Entries for July 2006

July 31, 2006

Google & ACS Trademark Case

According to CNET News.com, the Google Scholar trademark case ends with the American Chemical Society.

ACS, which was founded in 1876 and claims to be the world's largest scientific society, sued Google in 2004. The suit claimed that the free "Google Scholar" journal-search service unfairly competes with ACS' "SciFinder Scholar," which appears to be more comprehensive but charges a fee.

July 30, 2006

50 Top Science Blogs

Nature.com explored the top 5 science blogs, according to Technorati ranking, and asked the writers about their success.

Related items:

• Top 50 Popular Science Blogs - Written by Scientists
• Top 5 Popular Science Blogs - Written by Writers
• Nature Newsblog with discussion of story, including corrections and additions

(VIA: The Curious Cat Science & Engineering Blog, July 6, 2006)

July 29, 2006

New Nanotechnology Blog

Nano Test Blog has been created by the Nanotech Briefs magazine and sponsored by Keithley Instruments, Inc. It will focus on electrical testing issues in the field of nanotechnology and micro electromechanical systems (MEMS). It includes links to white papers, articles, and announcements of upcoming events and conferences.

[About Nanotech Briefs]

Nanotech Briefs , launched in January 2004, is a digital (PDF format) magazine from the publishers of NASA Tech Briefs – the country’s largest-circulation design engineering magazine - that provides the best of government, industry, and university nanotech innovations with real-world applications in areas such as electronics, materials, sensors, manufacturing, biomedical, optics/photonics, and aerospace/defense.

July 28, 2006

Open Access Books from Caltech

Caltech has started a depository of open access books by Caltech authors. Subjects include chemistry, economics, geological & planetary sciences, mathematics, and mechanical engineering. The books range from 1959 to 2005.

As of July 23, 2006, some of the books included:

Mathematics:
Abraham, Ralph and Marsden, Jerrold E. (1987) Foundations of Mechanics, Second Edition. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc., Redwood City, CA. ISBN 080530102X

Mechanical Engineering:
Brennen, Christopher Earls (2005) Fundamentals of Multiphase Flow. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 13 978-0-521-84804-6

Brennen, Christopher Earls (1995) Cavitation and Bubble Dynamics. Oxford University Press, New York. ISBN 0195094093

Brennen, Christopher Earls (1994) Hydrodynamics of Pumps. Concepts NREC and Oxford University Press.

Housner, George W. and Hudson, Donald E. (1980) Applied Mechanics Dynamics. California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA.

Housner, George W. and Vreeland, Thad, Jr. (1965) The Analysis of Stress and Deformation. California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA.

Chemistry:
Goddard, William A., III (1986) Nature of the Chemical Bond. California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA.

Langford, Cooper H. and Gray, Harry B. (1966) Ligand Substitution Processes. W. A. Benjamin, Inc., New York.

Roberts, John D. (1961) Notes on Molecular Orbital Calculations. W. A. Benjamin.

Roberts, John D. (1961) An Introduction to the Analysis of Spin-Spin Splitting in High-Resolution Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectra. W. A. Benjamin.

Roberts, John D. (1959) Nuclear Magnetic Resonance: applications to organic chemistry. McGraw-Hill Series in Advanced Chemistry. McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc.

(VIA: Science Resources, May, 8, 2006)

Nationwide Chemical Security Plan

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on June 30 released the National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP), which includes the first nationwide plan to protect U.S. chemical plants and related infrastructures.

According to Chemical & Engineering News (July 3, 2006), sector-specific security plans that complement NIPP and detail the risk management framework will be released within six months.

July 27, 2006

Google Desktop Gadget Contest

Do you have what it takes to create a great Google Desktop Gadget? Have you been waiting for some motivation to prove it? Well, good news -- the Google Desktop Gadget Contest is here to spur you into brilliant action.

The contest runs until August 14, 2006 and, while supplies last, each developer who submits an approved gadget will receive a limited edition Google Desktop Developer T-shirt and have their gadget shown to millions of Google Desktop users around the world. A panel of judges will also award three prizes based on popularity, visual appeal, use of new features and creativity. We'll award $5,000 to the first place winner, $2,000 for second place, and $1,000 for third place.

Chemistry Magazine

Chemistry is a tabloid published for American Chemical Society Members, Student Affiliates, and those interested in learning more about the chemical sciences and the American Chemical Society.

