Archive for the ‘Science’ Category
Thursday, November 19th, 2009
E-Science Survey Preliminary Results and Resources Released
The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) E-Science Working Group surveyed ARL member libraries in the fall of 2009 to gather data on the state of engagement with e-science issues. An overview of initial survey findings was presented by E-Science Working Group Chair Wendy Lougee, University Librarian, McKnight Presidential Professor, University of Minnesota Libraries, at the October ARL Membership Meeting. Lougee’s briefing explored contrasting approaches among research institutions, particularly in regard to data management. The briefing also summarized survey findings on topics such as library services, organizational structures, staffing patterns and staff development, and involvement in research grants, along with perspectives on pressure points for service development. To better explicate the findings, Lougee reviewed specific cases of activities at six research institutions.
Audio of the briefing along with slides and a handout are available as part of the Proceedings of the 155th ARL Membership Meeting (see http://www.arl.org/resources/pubs/mmproceedings/155mm-proceedings/index.shtml#esci).
ARL has also compiled a set of resources provided by survey respondents. Examples of a range of campus and library documents, tools advancing e-science support, needs assessments, and position descriptions, among other items, are listed on ARL’s Web site at http://www.arl.org/rtl/eresearch/escien/esciensurvey/index.shtml.
Source: Association of Research Libraries
Posted in Info Management and Retrieval, Libraries and Librarianship, Online Education, Papers and Presentations, Science, Search News, Source File | No Comments »
Thursday, November 19th, 2009
From the Announcement:
New methods of studying avian influenza strains and visually mapping their movement around the world will help scientists more quickly learn the behavior of the pandemic H1N1 flu virus, Ohio State University researchers say.
The researchers linked many powerful computer systems together to analyze enormous amounts of genetic data collected from all publicly available isolated strains of the H5N1 virus – the cause of avian flu. They then developed a new Web-based application that will allow health officials and the public visualize how the virus moved across the globe using Google Earth.
The resulting visualizations, based on results of the data analysis, represent the most comprehensive map to date of how avian flu has been transmitted among sites in Asia, Africa and Europe.
[Snip]
“We are taking into account more data but at the same time, we’re making simpler visualizations, allowing users to choose what they want to see,” said Daniel Janies, associate professor of biomedical informatics at Ohio State and senior author of the study.
The visualizations and application are available online at “We are taking into account more data but at the same time, we’re making simpler visualizations, allowing users to choose what they want to see,” said Daniel Janies, associate professor of biomedical informatics at Ohio State and senior author of the study.
“We’ve created an environment where people can avail themselves of flu information specific to their region of the world or their area of interest. We waded through all of the complexities so people in the public health realm who want to determine how a flu virus got from point A to point B can find that out, and we’ll have better public health outcomes as a result.”
The visualizations and application are available online at http://routemap.osu.edu.
Source: Ohio State University
Posted in Geographic, Resources, Science | No Comments »
Thursday, November 19th, 2009
NASA Education Robotics Web Site
Innovation, creativity, problem solving — the world of robotics at NASA is all of these things. Spend some time on this site to see if robotics might be in your future.
Things you can do on this site:
–Answer the question: What Is Robotics?
–Practice your programming skills with the interactive robotic activity.
–Watch and download video and multimedia features about robotics.
–Follow a timeline tracing the history of robotics.
–Check out lesson plans for your classroom.
–Stay up-to-date with information about NASA-supported robotics competitions.
–Visit the Robotics Image Gallery.
–Explore other worlds with NASA through robotic spacecraft discoveries.
–Read about scientists and engineers who design and test robots.
–Browse NASA Web sites for information about robotics.
Source: National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Posted in Education, Resources for Educators, Science, Source File | No Comments »
Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
Nobel Prize-winning scientists urge Congress to act to ensure free online access to federally funded research results
“For America to obtain an optimal return on our investment in science, publicly funded research must be shared as broadly as possible,” is the message that forty one Nobel Prize-winning scientists in medicine, physics, and chemistry gave to Congress in an open letter delivered yesterday. The letter marks the fourth time in five years that leading scientists have called on Congress to ensure free, timely access to the results of federally funded research – this time asking leaders to support the Federal Research Public Access Act of 2009 (S.1373).
…
The bi-partisan Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA), introduced by Senators Lieberman (I-CT) and Cornyn (R-TX), would deliver online public access to the published results of research funded through eleven U.S. agencies and departments, requiring that peer-reviewed journal articles stemming from publicly funded research be made available in an online repository no later than six months after publication.
