Entries in "General Science" ( for this category only)

Lets go Case Students - Win the Knovel University Challenge

Knovel University Challenge kicks off its spring 2007 season on February 5th and will run through April 5th. The University Challenge provides students the opportunity to master their research and analysis skills while competing for 9 prizes. This year's winners will receive a $1500 scholarship or 1 of 8 iPod Shuffles. The University Challenge, now in its third season, is open to students of hard sciences, mathematics and technology-related courses of study at universities with access to Knovel Library or Knovel K-Essentials.

To participate in the Spring University Challenge, go to http://www.info.knovel.com/challenge/.

Ohio Note:
In Fall of 2006, a University of Cincinnati student won a 30G Video iPod.

Larry Page to Scientists

CNet News.com shares a image of Larry Page, co-founder of Google, speaking to the scientists at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). CNET reported that Page told the scientists to "market them (scientific studies) better and make them readily accessible to the world".

Who Said Scientists are No Longer Using Books?

You often hear discussions that book usage is decreasing. Or more specifically in science and engineering, that no one uses books anymore. These stats for my library were recently shared with me that show science and technology (Q and T) book usage is NOT dead, and actually represents a large piece of the usage pie.

British Library and U.S. Department of Energy Collaborate on Global Science Gateway

British Library and the U.S. Department of Energy announce a collaboration on global science gateway.

Called ‘Science.world,’ the planned resource would be available for use by scientists in all nations and by anyone interested in science. The approach will capitalise on existing technology to search vast collections of science information distributed across the globe, enabling much-needed access to smaller, less well-known sources of highly valuable science. Following the model of Science.gov, the U.S. interagency science portal that relies on content published by each participating agency, ‘Science.world’ will rely on scientific resources published by each participating nation. Other countries have been invited to participate in this international effort.

One may ask why the U.S. Department of Energy is taking a lead role. The Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) has extensive experience in offering searching of distributed, deep web databases, having played a central role in the development of Science.gov, the U.S. government’s one-stop searchable portal to major science databases of federal science agencies.

[VIA: Open Access News, Peter Suber, January 26, 2007]

Google Now in Space

Google has signed an agreement with NASA. The Space Agreement Act will put "the most useful of Nasa's information on the internet". Detailed 3D images of the Moon and Mars will soon be just a click away for web users.

Read the full article for more on Google Moon and Google Mars.

[VIA: BBC NEWS | Technology | Nasa and Google form cosmic union]

National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science

The University of Buffalo's National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science exists to promote and distribute materials to support using case studies in science education. It is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

The website contains links to:

• Science education journals provided by category, such as mathematics or engineering
• Related websites
• Case ideas
• Directory of instructors
• Assessment materials
• Case study collection
• Instructional materials
• Conference highlights

In addition, one of the co-directors is the Associate Librarian of the Science and Engineering Library of the University of Buffalo.

[VIA: The Scout Report -- Volume 12, Number 28]

Go-Geo

Go-Geo! is a tool designed to help you find details about geo-spatial datasets and related resources within Great Britain tertiary education and beyond.

[About Go-Geo!]

Go-Geo! is an online resource discovery tool which allows for the identification and retrieval of records describing the content, quality, condition and other characteristics of geospatial data that exist with UK tertiary education and beyond. The portal supports geospatial searching by interactive map, grid co-ordinates and place name, as well as the more traditional topic or keyword forms of searching. The portal is a key component of the UK academic Spatial Data Infrastructure.

Go-Geo! has been a cooperative effort between EDINA National Data Centre, University of Edinburgh, and the UK Data Archive, University of Essex.

Commons of Science Conference

Science Commons, a project of the non-profit Creative Commons, is the sponsor and organizer of the Commons of Science Conference. Our goal is to promote innovation in science by lowering the legal and technical costs of the sharing and reuse of scientific work. We remove unnecessary obstacles to scientific collaboration by creating voluntary legal regimes for research and development.

The Conference is an invitation-only gathering of scientists, policy makers, and commons advocates who are actively interested in designing ways to make access to scientific data more widely available and more transparent across all scientific disciplines. Anyone is welcome to read the Background information, Vision Papers, or browse the list of Conference participants.

At the conclusion of the conference, audio recordings of the Conference presentations as well as presentation slides will be available on the Program page, and any recommendations arrived at during the Conference will also be posted on this site.

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Science Commons serves the advancement of science by removing unnecessary legal and technical barriers to scientific collaboration and innovation.

Built on the promise of Open Access to scholarly literature and data, Science Commons identifies and eases key barriers to the movement of information, tools and data through the scientific research cycle.

Our long term vision is to provide more than just useful contracts. We will combine our publishing, data, and licensing approaches to develop solutions for a truly integrated and streamlined research process.

