Research in Computer Science: A lot of stuff is tagged with "science" on the end Generally science is about building knowledge with as much certainty as possible Hypothesis testing is a big part of that Hypothesis for computer science often takes this form: "An artificial-intelligence system on a sufficiently-powerful computer can defeat even the best human chess player" That leads to a simple test: Try it and see what happens! Which is how hypothesis testing works in any field On to bioinformatics: Two ways this can work: 1. Form and test a hypothesis related to computation 2. Assist biologists in testing a hypothesis related to biology There's a greater focus on the second Some journals focus on publishing articles introducing useful tools What can we help with? Genomic comparisons Brief primer on string comparison methods and pitfalls I hope I remembered to bring a pen! BLAST, and GenBank Classification of species: Used to be by physical traits I actually work on image analysis GNA system, switch to slides (bio_pres.pdf) Mouse retinal, and zebrafish