E-Mail, IM & Blog Risks - From the Employer Perspective

On July 11, 2006, the American Management Association (AMA) and the ePolicy Institute have released the results of their 2006 Workplace E-Mail, Instant Messaging & Blog Survey.

Here are a few highlights to raise your interest:

• 24% of organizations have had employee e-mail subpoenaed
• 15% of companies have gone to court to battle lawsuits triggered by employee e-mail
• 26% of employers have terminated employees for e-mail misuse
• Nearly 2% have fired workers for offensive blog content

The AMA summary provides many more details, including highlighting some blogging concerns such as copyright, harassment, or security breaches.

July 26, 2006

Directory of Published Proceedings is Now Free

The InterDok Directory of Published Proceedings (DoPP) database is now available free of charge online. This resource began in print format in 1965. It is particularly useful in identifying hard to find conference literature in the sciences, engineering, medicine, technology, social sciences and humanities. As of today, DoPP maintains over 50,000 records and also provides procurement assistance for any title located in DoPP, with most being available at below publisher list price.

(VIA: KSL Reference Weblog, June 9, 2006)

UT-Austin Nanoelectronics Research Institute in the Works

SiliconValley.com (July 14, 2006) reports that the University of Texas at Austin is looking for funding to start a nanotechnology research institute. See the full article for details.

July 25, 2006

Lost in a Sea of Science Data

Scott Carlson in The Chronicle of Higher Education (June 23, 2006) wrote an article called Lost in a Sea of Science Data. Carlson explores the current and future growth of scientific data, and the role librarians play in its organization, storage, and retrieval.

The Case community can access the full article from the E-Journal Portal. Several of the sources have a one month embargo before the article is available.

Wiki for Podcasts

Podcasting101 is a wiki about podcasting from a library perspective. This wiki was started by Greg Schwartz of the Open Stacks blog.

Snapshot Of The Chemical Industry

Chemical & Engineering News (July 10, 2006) provided a snapshot of employment, finanaces, production, and trade in Facts & Figures Of The Chemical Industry.

(VIA: Quick Picks, July 11, 2006)

July 24, 2006

IEEE Downtime - Saturday, July 29th

On Saturday 29 July, IEEE will release a major system upgrade to the IEEE Xplore digital library.

As a result of this upgrade, users may experience up to 8 hours of downtime beginning at approximately 8:00 EDT.

IEEE Xplore 2.1.4 will be OpenURL compatible, which provides a standardized syntax for organizing bibliographic metadata and identifiers in a URL and transferring data between information services. Links are enabled between unsubscribed content in IEEE Xplore to a library resolver, leading users to appropriate resources within their institution. With this enhancement, librarians can work with commercially available link resolver software to fully enable their publication catalog. OpenURL will be provided in these areas:

• Search results,li>References
• Brief abstracts
• IEEE Book abstracts

Other features of the IEEE Xplore 2.1.4 upgrade include:

• RefWorks and Bibtex format downloadable citations from IEEE AbstractPlus records, search results, and tables of contents
• Monthly lists of each periodical's most-downloaded articles
• Watermarked PDF documents, illustrating the value of your library subscription

This release continues our successful launch of IEEE Xplore 2.0, and incorporates many of the requests we have heard from our customers.

An additional update is planned for release before the end of 2006.

If you have any questions regarding this upgrade, please let us know.

Thank you,
IEEE Online Support
onlinesupport@ieee.org

Harvard Changing Science Education

Inside Higher Ed (July 17, 2006) shares the new the Harvard just completed a report that recommends great changes in how science is taught. The report calls for increased collaboration, switching to a "exploratory laboratory environment" for undergraduates, and an overall structure change in education. The report also recommends switching to a committee approach for allocating research funding and laboratories, instead of individual departments, as this will promote interdisciplinary research.

Read an additional article from the Harvard University Gazette (July 14, 2006). The 97-page preliminary report is also available in PDF to read.

(VIA: Quick Picks, July 17, 2006)

Database Changes Initiated by OhioLINK

From OhioLINK announcement on June 29, 2006:
OhioLINK is constantly striving to provide the strongest portfolio of research resources possible, within our budgetary limitations, to support Ohio higher education

July 23, 2006

Big Money for "Little" Research

C.C. Liu, a chemical engineering professor at Case Western Reserve University, will lead a team studying novel microscopic machines powered by ultra light-sensitive molecules as part of a four-year, $1.3 million grant from the National Science Foundation.

