Biodiversity & Ecosystems Web (BENE) Announcement

[STEVE YOUNG 703-235-5593]

          We are pleased to announce the opening of the Biodiversity and
          Ecosystems NEtwork (BENE) webserver, hosted by the Keck Center
          for Genome Informatics at Texas A&M University.  In addition to
          the Keck Center, the other founding partners are the National
          Performance Review NetResults project, the Smithsonian
          Institution, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.  We
          welcome other partners.

          For those with Worldwide Web (WWW) browsers such as Mosaic,
          NetScape, or Lynx, the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) for the
          BENE webserver is:  http://straylight.tamu.edu/bene/bene.html  .
          The goal of the BENE webserver is to help those interested in
          biodiversity and ecosystems to find information, and foster
          dialogue and collaborations. BENE also represents a demonstration
          of some of the capabilities suggested for the proposed U.S.
          National Biodiversity Information Center (NBIC).

          BENE also provides a listserver to encourage discussions,
          queries, and information sharing. To subscribe to the BENE list,
          send a message to:
               listproc at straylight.tamu.edu
          with the text:
               subscribe bene <your_full_name> <your_email_address>
          The subject line is ignored by the list processor.

          This announcement is posted to BENE, BIODICEN-L, BIODIV-L,
          CONSLINK, and TAXACOM. Please pardon any cross-postings. We
          encourage you to forward this announcement to other appropriate
          lists. Please use the email form on the BENE server to provide
          comments and suggestions.

          And I (Steve Young) thank Dr. Leland Ellis
          (leland at straylight.tamu.edu), the director of the Keck Center,
          for his wonderful, energetic and creative work in putting BENE
          together.

          Cheers!

               Steve Young
               young.steve at epamail.epa.gov
               U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and
               Smithsonian Biodiversity Program