FEMS MICRO Ljubljana 2027: Congress & Exhibition
The FEMS congress brings together the international microbiology community under the theme Growing microbial futures. The meeting runs 5–8 July 2027 in Ljubljana. Abstracts and associated grant applications are open until 15 December 2026 at 23:59 CET; interactive-session proposals close on 30 September 2026. Attendance registration begins on 15 March 2027, so it is not yet open.
FEMS Meeting Organiser Grants — November 2026 Round
FEMS supports scientific conferences, laboratory workshops and training courses in the European Area. Grants can reach EUR 15,000, with at least 60% used to support early-career scientists’ attendance. The current round closes on 1 November 2026 at 23:59 CET and covers meetings held from 21 March to 20 December 2027. Decisions are expected on 21 December 2026. This is a recurring meeting-support programme.
070: How to Pilot an ROV with JRod
Jason Rodriguez discusses piloting remotely operated vehicles on scientific expeditions, including technical problem-solving, mid-water observations and collaboration with researchers. He describes a career moving from aviation electronics through offshore work into ocean science. The full episode also includes research updates from Alan Jamieson and Thom Linley. This listing uses the full episode and its publisher-page date, rather than the separately released PRESSURISED edit.
A Breakdown of the Global Open Science Hardware (GOSH) Movement
This seminar, hosted by the LIBRE hub project, will provide an in-depth introduction to the Global Open Science Hardware (GOSH) movement. Since its inception, GOSH has been instrumental in advancing open-source hardware within scientific research, fostering a diverse and active community. The seminar will cover the history of GOSH, its current initiatives, and future opportunities, with a particular focus on the contributions and activities of the Latin American branch. This session aims to inform researchers, educators, and policy-makers about the significance and impact of GOSH in promoting accessibility and collaboration in science instrumentation.
Using Adversarial Collaboration to Harness Collective Intelligence
There are many mysteries in the universe. One of the most significant, often considered the final frontier in science, is understanding how our subjective experience, or consciousness, emerges from the collective action of neurons in biological systems. While substantial progress has been made over the past decades, a unified and widely accepted explanation of the neural mechanisms underpinning consciousness remains elusive. The field is rife with theories that frequently provide contradictory explanations of the phenomenon. To accelerate progress, we have adopted a new model of science: adversarial collaboration in team science. Our goal is to test theories of consciousness in an adversarial setting. Adversarial collaboration offers a unique way to bolster creativity and rigor in scientific research by merging the expertise of teams with diverse viewpoints. Ideally, we aim to harness collective intelligence, embracing various perspectives, to expedite the uncovering of scientific truths. In this talk, I will highlight the effectiveness (and challenges) of this approach using selected case studies, showcasing its potential to counter biases, challenge traditional viewpoints, and foster innovative thought. Through the joint design of experiments, teams incorporate a competitive aspect, ensuring comprehensive exploration of problems. This method underscores the importance of structured conflict and diversity in propelling scientific advancement and innovation.
Toward an open science ecosystem for neuroimaging
It is now widely accepted that openness and transparency are keys to improving the reproducibility of scientific research, but many challenges remain to adoption of these practices. I will discuss the growth of an ecosystem for open science within the field of neuroimaging, focusing on platforms for open data sharing and open source tools for reproducible data analysis. I will also discuss the role of the Brain Imaging Data Structure (BIDS), a community standard for data organization, in enabling this open science ecosystem, and will outline the scientific impacts of these resources.
Artificial Intelligence and Racism – What are the implications for scientific research?
As questions of race and justice have risen to the fore across the sciences, the ALBA Network has invited Dr Shakir Mohamed (Senior Research Scientist at DeepMind, UK) to provide a keynote speech on Artificial Intelligence and racism, and the implications for scientific research, that will be followed by a discussion chaired by Dr Konrad Kording (Department of Neuroscience at University of Pennsylvania, US - neuromatch co-founder)