BIRCH 3.86 Released
  • Important fix to OSX BIRCH launcher
  • Sequence database search improvements
  • Application updates
 May 20, 2022
Log4j2 vulnerability status
At present, it does not appear that any of the Java programs distributed with BIRCH presents vulnerabilities due to the log4j2 exploit. We have confidence in this assertion for several reasons:
  • Log4j2 applies only to Java applications
  • A scan of all Java applications, including source code and .jar files was done to identify potentially vulnerable applications.
  • Some older applications use versions of  log4j that are not susceptible to this exploit.
  • None of these applications acts as a web or peer-to-peer server
  • All BIRCH applications run with user permissions only. None uses admin permissions.
Out of an abundance of caution, further investigation into this potential problem are ongoing.This message will be updated accordingly.

We will take this opportunity to remind all BIRCH users that your best defenses against potential security threats are to
  •  run system updates on a routine basis
  •  back up your files offsite (eg. to the cloud or network-attached storage)
  • change your passwords frequently.
 December 21, 2021
BIRCH 3.85 Released
  • Web documentation reorganized for easier navigation and local customization at each BIRCH site.
Sept. 6, 2021
BIRCH 3.80 Released
  • improvements to BLAST search results
  • improvements and updates for multiple alignment and phylogeny
  • numerous updated software packages
  • extensive improvements to pre-processing and QC of sequencing reads
VIDEOhttps://youtu.be/8RqR1va-hYU">
July 5, 2021
BIRCH 3.70 Released
  • improvements and updates for multiple alignment and phylogeny
  • personalized user settings for BIRCH environment, including NCBI Entrez API keys
  • NCBI Entrez keyword searches now support Neighbor and LinkOut searches
July 22, 2020
BIRCH 3.60 Released
  • First time setup tutorial for MATE desktop
  • Python3 compliance
  • Updates to BLAST, FASTA database searches
April 26, 2020
BIRCH 3.50 Released June 20, 2019
BIRCH 3.40 Released
May 2, 2017
Installing and Searching Local BLAST Databases
May 19, 2016
BIRCH 3.20 Released May 19, 2016
BIRCH 3.15 Released
Jan. 6, 2016