+ An Open Letter to the U.S. Congress Signed by 41 Nobel Prize Winners (November 2009)
Source: Alliance for Taxpayer Access
Posted in Access to Information, Government Documents and Political Information, Science, Search News | No Comments »
Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
Yesterday we mentioned to searchable databases, one from the U.S. Census and the other from USA.gov with thousands of asked an answered questions about the federal government and the U.S. Census. Excellent ready reference tools to know about.
Today, another database of asked and answered questions This time it’s a Library of Congress resource.
The site is both browsable and searchable.
It’s name: Everyday Mysteries: Fun Science Facts from the Library of Congress.
The home page allows you to browse all of the questions or search with keywords.
+ Agriculture
+ Astronomy
+ Biology & Human Anatomy
+ Botany
+ Chemistry
+ Geography, Anthropology, Recreation
+ Home Economics
+ Meteorology, Climatology
+ Motor Vehicles, Aeronautics, Astronautics
+ Physics
+ Technology, General
+ Zoology
Both answers and the service itself come from Science Reference Services at LC.
Here’s a quick sample of five asked and answered questions from the collection. A link on the home page allows users to submit questions.
1) Does your heart stop when you sneeze?
2) How did the grapefruit get its name? It doesn’t look like a grape.
3) What is “freezer burn?”
4) Is it true that no two snow crystals are alike?
5) Who invented the TV dinner?
This is a great resource for the reference desk as well as for school media specialists and teachers.
Posted in Databases, Directories, and Guides, Reference Tools, Resources, Resources for Educators, Science | No Comments »
Monday, November 16th, 2009
NOAA Releases Expanded World Ocean Database
NOAA today released the World Ocean Database 2009, the largest, most comprehensive collection of scientific information about the oceans with records dating as far back as 1800. This product is part of the climate services provided by NOAA.
The 2009 database, updated from the 2005 edition, is significantly larger providing approximately 9.1 million temperature profiles and 3.5 million salinity reports. The 2009 database also captures 29 categories of scientific information from the oceans, including oxygen levels and chemical tracers, plus information on gases and isotopes that can be used to trace the movement of ocean currents.
Hat tip: CP
Posted in Databases, Directories, and Guides, Science, Source File | No Comments »
Monday, November 16th, 2009
We’re always talking about the very cool collection of over 20.000 titles (free access, pay only to print or copy) that ebrary provides. It’s called ebrary Discover. Details at the bottom of this post.
Today, word from ebrary HQ that the company is now offering free access to a new searchable collection of documents about H1N1 at http://h1n1.ebrary.com
From Today’s Announcement:
The new site contains a growing selection of reports, papers, newsletters, posters, and other important materials from government agencies and other trusted sources. (copyrights permitting or with permission).
ebrary’s new H1N1 (Influenza) Searchable Information Center Offers:
+ PDF documents from government agencies and other authoritative sites
+ Multiple options for searching, navigating, and browsing
+ ebrary InfoTools™, which turns every word into a search term
+ Notes and highlights
+ Ability to copy/paste and print text with automatic citations and URL hyperlinks back to the source
+ Personal bookshelves with moveable folders that can be emailed to others
The info center is also browsable by subject.
Source: ebrary
Hat Tip: D.R.
Posted in Databases, Directories, and Guides, Science | No Comments »
Friday, November 13th, 2009
It’s official, the journal Cell published by Elsevier, is beginning a pilot of a new research tool named “Reflect.”
From Today’s Announcement:
…the innovative research tool ‘Reflect’, winner of Elsevier’s Grand Challenge 2009, will be piloted on the research articles in the November 12th issue of Cell. The ‘Reflect’ tool identifies the proteins, genes and small molecules mentioned in the Cell articles, and generates pop-up windows containing relevant contextual information, with additional links, about those entities.
The Cell-Reflect pilot is the next step in Elsevier’s ongoing Content Innovation effort with the scientific community to determine how a scientific article is best presented online. This follows Elsevier’s recent launch of an initial ’External link Article of the Future’ prototype with Cell, where the traditional linear journal article is displayed in a much more useful format for life scientists.
[Snip]
Inside an article, ‘Reflect’ tags and colors gene, protein, or small molecule names on any web page, usually within seconds, without affecting the article itself or its web page layout. Clicking on a tagged or colored item opens a popup, showing a concise summary of contextually important features, such as sequence (for proteins) or 2D structure (for small molecules).