See full article from Crain's Cleveland Business on the web (July 19, 2006).

(VIA: Case Daily, July 20, 2006)

July 22, 2006

Carbon-based Fuel Cell

The Cleveland Plain Dealer (July 18, 2006) shared information on a direct carbon fuel cell that will be tested at the Wright Fuel Cell Group on the Case Western Reserve University campus. The New twist on fuel cells article describes a fuel cell that uses carbon dioxide from the air.

(VIA: Case Daily, July 18, 2006)

July 21, 2006

FREE ONLINE - Building a National Science Digital Library

UPDATE: If you did not participate in the live presentation, the PowerPoint and related materials are available.

---

EDUCAUSE Live! May 8, 2006 1:00 p.m. EDT (12:00 p.m. CDT, 11:00 a.m. MDT, 10:00 a.m. PDT); runs one hour

Your host, Steve Worona, will be joined by Dean Krafft, and the topic will be "Building a National Science Digital Library."

Since 2000, the National Science Digital Library (NSDL) Core Integration team has been creating the infrastructure for a digital library of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics resources. That library now contains more than a million resources from approximately 100 collections. In this talk, Dean Krafft will give a short historical overview of the NSDL and describe the current NSDL community and participants. He will then review the technical underpinnings of NSDL 1.0, a library built on metadata harvesting, and describe some of the challenges encountered. For the past year, the project has been working on NSDL 2.0, a new version of the library built on the Fedora repository architecture. For the last part of the talk, Krafft will describe this new library architecture and explain how it supports creating context for science resources, how it enhances the selection and use of library materials, and what these capabilities mean for the users of the NSDL.

Dean Krafft is currently a senior research associate in computer science at Cornell University, serving primarily as a researcher but also as an IT administrator. On the research side, he is the principal investigator for the National Science Digital Library (NSDL) Project (http://nsdl.org/) at Cornell. Krafft leads the effort to develop key components of the Core Integration Technology for the library and manages the team that maintains the production library services. He works with the other institutions involved in the Core Integration effort to specify, develop, and provide new digital library technologies to the more than a hundred NSF-funded projects involved in the NSDL program.

As an administrator, he serves as director of information technology for computing and information science. He helps provide oversight for the Computer Facilities Support group, represents CIS to the campus-wide IT Managers Council, and focuses on a number of issues including IT policy, software acquisition, and computer security. He received his PhD in computer science from Cornell in 1981.

Grads to Rewrite Engineering Theses

Here is an update to one of my earlier posts. It appears that the students accused of plagiarism will be given a chance to correct their mistakes. According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer (July 21, 2006), a majority of the 37 students have agreed to the terms as established by Ohio University.

Mapping Wireless Networks

MIT's iSPOTS project aims at describing changes in living and working at MIT by mapping the dynamics of the wireless network in real-time. Check out the various graphic representations of wireless usage at MIT. They are hoping this project would lead to analysis tools that other organizations and cities could use.

Are Scientists Forced to Waste Their Time & Expertise?

The Chronicle of Higher Education (July 10, 2006, Scientists spend nearly half their time on administrative tasks, survey finds) shared the results of a study that showed 42% of a scientists research time is used in filling out forms or participating in meetings.

Also, from the study, was the result that academic faculty thought they could save four hours per week with more administrative help. This is in direct competition with actions usually taken by academic institutions or businesses to save money by cutting administrative positions. It makes one ask - are we paying for and providing enough hours for our science researchers to do their best, most cost effective work?

The Case community can access the full article from the E-Journal Portal. Several of the sources have a one month embargo before the article is available.

(VIA: Case Daily, July 10, 2006)

July 20, 2006

Cleveland PD Highlights Case Chemical Engineering Professor

John Funk on December 28, 2005, wrote an article called Inventing Our Destiny - Work is no Small Feat in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. The article highlights Professor Chung-Chiun Liu's team approach to research and invention.

---

The Case community and other OhioLINK users can read Liu's profile and the full article through NewsBank America's Newspaper.

(Updated with new links on July 20, 2006)

Case Doctoral Students Wins AIAA Best Paper Award

Amy Mielke, a doctoral student in the Case Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, was the winner in the Young Professionals category of this year's Northern Ohio American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Best Paper Competition. Her paper, entitled "Rayleigh Scattering Diagnostic for Measurement of Temperature, Velocity, and Density Fluctuation Spectra," was coauthored by Chih-Jen Sung, an associate professor in the department.