Rediscovering Archimedes Writings

Stanford University researchers are using X-ray to reveal the 10th century mathematic writings of Archimedes that were erased and hidden by a Christian monk's prayers. See the full story for details how.

[VIA: Wired News, August, 05, 2006]

BMC - Summary of Biomedical Funding Agency Policies on Open Access

BioMed Central has compiled a summary of the open access policies of different biomedical funders, linking to official policy statements from those funders where available.

More EPA Libraries Close

Earlier I shared that EPA Libraries were suffering severe budget cuts and that the EPA workforce was protesting such closings.

American Libraries Online (September 15, 2006) has summarized the closings and other cuts through August and September. These cuts may be devastating to government-sponsored environmental research and protection.

OAIster - Digital Collections from Hundreds of Institutions

OAIster is a project of the University of Michigan Digital Library Production Service. Their goal is to create a collection of previously difficult-to-access, academically-oriented digital resources that are easily searchable by anyone.

As of September 2, 2006, OAIster contained 8,995,140 records from 670 institutions. Users can search these records by keyword, title, author, subject, or language, while limiting by media type. Users can also browse by institution.

More Open Access Books from Caltech

Caltech has offered more open access books since my initial post. Thanks to Dana Roth (Caltech, Chemistry Librarian) for the update.

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.

New chemistry books include:

• Carl J. Ballhausen and Harry B. Gray, Molecular orbital theory: an introductory lecture note and reprint volume, 1965
• Roberts, John D. and Stewart, Ross and Caserio, Marjorie C., Organic chemistry: methane to macromolecules, 1971

Grant Money Reinstated for Evolutionary Biology

WASHINGTON, Aug. 31 (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of Education has reinstated evolutionary biology to a federal grant list for undergraduate studies.

"There are well-funded efforts in this country that have been inappropriately attempting to attack the teaching of evolutionary biology on what appear to be religious grounds," physicist Lawrence Krauss of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland wrote to the Department of Education.

[VIA: Case Daily - September 01, 2006]

Center for Science in the Public Interest

The Center for Science in the Public Interest has been a strong advocate for nutrition and health, food safety, alcohol policy, and sound science. Its award-winning newsletter, Nutrition Action Healthletter, is the largest-circulation health newsletter in North America, providing reliable information on nutrition and health.

Resources focused in these subject areas:

• Alcohol Policy
• Biotechnology
• Eating Green
• Food Safety
• Integrity in Science
• Nutrition Policy

(VIA: The Scout Report, July 21, 2006, Volume 12, Number 29)

Science Play Comes of Age

The Scientist in the article Science Plays Come of Age explores the art of scientific storytelling with Lauren Gunderson - a playwright, screenwriter, short story author and actor based in Atlanta, GA.

My career as a science playwright started when I asked my undergraduate physics professor to let me write a play instead of a term paper. Luckily he agreed, and the result was a time-twisting play called Background, based on cosmologist Ralph Alpher. Unexpectedly, the play not only satisfied my physics professor, it went on to receive awards and inspire productions across the country.

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)

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)

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)

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.

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)

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.

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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.

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)

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 Protest Library Closures

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.

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)

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)

Japanese Science Portal

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.

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.

China and USA - Basic Science Research

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.

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 Would You Donate Your Virginity to Science. The New England Journal of Medicine just published a paper by a group of researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle studying whether condom use affected the probability of infection with Human Papillomavirus Infection (HPV). The Different River explores the ethics of how the study was conducted as female college virgins were located to record their first sexual experiences.

Rachel Ann presents Locust, Star Wars and Crashing Cars posted at Willow Tree. Explore how Star Wars was used to research the ability of locust to avoid collisions, and how the resulting research can be used to make automobiles safer.

Hsien-Hsien Lei wrote Imprinted Genes Altered in IVF Embryos at Genetics and Health. Scientists reported that mice embryos resulting from in vitro fertilization could have genetic abnormalities due to different culture media and concentrations of oxygen.

Love is one of the most confusing and wonderful parts of life. There is perhaps no subject about which so many stories, songs, and poems have been written. Paul at Paul's Tips presents Scientific proof that we all need love.

Learn how nurse plants help other plants become established in the restoration of degraded ecosystems and what this tells us about ecological communities. Shared by Jane Shevtsov at Perceiving Wholes.

Christopher Birkbeck explores how small man is in this universe at See You at Enceladus.

David Wheat at Science in Action asks "Why is Urine Yellow?".

A tale of scientific discovery - some cases of obesity are likely caused by a virus. Monado presents Obesity is a virus? posted at Science Notes.

