Finding Sperm in the English Countryside—The 14th Biology of Spermatozoa Meeting
Most people wouldn't look to the rolling green hills of central England as the place to get a crash course on the latest in sperm biology. Yet, for the past quarter of a century, sperm biologists from around the world have congregated in the picturesque Peak District (near Sheffield) for Biology of Spermatozoa (BoS) Meetings - the most recent of which representing the 14th such gathering. BoS meetings are relatively small, typically consisting of 60-80 delegates, and attract a cadre of sperm enthusiasts who return year after year. As with previous meetings (e.g. Wolfner and Montgomerie 2016), the size and atmosphere of the event gives BoS meetings a special feel - part 'family' reunion, part meeting new colleagues, part solidifying and developing collaborations, and all cutting-edge science.
Spermatozoa in the Peak District
Conferences can be amixed bag. On the one hand, they are often invaluable for networking; for getting to, or staying at, the cutting edge; for getting helpful input from colleagues; for seeing friends and collaborators, old and new; and (occasionally) for getting to visit a new and exciting part of the world. Sometimes, unfortunately, scientific conferences are just too big; too expensive; too boring; too lonely, exhausting, and time consuming. Too often, delegates present old work that you already knew about, venues are hot and stuffy, and the chance of meeting old friends and making new ones is slim indeed. In September 2015, we attended a conference that epitomized all the positives (with none of the negatives) the biennialBiologyofSpermatozoa (BoS)meeting (http://www. bos.group.shef.ac.uk) in thegorgeousPeakDistrictofnorthern England. This small scientific meeting, run for the past 25 years by Tim Birkhead and Harry Moore, both at the University of Sheffield, focuses on the evolutionary biology ofspermatozoa,and reproduction ingeneral.Fourprinciples have guided the organizers from the start: (i) to keep the meeting small with no concurrent sessions; (ii) to require presenters to focus on unpublished research in progress or nearly finished; (iii) to invite 2-3 speakers from outside the core group of evolutionary biologists as a way of injecting new ideas and perspectives from other disciplines, such as physiology, imaging, proteomics/genomics; and (iv) to stay flexible, trying new approaches, replacing or modifying whateverdidnotworksowell in thepast.More thananything, this conference encourages and maximizes interaction and discussion whichmakesattending itsoproductiveand fun. To that end (and because there is only one presentation at a time) post-presentation questions and discussions are allowed to continue as long as they are interesting. Consequently, there isno rigidscheduleeachday except to finish in time for a drink before the sumptuous dinner served in an elegant dining room at the conference venue.
DIFFERENTIAL CALCULUS OF SEVERAL VARIABLES WITH MATHEMATICA OR MAPLE
The use of Computer Algebra Systems (CAS) in Mathematical Laboratories at Engineering Schools is increasing. Therefore, it has become necessary to undertake a new educational approach in the teaching of many mathematical topics. Obviously it is not possible to give the same lectures as in the 1950,s. The CAS allows us to experiment and teach in “a different way”. The students' mathematical knowledge at the beginning of their studies in the University is completely different. Moreover we have fewer credits assigned to Mathematical topics in engineering curriculum. The objective of he authors, professors of different Spanish Universities, is to try to demonstrate a new way to use the CAS, concretely Maple and Mathematica, as a support in the teaching of Differential Calculus of Several Variables. They take advantage of the computer's graphical capacities to sketch the graphs of surfaces defined in explicit, parametric or implicit form. They survey the general topics: limits, partial derivatives, differentiability, chain rule, implicit functions and extreme values. For each topic, they give a few basic instructions of the CAS used; afterwards they give several examples, in increasing order of difficulty, and finally the students must solve exercises and try to establish a general procedure for a quite general problem. In this paper we have included several examples used in this survey.