(VIA: Case Daily, July 18, 2006)

July 18, 2006

Call for Nominations for the 2008 ACS National Awards

Nominations for 53 national awards administered by the ACS to be presented in 2008 are being solicited. See the full announcement for more details.

July 17, 2006

More IEEE Content

CASE subscribes to IEEE Xplore and thus has access to this new content as described in the following IEEE announcement.

The IEEE this week made available to its online subscribers the earliest issues of its first technology journal, dating back to 1913.

Currently known as "Proceedings of the IEEE," the journal was titled "The Proceedings of the IRE" when it premiered in January of 1913.

The IRE (Institute of Radio Engineers) was one of two predecessor organizations which merged to form the IEEE in 1963.

This week's update brings the first seven years of the title online (1913 - 1919). "Proceedings of the IEEE" issues from 1963 forward were previously available online through the IEEE Xplore digital library. Issues from later years will follow in the coming months.

Papers in the first issue included "A Discussion on Experimental Tests of the Radiation Law for Radio Oscillators," "High Tension Insulators for Radio-Communication," and "Recent Developments in the Work of the Federal Telegraph Company."

"IEEE has made a commitment to digitizing our entire journal backfile, along with past editions of many of our conference publications," said Barbara H. Lange, Director, IEEE Publications Product Line Management and Business Development. "This is a small part of a two-year plan to bring our historic, scholarly content to new generations of researchers and practitioners."

IEEE will continue to digitize the historic backfile of its journals over the coming months.

Upcoming Tangled Bank

Make sure to checkout the next Tangled Bank on July 19, 2006, at Salto Sobrius. Entries to be included can be submitted to host@tangledbank.net.

EPA Scientists Fight for Libraries

Here is an update on my earlier post about the closing of EPA Libraries.

From the Environment News Service (July 7, 2006) comes word that over half of the EPA workforce (10,000 scientists, engineers and other technical specialists) have asked Congress to stop Bush's administration from closing the EPA libraries.

They contend that thousands of scientific studies are being put out of reach, hindering emergency preparedness, anti-pollution enforcement and long-term research, according to the letter released by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

EPA internal studies show that providing full library access saves an estimated 214,000 hours in professional staff time worth some $7.5 million annually, an amount far larger than the total agency library budget of $2.5 million.

July 16, 2006

Electrical & Computer Engineering Honor for Mergler

From the Case Daily (July, 6, 2006):

Eta Kappa Nu, an honor society for electrical and computer engineering students and professionals, recently honored Harry Winston Mergler as an eminent member, the highest level of membership in the organization. In 1957, he joined the faculty of Case Institute of Technology, and in 1973 was appointed to the Leonard Case Chair in Electrical Engineering, where he served until 1989. Professor Mergler's teaching and research specialty is the digital logic design as applied to embedded control networks in machine-tool controls, aeronautical instrumentation, and industrial control processes. He is the author of the book Methods in Digital Logic Design.

July 15, 2006

Virtual Skies Tutorials

The Virtual Skies website was developed by NASA Ames Education Division and is funded in part by Aviation Operations Systems and the Aerospace Education Coordinating Committee (AECC). It is designed for use by high school teachers and their classes, homeschool teachers and students in grades 9 - 12 as well as aviation enthusiasts (pilots and passengers alike). Within this Web site you will be able to explore the world of air traffic management and learn more about NASA research in aviation operations systems and aviation safety.

It offers the following sections:

• Aviation Weather
• Aviation Research
• Airport Design
• Air Traffic Management
• Navigation
• Communications
• Aeronautics

(VIA: The Scout Report, June 23, 2006)

July 14, 2006

Senate's Science Spending Bill

Inside Higher Ed (July 12, 2006) shared some details about the Senate Commerce, Justice, Science Appropriations Subcommittee approving its spending bill for the 2007 fiscal year.

Highlights include:

• Subcommittee approves 8% increase to bring the National Science Foundation's budget to $6 billion
• House of Representatives passed their version to increase the National Institute of Standards and Technology research budget by 18%, but drop its overall budget by 16%
• The Advanced Technology Program, which provides additional funding for industry to conduct high-risk research, often at universities would get no money in 2007

Read full story for more details.

Chemical & Engineering News also highlighted these developments.

(VIA: Case Daily, July 12, 2006)

Is the Air Force Reading Your Blog?