Time for a little archaeology with Martin Rundkvist at Salto sobrius. He reports from a recent conference on Roman Period war booty sacrifices in Denmark and Germany.

The Evil Monkey at Neurotopia (version 2.0) suggested two uniques items, so I decided to offer both. First look at "pseudoscientific nonsense" with Of Sweet Potatoes, Social Cognition, and Spiritual Hullabaloo. Next, Evil Monkey explores how PDE-5 Inhibitor Sildenafil Improves Cognition, or Viagra's Good for the Big Head Too.

Ruth Schaffer at The Biotech Weblog shared information on an oral supplement to counteract Celiac Disease. Celiac Disease (CD) is an autoimmune digestive disorder characterized by an immunologically toxic reaction to the ingestion of gluten which can be found in wheat, rye, and barley.

Jacob Tennessen wrote about a foray into the field with a bat ecologist at the Salamander Candy.

David Ng shares a short commentary on the perception of scientists in the photography and film world at The World's Fair.

Carel Brest van Kempen at Rigor Vitae wonders why a recent announcement of the discovery of a color-changing snake by WWF is news when it was first documented in the mid-90's.

Nick Anthis, as someone who regularly performs NMR experiments, he knows that NMR generally involves long hours in a dark basement. If he could instead perform his experiments while also enjoying a day out at the park, it would make the field infinitely more attractive for others. At The Scientific Activist, Anthis highlights a recent study that proves that this may be possible…or does it?

Cathy Davies at the Lab Cat looks at water chemistry and hydrogen bonding. The graphics are great. Davies also puts out a call for chemistry bloggers, specifically food chemists, by introducing people to food chemistry in her post.

(UPDATE: This blog may be dead as 9/3/06 when I was clearing dead links from my blog.) Dan Rhoads at Migrations revisits a 2003 essay by Daniel Yankelovich, called Winning Greater Influence for Science, which calls for a greater role for scientists as political advocates, not merely specialized advisors, in the interest of bridging the divide between science and the public in politics.

At the Fight Aging! blog, a post draws a parallel between the current growth in biotechnology and that of computer hobbyists beginning in the 1970's.

PZ Myers at Pharyngula shows us what we can learn from octupus brains.

At Thoughts from Kansas, Josh Rosenau shares the excitement of meteorites found in rural Kansas, and the related festival with its invasion by creationists.

Coturnix at A Blog Around the Clock writes about a recent study on the molecular mechanism underlying circadian rhythms in mammals. In addition, A Blog Around the Clock has a guest blogger in Kevin Messenger that is writing about his herpetological field research in remote areas of China.

Jake Young presents Can women generate oocytes late into life? posted at Pure Pedantry.

Tangled Bank Host on July 5th

UPDATE: Here is the Tangled Bank I am hosting.

I will be hosting the Tangled Bank on July 5th. Submit items by email.

Film Cameras Lose to New Technologies

CNET News.com on May 25, 2006, took a look at various film cameras following the announcement that Nikon and Canon will no longer be developing film cameras.

Chemistry Between Women & Science

The Chronicle of Higher Education (Volume 52, Issue 38, Page A10, May 26, 2006), in an article called The Chemistry Between Women & Science, interviewed three women about their career paths and why so few women are in academic science careers.

(VIA: Quick Picks, May 29, 2006)

Art of Science: 2006 Online Gallery

Princeton University collected images — and, for the first time, videos and sounds — produced in the course of research or incorporating tools and concepts from science to form the 2006 Art of Science Exhibition.

(VIA: Quick Picks, June 3, 2006)

Isaac Newton's "Alchemical Notebooks" Available Online

The Chymistry of Isaac Newton is producing a scholarly online edition of Newton's alchemical manuscripts integrated with new research on Newton's chymistry. To date, about seven hundred pages have been transcribed and encoded in TEI/XML. Of these, roughly six hundred have been edited and are available online, including Newton's Most Complete Laboratory Notebook.

Isaac Newton, like Albert Einstein, is a quintessential symbol of the human intellect and its ability to decode the secrets of nature. Newton's fundamental contributions to science include the quantification of gravitational attraction, the discovery that white light is actually a mixture of immutable spectral colors, and the formulation of the calculus. Yet there is another, more mysterious side to Newton that is imperfectly known, a realm of activity that spanned some thirty years of his life, although he kept it largely hidden from his contemporaries and colleagues. We refer to Newton's involvement in the discipline of alchemy, or as it was often called in seventeenth-century England, "chymistry."

(VIA: Librarian In Black, April 14, 2006)

Improving Science Education in the U.S.

Nudging the NSF on Education
Inside Higher Ed
May 4, 2006

American science and math competitiveness couldn’t be a hotter topic in Congress right now if it were made in a fusion reactor.