You can view articles from Cell that utilize “Reflect” here.
In July, 2009, Elsevier released two prototypes as part of its “Article of the Future” (AOTF) program.
Source: Elsevier
Posted in Information Industry, Scholarly Publishing, Science | No Comments »
Thursday, November 12th, 2009
Best Inventions 2009 Home Page
1) Best Inventions
2) The Five Worst Inventions
3) Reader Poll Results
+ Top 50 Best Inventions Listed on a Singe Page (with Hyperlinks to More Info)
Top 5 (of 50)
1. The Best Invention of the Year: NASA’s Ares Rockets
2. The Tank-Bred Tuna
3. The $10 Million Lightbulb
4. The Smart Thermostat
5. Controller-Free Gaming
We’ll also mention #9, Tweeting by Thinking
The Best Inventions 2009 Home Page includes photo essays, videos, and the Best Inventions of 2008 List.
Source: Time
Hat Tip: All Points Blog
Posted in Lists and Rankings, Science | No Comments »
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
Direct to Discovery News
Top level news categories include: earth; space; tech; animals, dinosaurs; archeology; history; and human. A collection of nearly 400 videos is also a part of the site.
Discovery News also have a href=”http://twitter.com/Discovery_News”>Twitter feed and Facebook page. One RSS feed is also available. Search results pages include links to stories, relevant video clips, and shopping results, and in some cases material from other Discovery networks. We did notice that for some searches (perhaps because they don’t have enough content) there are a lot of ads on search results pages like this one for noise pollution.
From the Washington Post:
“We’re on a mission to make people smarter about the world around them,” said Miguel Monteverde, the site’s general manager. He has been with Discovery for two years; earlier in his career, he oversaw development of video content for AOL’s Web network.
As mainstream news publications trim their budgets and cut back on coverage of science and technology news, Monteverde said, the new Discovery site will seek to fill that gap. The site’s reporting will also be the central attraction of a new iPhone application launched by the company; priced at 99 cents, the Discovery News software became available at the iTunes store on Monday.
Direct to Discovery News
Source: Washington Post
Posted in Media, Resources, Science | No Comments »
Sunday, November 8th, 2009
An excellent use of multimedia.
From the Glossary:
The National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) created the Talking Glossary of Genetic Terms to help everyone understand the terms and concepts used in genetic research. In addition to definitions, specialists in the field of genetics share their descriptions of terms, and many terms include images, animation and links to related terms.
Linked information explains how to cite a term from the Glossary in a reference paper. Another link allows you to suggest a term currently not in the glossary that you feel would be a valuable addition. And there is a link to email any of the 200+ terms to a friend.
Source: National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI)
Posted in Glossaries, Reference Tools, Resources, Science | No Comments »
Saturday, November 7th, 2009
On October 23rd we posted about a new iPhone/iTouch app from NASA. All sorts of info dynamically updated info. It’s a free app.
Today, something new. Now, it’s time for the NASA Images app with content coming from the nasaimages which is an effort to bring all NASA imagery and video together in a single location. nasaimages.org is a “co-production” between NASA and The Internet Archive.
NASA Images is a free app from Tomute Software
Key features:
+ Search and view media from nasaimages.org
+ View images with an interactive zoom
+ Watch NASA programs and mission video
+ Bookmark URL’s
+ Send e-mail with URL’s of favorites.
Direct Link to NASA Images (via iTunes)
Source: nasaimages.org
Posted in Resources, Science | No Comments »
Thursday, November 5th, 2009
Webcast: Preserving OSTI’s Printed Archive
A three minute video from the Office of Scientific and Technical Information at the U.S. Department of Energy.
Here’s the Blurb:
The American public has invested billions of dollars in the atomic energy and subsequent related programs. This investment has mostly been in the form of the printed page. OSTIs historical preservation is described.
Direct to “Printed Archive” Video (via YouTube)
Direct to OSTI YouTube Channel
Direct to OSTI Home Page
While print preservation is essential, OSTI is home to many free online databases including:
+ Science Accelerator
+ Science.gov (Content from Many Government Databases, Search Tecnology from OSTI)
+ WorldWideScience (Global in Scope)
+ Information Bridge: DOE Scientific and Technical Information (Includes over 210K Full Text Documents)
+ DOE Data Explorer
+ Energy Citations Database
+ E-print Network
+ Several Others Linked on the OSTI Home Page
Source: OSTI
Posted in Databases, Directories, and Guides, Government Documents and Political Information, Preservation/Conservation, Print Publications, Resources, Science | No Comments »
Monday, November 2nd, 2009
The new blog is titled “Inside Adams.” LC’s Adams Building is the the Science, Technology, and Business Division (ST&B) is located. ResourceShelf welcome Inside Adams to the blogosphere. Kudos!