The Air Force Office of Scientific Research recently began funding a new research area that includes a study of blogs. Blog research may provide information analysts and warfighters with invaluable help in fighting the war on terrorism. Read full announcement from the U.S. Department of Defense.

(VIA: Blogcritics.org, July 8, 2006)

July 13, 2006

New Chair - Case Department of Macromolecular Science & Engineering

The Case School of Engineering has appointed Gary E. Wnek as chair of the Department of Macromolecular Science and Engineering, effective July 1, 2006. Professor Wnek also serves as Case's Joseph F. Toot Jr. Professor of Engineering and faculty director of The Institute for Management and Engineering (TiME). Wnek replaces Alex Jamieson, who returns to the faculty after serving 11 years as chair.

See full story for more details.

(VIA: Case Daily, July 13, 2006)

ICITM 2006 - Call For Papers

CALL FOR PAPERS - International Conference of Information Technology and Management (ICITM2006)
Hong Kong, 11-13 Dec, 2006

Contact: icitm2006@comp.polyu.edu.hk
Paper Submission: csnkliu@comp.polyu.edu.hk or csronnie@comp.polyu.edu.hk
All papers should be submitted online through our conference web site.

IT and management has grown mounting influence in business, industry and education, the conference would like to consolidate most recent research results in information system, knowledge management, commercial intelligence, electronic commerce, E-education application. The area covers the concepts and theories of Information Systems, Industrial applications E-Education and Business Management. The topics varies from software, e-learning, office automation, textile and garment, automobile electronic, logistics, retails, supply chain, financial, accounting banking, lawyer, government, education to media sector. As part of the mission of the Institute of Systems Management is to facilitate the application of the information technology to industrial enterprises, we promote cross-fertilization over interdisciplinary areas of business application and information systems. Our industrial case presentation and tutorial sessions will bridge the gap between academics and practitioners.

Continue reading "ICITM 2006 - Call For Papers"

New Eminent Scholar at Case

Crain's Cleveland Business (July 11, 2006) announced that Dr. Norman Tien, chair of Case’s department of electrical engineering and computer science and Nord Professor of Engineering, was named the Ohio Eminent Scholar in condensed matter physics. See full story for more details.

(VIA: Case Daily, July 12, 2006)

July 12, 2006

Case Engineering Dean Stepping Down

After leading the Case Western Reserve University Case School of Engineering to record highs in fundraising, research expenditures and improved relations with its alumni, Robert F. Savinell will step down as dean effective December 31, 2006, in order to focus on his research in fuel cells and electrochemistry.

See the full announcement for transition details and the accomplishments during Savinell's leadership.

Informing the General Public about Nanotechnology

On October 6, 2005, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has announced a series of initiatives that will greatly expand efforts to inform the general public about nanotechnology, and to explore the implications of that fast-moving field for society as a whole.

The Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network
NSF has selected the Museum of Science, Boston, along with the Science Museum of Minnesota and the Exploratorium in San Francisco, to create and lead this network, which will also include many other science museums and research institutions (partial list below). The $20 million, five-year effort represents the largest single award NSF has given to the science-museum community, and will be a cornerstone of the foundation's multidisciplinary Nanoscale Science and Engineering Education program.

Nanotechnology in Society
NSF has selected the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Arizona State University in Tempe, Ariz., to create two new Centers for Nanotechnology in Society. These centers will support research and education on nanotechnology and social change, as well as educational and public outreach activities, and international collaborations.

In addition, building on previously supported efforts, the foundation has funded nanotechnology-in-society projects at the University of South Carolina and at Harvard University.

TryEngineering.org

TryEngineering.org is a resource for students (ages 8-18), their parents, their teachers and their school counselors. This is a portal about engineering and engineering careers, and we hope it will help young people understand better what engineering means, and how an engineering career can be made part of their future.

[About TryEngineering.org]

Students will find here descriptions of the lifestyles and experiences of engineers, and on the different disciplines within engineering. We provide hands-on experiments and activities, referrals to summer programs and internship opportunities, and search tools for schools that offer engineering programs. Useful tips on course selection, applying to university programs and financial aid are included.

Students can also use this portal to send questions to engineering students in universities and to practicing engineers.

Parents and educators will find here, in addition, teaching resources, information about school accreditation, and description of plans, organizations and programs that can be of help in planning and preparing students to develop a future career in engineering.