Proposed legislation would have the National Science Foundation get to work on cultivating science and engineering majors at the college level, and providing extensive professional development for pre-college science teachers.

The leglisation includes funding for science and engineering departments at universities to create training programs for school teachers, improvements in undergraduate instruction in sciences, and scholarships.

Science & Society Picture Library

The Science & Society Picture Library (SSPL) represents over a million images from the Science Museum, the National Museum of Photography, Film & Television and the National Railway Museum. It contains over 50,000 digitised images. The collections include 4000 personalities, the Daily Herald and Manchester Daily Express archives, and the work of Julia Margaret Cameron, William Henry Fox Talbot and Tony Ray-Jones.

SSPL now has over 150 image collections from both within and outside the museums' core collections. These contain over 70,000 online records, including over 40,000 digital images.

Images are organized by category. For example, explore the "Science & Technology" category.

Be aware though. Images are for purchase as demonstrated by their copyright statement.

All materials on this web site are subject to the laws of copyright. You may not use, copy, publish or distribute the images or any part of the images in any way whatsoever. In addition, you may not remove the image identification mark or alter, manipulate, add to or delete an image or any part of an image without permission. Copyright in all the images remains with the Science & Society Picture Library and the collections it represents. By entering the site through one of the buttons, you are indicating that you have read and accepted the above conditions.

National Institutes of Health: Office of Science Education

The Office of Science Education (OSE) coordinates science education activities at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and develops and sponsors science education projects in house. These programs serve elementary, secondary, and college students and teachers and the public. Users can explore the content by subject area, grade level, or format.

Students might find the career resources quite helpful when looking for an internship or job.

See About Us for more information.

(VIA: The Scout Report, Volume 12, Number 20, May 19, 2006)

EEVL - Changes

From the middle of 2006 there will be some major changes to the current service. As you may know, EEVL is one of a number of Internet subject gateways that together form the Resource Discovery Network (RDN).

As a result of a detailed planning and consultation process, the RDN service is currently undergoing extensive re-structuring and re-branding. The purpose of this exercise is to create a new more consolidated service with closer integration of subject areas, and to provide a single interface for our users.

The current eight subject gateways will be re-organised to create four major subject groups:

• Arts and Humanities (bringing together Artifact and Humbul)
• Science, Engineering, Technology (bringing together EEVL, GEsource and PSIgate)
• Health and Life Sciences (BIOME)
• Social Sciences (Bringing together Altis and SOSIG)

(Via: STLQ, May 9, 2006, TechXtra - A New Resource for Searching in Engineering, Mathematics, and Computing)

Science & Engineering State Profiles: 2003-04

The Division of Science Resources Statistics (SRS) of the National Science Foundation (NSF) publishes Science and Engineering State Profiles annually. The 2003–04 report, published only on the Web, includes a data source page and a set of 52 one-page science and engineering (S&E) profiles (in Excel) that summarize state-specific data on personnel and finances. Rankings and totals are for the 50 states; Washington, DC; and Puerto Rico.

I have included a portion of Ohio's statistics.

(Via: ResourceShelf, May 9, 2006)

Top 10 Sources

Top 10 Sources is a directory of sites developed to highlight the most relevant content on the Web as distributed by RSS feeds. The editors of Top 10 Sources search blogs, podcasts, wikis, news sites, and every kind of syndicated sources online for the best material. The lists are updated frequently and organized my subject categories. Several categories exist in science and technology, such as science news, controversial science, and thinkers of the web.

(Via: Librarian In Black, April 9, 2006)

Podcasts from the U.S. Government

The U.S. Government has made various podcasts available. From a science and technology perspective, user can listen to NASA Science Feature Stories, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) News and Feature Stories, or the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Research and Development News. Others exist as well, so make sure to explore the full directory to satisfy your interests in various subject areas..

Journal@rchive - Electronic Archive Initiative

Journal@rchive is an archive site of J-STAGE operated by the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST). On Journal@rchive, academic journals scanned through the Electronic Archive Initiative are released from their first issues, including those issued in the 19th century. The Initiative commenced by JST in FY2005 aiming at two goals: (1) to preserve of academic heritages of Japan, and (2) to further promote worldwide distribution of Japanese research results.

[About J-STAGE - Introduction]

In order to maintain and develop Japan's science and technology research at an international level, it is important to disseminate outstanding research and development results to the world instantaneously. To that end, it is important to computerize bulletins of academic societies and research papers that are currently appeared on paper by user organizations and release them to the appearance on the Internet.

