Douglas Steinberg | Sep 21, 2003 | 7 min read
Ned Shaw Several dozen biologists and computer scientists are gathering this week in Bar Harbor, Maine, to discuss ontology--not the hoary philosophical concept, but the bioinformatics buzzword referring to a computer-based representation of the facts established by a scientific field. One group of conferees, the five-year-old Gene Ontology Consortium, will likely focus on programming issues and new viewing, browsing, and editing tools, says Monte Westerfield, the University of Oregon biology