This portal is brought to you by engineers and educators, and is a collaboration of engineering associations, industry, and teacher/counselor organizations. We all believe that engineering is an exciting and rewarding profession, and invite you to share in our enthusiasm about this rich and influential discipline.

Sponsors include:

• IBM
• IEEE
• TryScience
• Sloan Career Cornerstone Center
• SAE International
• JETS

July 11, 2006

ChemDB at University of California, Irvine

ChemDB is a public database of small molecules available on the Web. ChemDB is built using the digital catalogs of over a hundred vendors and other public sources and is annotated with information derived from these sources as well as from computational methods, such as predicted solubility and three-dimensional structure. It supports multiple molecular formats and is periodically updated, automatically whenever possible. The current version of the database contains approximately 4.1 million commercially available compounds and 8.2 million counting isomers. The database includes a user-friendly graphical interface, chemical reactions capabilities, as well as unique search capabilities.

Additional information:
ChemDB: a public database of small molecules and related chemoinformatics resources
Jonathan Chen, S. Joshua Swamidass, Yimeng Dou, Jocelyne Bruand, and Pierre Baldi
Bioinformatics 2005 21(22):4133-4139

(Thank you to Gary Wiggins on the Chemical Information Sources Discussion List - CHMINF-L for pointing out this resource.)

Japanese Science Directory

Science Links Japan is a topically arranged directory of online information resources for science and technology in Japan. Japan's scientific and technical information (STI) scattered across or isolated on the Internet have been collected and categorized under major topics. The Website aims to provide ease of access to Japan's STI for non-Japanese researchers, policy makers and many others who need Japan's STI.

Most of the contents come from information generated/compiled in the public sector, such as the government, universities, R&D institutes and STI institutes.

Science Links Japan has been compiled with a sharp focus on URL resources available in the English language. URL resources available only in the Japanese language also have been selected from the viewpoint of comprehensiveness and importance.

July 10, 2006

Physical Sciences Resource Center

The Physical Sciences Resource Center is a collection of information and resources for physical sciences education. You may search the collection by keyword or name, or browse the collection by topic, object type, or grade level.

Topics included:

• Astronomy
• Classical Mechanics
• Education Practices
• Electricity & Magnetism
• Fluid Mechanics
• General Physics
• Modern Physics
• Optics
• Oscillations & Waves
• Other Sciences
• Quantum Physics
• Thermodynamics & Statistical Mechanics

About the PSRC:

The Physical Sciences Resource Center is a web-based databank that provides K-20 teachers links to a wide range of teaching and learning resources in the physical sciences. All materials are classified by their grade level, topic, and activity type, and have descriptions outlining their content. Information about authors, publishers, costs, and copyright is also provided.

July 06, 2006

Chinese Science Funding

The Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog shared news that the National Science Foundation of China will provide 3.4 billion yuan (US $425 million) in funding for basic science, and that the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) celebrated the opening of its Beijing office.

July 05, 2006

Tangled Bank #56

Now for a Tangled Bank hosted by an Engineering Librarian...

General science, biology, and medicine are not my typical subject areas as I usually highlight resources in engineering and electronic resources available from my library. I occasionally branch off into medicine and biology as I support faculty and students conducting research in biomedical engineering.

Good science is important for everyone, and I hope this Tangled Bank promotes further discussion and thoughts, as we explore the science in spacecraft, illness, global warming, butterflies, locust, Star Wars, sex, love, and many other topics.

Outfit a spacecraft with a huge but incredibly lightweight mirror, and it can travel indefinitely, without fuel, at speeds that eventually exceed those of conventional rocket-powered craft. Joe Kissell presents Solar Sails - The next big thing in space travel posted at Interesting Thing of the Day.

Explore some of the research findings that suggest that there is an epigenetic basis to the development of lupus, an autoimmune disease that affects nearly 200 million Americans. Trevor Covert at Epigenetics News shares The Epigenetics of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE).

Jeremy Bruno at The Voltage Gate took a closer look at a recent Oprah show that discussed global warming by looking at a few inaccuracies and the shows reliance on propaganda rather than facts.

GrrlScientist presents Another Origin of Species posted at Living the Scientific Life. This essay describes an elegant Nature paper that investigates the role of homoploid hybridization in creating a new species of butterfly. (Homoploid hybridization is when the parent species and their hybrid offspring all have the same number of chromosomes).

The Different River presents WouldIntroducti