In order to support the information transmission function of user organizations, the "Japan Science and Technology Information Aggregator, Electronic" (J-STAGE), developed by Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), set up the hardware and software necessary for electronic journal release within JST to provide services 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. By taking advantage of the hardware and software, the user organizations are able to computerize bulletins of academic societies and research papers currently appeared with ease and at low cost. Computerrized documents can be accessed from anywhere in the world with this system. This project also links up with the National Institute of Informatics (formerly the Ministry of Education National Center for Science Information Systems (NACSIS)).

Minority Degrees in Science, Technology, Engineering & Math

Increasing the Success of Minority Students in Science and Technology by the American Council on Education (ACE) on April, 3, 2006

African American and Hispanic students begin college interested in majoring in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields at rates similar to those of white and Asian-American students, and persist in these fields through their third year of study, but do not earn their bachelor’s degrees at the same rate as their peers, according to a new analysis conducted by the American Council on Education (ACE).

See full press release for more data.

(Originally shared on the Curious Cat Science & Engineering Blog on April, 21, 2006.)

[About ACE]

Founded in 1918, the American Council on Education (ACE) is the nation's unifying voice for higher education. ACE serves as a consensus leader on key higher education issues and seeks to influence public policy through advocacy, research, and program initiatives. See more at About ACE.

Take an "Open Book" Quiz to win a Video iPod

Take the Knovel University Challenge!

Take an "Open Book" Quiz...Knovel Style! You Could Win a 30G Video iPod! Answer all 5 questions on the entry correctly and you could win a 30G Video iPod! (Hint: Use www.knovel.com!)

Only complete entries will be eligible to win. This contest is open to current students in all schools with trials and subscriptions to the Knovel Service. One entry per person. The contest starts today, 4/19/06. You have until (midnight) Wednesday, May 31 to submit your answers and contact information (full name, school, mailing address, email address, and time to complete) via the link at www.info.knovel.com/ipod/.

All entries with a total of 5 correct answers will be placed into a random drawing for the 30G Video iPod, which will take place on June 1, 2006. The Prize will be awarded to one entrant in the US, one entrant in Asia, one entrant in Europe and one entrant in all other regions. All winners must present correct answers to all 5 quiz questions.

The winners will be contacted by Knovel Corporation.

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Case does subscribe to Knovel, so use this as a chance to explore what you are missing.

BioMed Central Journals Have RSS Feeds

BioMed Central offers RSS feeds for each of their journals.

[What is BioMed Central?]

BioMed Central is an independent publishing house committed to providing immediate open access to peer-reviewed biomedical research. Read more here...

NY York Times - Science & Technology RSS Feeds

New York Times offers various RSS feeds. You may want to check out the Science RSS or Technology RSS feeds.

American Chemical Society Journals - RSS Feeds

Each of the American Chemical Society journals offer RSS feeds that include their Articles ASAP and complete Table of Contents.

The Library of Congress: Webcasts

The Library of Congress has made over 300 webcasts available in a variety of topics. The site includes talks, discussions, and conferences, plus webcasts from the National Book Festival. Subject categories include biography & history, culture & performing arts, education, government, poetry & literature, religion, and science & technology.

Examples of science & technology webcasts include:

• Got Game
• Chemical Warfare from WWI to Al-Qaeda
• Dawn of the Space Age
• Science, Ethics and the Law
• Cutting Edge Research

(Originally highlighted by The Scout Report, January 27, 2006 - Volume 12, Number 4)

Wikipedia versus Encyclopedia Britannica

UPDATE:
Encylopedia Britannica has struck back at the Nature study described below. The 20-page PDF points out all the inaccuracies in the study.

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On December 15, 2005, BBC News discussed the research conducted by the British journal Nature (v.438, pages 900-901, December 15, 2005) that looked at the accuracy of Wikipedia versus the Encyclopedia Britannica. The article, called Wikipedia Survives Research Test, specifically focused on the accuracy as it relates to scientific entries. The reviewers looked at articles from both sources, but were not told of their origin.

• 4 major conceptual errors were found in each
• Factual errors, omissions or misleading statements: 162 in Wikipedia and 123 in Britannica
• Reviewers found that Wikipedia entries were often poorly structured and confused

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For the Case community:
The Nature article can be accessed directly.
The Encyclopedia Britannica Online is also available.

Science Magazine Offers RSS Feed

Science Magazine offers several RSS Feeds, including table of contents, "this week in Science", podcasts, and ScienceCareers.

New Scientist Offers RSS Feeds

The New Scientist offers various RSS feeds, including breaking news, subject-specific, and special reports.

For the Case community, the New Scientist is available in the Kelvin Smith Library or electronically from various sources.