From a News Release:
The Science, Technology, and Business Division of the Library of Congress has launched a new blog, Inside Adams. Inside Adams will point readers to the Library’s large and diverse collections of books, journals, prints, photographs, digital collections, finding aids, and Webcasts related to science, technology, and business. This blog will give us the opportunity to highlight the bibliographies, research guides, and special pages that have been developed by staff, as well as share the history, art, and architecture of the John Adams Building
More in the first Inside Adams Post
Source: LC
See Also: Inside Adams has an RSS feed available here.
Posted in Business and Economics, Libraries and Librarianship, Science, Social Media | No Comments »
Saturday, October 31st, 2009
Using the Calculator on this Page you can:
+ Convert Temperatures from Fahrenheit to Celsius and Celsius to Fahrenheit
+ Calculate Windchill
See Also: Windchill Chart
+ Calculate Relative Humidity
+ Calculate Heat Index
See Also: Heat Index Chart
+ Wind Speed Conversion (mph; knots; m/s; ft/s; km/h
+ Station Pressure
Source: National Weather Service, Peachtree City, GA
Posted in Reference Tools, Resources, Science | No Comments »
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009
On Sunday, we posted that NASAimages.org had added a bunch of new imagery from several NASA sources.
Yesterday, a helpful guide to searching and finding with NASAimages.org was made available on the site’s blog.
The post includes discussions of:
+ Simple Keyword Searching
+ Advanced Search
+ Narrowing Search Results
+ Browsing
Don’t forget that NASAimages.org also contains video material.
NASAimages.org is made available via a partnership between NASA and the Internet Archive. More about the project here.
Sources: NASAimages.org Blog
Posted in Databases, Directories, and Guides, Science, Search News, Search Tools | No Comments »
Sunday, October 25th, 2009
In August of this year we made NASA Images our Resource of the Week.
NASA Images is a joint production of NASA and the Internet Archive. Both organizations are working together to create a single searchable resource where all NASA image, video, and audio collections can be accessed.
During October, NASA Images added over 4,000 images from:
+ Ames Research Center image library
+ Dryden Flight Research Center
+ NASA’s Featured Image Collection
+ Goddard Space Flight Center
+ Ares I-X Rocket
Source: NASAimages.org Blog
Posted in Databases, Directories, and Guides, Resources, Science | No Comments »
Friday, October 23rd, 2009
From an Email Newsletter:
Elsevier metadata for SCOPUS and ScienceDirect collections from 2006 to the present have now been indexed in WorldCat.org search results. This article-level metadata joins similar content such as the GPO Monthly Catalog, ArticleFirst, Medline, ERIC and the British Library Inside Serials. The ScienceDirect content corresponds to 1,800 journals, 150 book series and more than 1.3 million records.
Source: OCLC
See Also: A June, 2006 Review of Scopus by Peter Jacso
Posted in Databases, Directories, and Guides, Information Industry, Science | No Comments »
Thursday, October 22nd, 2009
From a Blog Post:
The Wikipedia entry for “neuroscience” looks all right at first glance, but after attending a session on Monday, I knew otherwise. Two enthusiastic scientists turned Wikipedia Academy volunteers, Bill Wedemeyer and Tim Vickers, explained that Wikipedia articles get grades for completeness and readability and that the “neuroscience” article earns only a middling grade.
[Snip]
The Society for Neuroscience (SfN) thinks Wikipedia neuroscience ought to be better and has called for its members to edit Wikipedia, working on the premise that the more the public knows about neuroscience, the more votes and dollar support they’ll throw behind research and the more bright people will want to work in the field. Vickers said that as the Internet’s seventh most visited site and most people’s first stop for information, Wikipedia is a public outreach powerhouse.
[Snip]
But even if editing Wikipedia is the right thing to do, scientists may have good reasons for not wanting to get involved. Neuroscientist Chris Lossin of UC Davis pointed out that editing a Wikipedia article is time-consuming, and young scientists need to spend their time publishing articles for their tenure files. And until there’s a way to give scientists legitimate credit for their work, editing Wikipedia may seem like charity.
Source: Findings (Science Magazine)
Posted in Science, Social Media | No Comments »
