APPENDIX 4 On-line C. elegans Resources

Abstract

The wide use of the Internet and World Wide Web (WWW) in the scientific community and the corresponding rapid development of hypertext browser programs have made a bewildering array of on-line resources available for biological researchers. The tables and text on the following pages give brief descriptions and electronic addresses of several major Web sites providing access to information on C. elegans, categorized by general type of data.

The sites listed here constitute a basic set of the major electronic C. elegans resources on the Web. Each site, customized by its keepers, may contain links to many other more specific resources such as specialized programs written by C. elegans researchers, data search engines, electronic versions of standard print materials (e.g., the Worm Breeder’s Gazette), photographic images of worms, the Bionet C. elegans discussion group, and many others. Discovering the wealth of information that is now literally at one’s fingertips requires only standard computer hardware, a graphical link to the Internet, and a bit of time.

ACeDB (a C. elegans database) has become the standard electronic mechanism for collection, linking, and display of data on C. elegans, as well as other organisms. The programmers make available by anonymous ftp the program source code; executable binaries for several common Unix, Macintosh, and Windows platforms; and raw data files. Updates to the data and program are published at these sites several times a year. The source code can be used to compile an executable system on computers for which precompiled binaries are not...