Contest - Writings about the Best of Technology (2006)

The University of Michigan Library and the University of Michigan Press has put out a call for tech-oriented articles, essays, and blog posts from the previous year.

The competition is open to any and every technology topic--biotech, information technology, gadgetry, tech policy, Silicon Valley, and software engineering are all fair game. But the pieces that have the best chances of inclusion in the anthology will conform to these three simple guidelines:

• They'll be engagingly written for a mass audience; if the article requires a doctorate to appreciate, it's probably not up our alley. Preference will be given to narrative features and profiles, "Big Think" op-eds that make sense, investigative journalism, sharp art and design criticism, intelligent policy analysis, and heartfelt personal essays.
• They'll be no longer than 5,000 words.
• They'll explore how technological progress is reshaping our world.

The nominations must have been published in 2005 and be submitted by the deadline of March 31, 2006. See Best of Technology Writing 2006 for more information.

(Originally shared by the LJ Tech Blog on March, 24, 2006)

EPA Libraries to Close?

UPDATE:
The Virtual Chase Research News (March 23, 2006) shared information on the start of the EPA library closings. According to FCW.com, the Midwest Regional Library is already preparing for closure. The current plan calls for warehousing the materials as the EPA has "not allocated funds for moving collections to other libraries or digitizing the holdings to post online". I wonder how the additional research funding will be used to accomplish anything significant if the old research and other information will not be available for consultation? I guess the government would rather spend money to repeat existing research or work very slow as library assistance is not available.

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Original Post (February 20, 2006):
In what can be a devastating move, George Bush's proposed budget will close down the Environmental Protection Agency's library network and its online catalog that serves the government's scientists and the public. It sounds as if they hope to maintain several of the libraries. Of greatest concern is the uniqueness of the online catalog and the over 50,000 documents only available through the EPA's library network.

What confuses me most about this move by the current administration is that they are willing to increase funding for and promotion of new and future EPA research. I guess the scientists are expected to conduct research with either no, poor, or limited information.

Read more here.

[About EPA Libraries]

The EPA Library Network, established in 1971, is composed of libraries in the Agency's Headquarters, Regional and Field Offices, Research Centers, and specialized laboratories located throughout the country. The combined network collection contains a wide range of general information on environmental protection and management; basic sciences such as biology and chemistry; applied sciences such as engineering and toxicology; and extensive coverage of topics featured in legislative mandates such as hazardous waste, drinking water, pollution prevention, and toxic substances. Several of the libraries maintain collections focused on special topics to support specific Regional or Program Office Projects. The Library Network provides access to its collections through the Online Library System (OLS), a web-based database of the library holdings. The OLS offers author, title, and keyword access to documents and makes it possible to retrieve information relevant to almost every request.

The National Library Network Program provides leadership and direction for the libraries, ensuring their support of the Agency's mission. The Program provides a wide range of services to the EPA libraries, facilitating communications, networking and resource sharing, and provides technical assistance on all aspects of library management.

Do You Need an Electronic Lab Notebook?

The Scientist (March 1, 2006) explores the reasons why electronic lab notebooks are finding their way into academia and why they are becoming more of a neccessity than an option.

LearnOutLoud - Free Audio & Video Resources

LearnOutLoud is a "one-stop destination for audio and video learning" and does provide free audio and video listings. Several hundred items are listed, including 80 science and 61 technology items.

Here are some of the science & technology audio or video files you can enjoy:

• Dr. Sylvia Nasar, author of "A Beautiful Mind"
• Nanotubes
• Tissue Engineering, The Challenges of Imitating Nature
• Software Breakthroughs by Bill Gates
• Biotechnology - Will It Create a New Industry?

[About LearnOutLoad]

Our mission is simple. We want to promote the use of audio and video educational material for personal and professional development. What does this means? It means that we want to help you to see how you can turn 'dead time' (time spent commuting, exercising, doing chores, etc.) into 'learning time.' Most of us have at least a couple of hours each day where we could be learning a foreign language, deepening our spiritual or philosophical interests or learning about any of hundreds of different subjects. We want to help you find material that is both entertaining and educational. (Read more...)

University Channel - Public Affairs Lectures

The University Channel is a collection of public affairs lectures, panels and events from academic institutions all over the world. A science category does exist and contains materials like stem cell research, nanotechnology, and global warming. The site does offer RSS and podcast feeds to stay current of new content.

[About University Channel]

The University Channel makes videos of academic lectures and events from all over the world available to the public. It is a place where academics can air their ideas and present research in a full-length, uncut format. Contributors with greater video production capabilities can submit original productions. (Read more...)

