule ---
food fights are discouraged.
The guys who started this thing did it because we weren't certain we
understood the biological implications of information theory. Some of us are
more comfortable with the mathematical machinery and assemble biological
systems into grand canonical ensembles whether they want to be there or not;
and some of us think they understand what the biological systems are doing
but can't take a log to base 2. What we try to do is pry from one another
the bits of knowledge that will help us understand what's going on.
Some of the topics up for discussion in our group are:
* biological applications of information theory
* biochemical molecular machines and computers
* computer methods for recognition of molecular structure and function
* database organization for biomolecular information
* nanotechnology
* the limits of computation
* "dissipation-less"(?) computation
* Maxwell's demon
* anecdotes and humor about all these topics
* methods and theories of molecular computation
* macroscopic versus microscopic thermodynamics
A few relevant papers are given in the references.
The group started when Tom Schneider was introduced to John Spouge in 1988.
Tom bounced his ideas about molecular machines off John, and John kept
finding flaws. Tom would go away rather unhappily for a month and then find
a solution. But John was always one step ahead... (and still is, on last
account.) Tom gave a talk about molecular machines at the Lambda Lunch
meeting on the Bethesda NIH campus, and John introduced John (Steve)
Garavelli. We all got together with Peter Basser for dinner once in a while
to talk about information theory. Steve brought in one of the first people
to apply information theory to biology, Hubert Yockey. Steve Garavelli
dubbed the group the "Biological Information Theory and Chowder Society",
which it is still called. We are known sometimes as 'chowderheads', and talk
about food fights, but so far have only had electronic food fights! We hold
dinners in Bethesda, Maryland on random occasions.
When our informal mailing list became difficult to handle, we petitioned to
start a bionet news group. We have held roaring discussions and look forward
to more, and everyone is welcome to join. You can look at some of the
ancient discussions in the bionet archives. If you are uncertain about
something, quit lurking and ask on the net. It may well be that what
bothered you is the key to a new piece of information theory in biology.
(The major advances so far have been by things that REALLY bugged people.)
We will also announce when and where our (irregular) eatings are and you are
welcome to join if the travel is not too far. John Spouge usually makes the
arrangements. If you would like to give a talk to the group, contact us to
make arrangements. (Our addresses are below.)
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science, engineering, Biological Information Theory, Chowder Society. entropy, yockey, jaynes, schneider