Academic Research - Physical Space at the Cost of Education

Academic-Research Space Expands While Science-Education Needs Deepen
By JEFFREY BRAINARD (Friday, February 24, 2006)

Various highlights:

• Universities built more research space on their campuses in 2002 and 2003 than at any time since 1988
• In 1991 federal funds paid for 16 percent of new construction of lab space, but by 2003 that figure had fallen to 5 percent
• See full article for various employment trends as well

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.

arXiv.org e-Print Archive

Hosted by Cornell University, arXiv.org is an e-print service in the fields of physics, mathematics, non-linear science, computer science, and quantitative biology. As of February 27, 2006, it contained over 350,000 e-prints. The major subject categories are broken down into more specific subjects that allow the user to find papers of relevance to their research. Abstracts can be viewed in html and the full papers are available in PDF. RSS feeds are available for individual archives and categories.

Development of the First Periodic Table

Here is a resource that shares information on the development of Mendeleev's First Periodic Table. It also has links to some several extra items, such as a picture of Mendeleev and a draft of his first table.

What are the Worst Jobs in Science?

John Galvin gives us his top ten worst jobs in science (The Worst Jobs in Science, Popular Science, October 2005). I will not give share the results here, but the list starts with "Orangutan-Pee Collector" and gets worse from there?

National Climatic Data Center

The National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) is the nation's source for climate information and data.

[About NCDC]

NCDC is the world's largest active archive of weather data. NCDC produces numerous climate publications and responds to data requests from all over the world. NCDC operates the World Data Center for Meteorology which is co-located at NCDC in Asheville, North Carolina, and the World Data Center for Paleoclimatology which is located in Boulder, Colorado.

NCDC supports a three tier national climate services support program - the partners include: NCDC, Regional Climate Centers, and State Climatologists.

(Highlighted by the The Internet Scout Report, February 17, 2006, Volume 12, Number 7)

Science Career Portal

The Science magazine provides a career portal that includes various resources. ScienceCareers.org includes:

• Job search engine
• Funding information, such as a list of grants
• Career development articles
• Directory of events, meetings, & conferences

[About Science Careers]

ScienceCareers.org is dedicated to being the world leader in matching qualified scientists with jobs in industry, academia and government. We are committed to providing all the necessary career resources for scientists as well as effective recruiting solutions for employers. Our mission supports the AAAS's (American Association for the Advancement of Science) commitment to furthering careers in science and technology.

The Case community can access the Science magazine from the E-Journal Portal.

AAAS Annual Meeting

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) will hold it annual meeting February 16-20, 2006, in St. Louis, Missouri. The conference web site provides additional information.

Join thousands of top scientists and science policy experts, along with educators, students, families, journalists and others, and plan to attend the 2006 meeting. Choose from a fascinating menu of events, from a two-day nanotechnology seminar to popular Family Science Days, and from a special day-long examination of the challenges faced by mathematicians to a seminar on virtual worlds and the video game industry.

Other symposia will focus on some of the most pressing science and technology issues of our time, including climate change, the threat of bio-terrorism, the ethics of neuroscience, the effect of environmental toxins on child health and the need to identify and nurture young scientists and engineers.

[About AAAS]

The American Association for the Advancement of Science, ”Triple A-S” (AAAS), is an international non-profit organization dedicated to advancing science around the world by serving as an educator, leader, spokesperson and professional association. In addition to organizing membership activities, AAAS publishes the journal Science, as well as many scientific newsletters, books and reports, and spearheads programs that raise the bar of understanding for science worldwide.

R&D Budget Cutback Worries US Scientists

Knowledgespeak Newsletter (January 4, 2006)

The US Congress has announced that defence and space projects will account for most increases in the $135 billion federal R&D budget next year. This has created a fear among the scientific community, who worry that the nation, which has traditionally invested heavily in technological growth, is trying to cut edges in the field. The government’s move will translate into several scientists, universities and institutions having to struggle for new funds or curtail existing and proposed projects.

[Full Article]

Ben Franklin Web Portal - Powered by Clusty

Thanks to the recent Research Newsletter (January 19, 2005) of the CASE Office of Student Projects, we get word of a new Ben Franklin web portal.

Ben Franklin Web Portal Brings the Man to the Masses (NSF Press Release 06-006, January 9, 2006)

In time for the 300th anniversary of Benjamin Franklin's birth, a Web portal (http://ben.clusty.com) based on clustering technology is offering a new method to separate useful Franklin facts from the normal flood of online information.
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Franklin was an important figure not only in U.S. history, but also for science and engineering. From studies of electricity, weather and ocean currents to his development of the lightning rod, double spectacles (bifocals) and the odometer, many of his innovations and discoveries were groundbreaking.

The NSF release talks about the web portal's development with information on Vivisimo, Clusty, and the related NSF grant.

Digitization of AMNH's Scientific Publications

The American Museum of Natural History Library announced the digitization of the museum's roster of scientific publications. They are freely available and searchable through a DSpace platform.

So far the following publications are available:

• American Museum Novitates
• Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History
• Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History
• Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History

(Courtesy of the Rowland Institute Library Blog and the American Scientist Open Access Forum)

The Scientist - Now with a Blog & Podcasts

The Scientist, available to the Case community in print through the Health Center Library (HCL), now offers various improvements at The Scientist web site. Thanks to the Science Library Pad blog we have word of new podcasts and blog.

Do Federal Grant Programs Have a Gender Bias?

The RAND Corporation conducted research supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to study gender differences in federal research grant funding. The report called Gender Differences in Major Federal External Grant Programs looked at the funding activities of NSF, the National Institutes of Health, and the Department of Agriculture.

No major differences were discovered in most cases. The major exception was funding of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The funding summaries provided from the NIH from 2001-2003 showed that women only received 63% of the funding provided to male applicants. One cause was that men received the largest awards. If that was ignored, women still only received 83% of the counterparts funding. Another problem was that NIH does not keep information of co-investigators, only the principal applicant. Also, women are less likely to apply with the same organization again.

Please read the full report for more numbers and conclusions.

[About RAND]

The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit research organization providing objective analysis and effective solutions that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors around the world.

Los Alamos Technical Reports on the Federation of American Scientists Web Site

Thousands of unclassified technical reports that were published on the Los Alamos National Laboratory web site and then removed from public access have now been reposted on the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) web site.

The Los Alamos reports were archived by researchers Carey Sublette and Gregory Walker. Over the past year FAS has added more and more of the collection, which comprises an enormous 8.5 gigabytes of data, to the website.

Many of the documents have enduring if narrow scientific value, judging from the requests we regularly receive for various titles. Others are principally of historical value. Still others hold both scientific and historical interest.

For example, the 1947 study entitled "Blast Wave" (LA-2000, a 19 MB PDF file) includes original scientific papers by Hans Bethe, John von Neuman and Rudolph Peierls -- but also by Klaus Fuchs, who would be convicted in 1950 of spying for the Soviet Union.

[About Federation of American Scientists]

The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) was formed in 1945 by atomic scientists from the Manhattan Project. Endorsed by nearly 60 Nobel Laureates in biology, chemistry, economics, medicine and physics as sponsors, the Federation has addressed a broad spectrum of national security issues of the nuclear age in carrying out its mission to promote humanitarian uses of science and technology.

Call for Papers - Symposium On Technology, Knowledge and Society

SYMPOSIUM ON TECHNOLOGY, KNOWLEDGE AND SOCIETY
McGill University, Montreal, Canada 9-10 June 2006

The symposium will take a broad and cross-disciplinary approach to technology in society. Participants will include researchers, teachers and practitioners whose interests are either technical or humanistic, or whose work crosses over between the applied technological and social sciences.

A special theme of this symposium will be the complex relations between Technology and Citizenship. Technology is deeply implicated in the organisation and distribution of social, political and economic power. Technological artefacts, systems and practices arise from particular historical situations, and they condition subsequent social, political and economic identities, practices and relationships. In short, technology - industrial technology, transportation technology, information and communication technology, learning technology, bio and genetic technology, nanotechnology, etc. - is a matter in which citizenship is at stake. This symposium is dedicated to exploring the various ways in which technology and citizenship bear upon each other historically, and in the present context.

We would particularly like to invite you to respond to the symposium call for papers. The symposium will also include numerous paper, workshop and colloquium presentations. Papers submitted by participants will be peer-refereed and published, if accepted by the referees, in print and electronic formats in the International Journal of Technology, Knowledge and Society. If you are unable to attend the symposium in person, virtual registrations are also available which allow you to submit a paper for refereeing and possible publication in this fully refereed academic journal, as well as access to the electronic version of the journal (including all historical material). The deadline for the first round of the call for papers is 15 JANUARY 2006. Proposals are reviewed within four weeks of submission.

Full details of the symposium, including an online call for papers form, are to be found at the symposium website - http://www.Technology-Conference.com.

Science in the Web Age

Thanks to Bob Michaelson on the CHMINF-L listerv for sharing that Nature published several article about "science in the web age." The initial commentary was on the Crooked River blog.

The articles published by Nature on December 1, 2005, focused on science research and how it driven or assisted by search engines, book digitization efforts, and blogs & wikis.

Science Collaboration & Death of Buckyball Discoverer

I came across this blog entry that highlighted the benefits of conducting science experimentation in an "open source" environment where the "discovery process" is shared. In addition, it highlighted a few lifetime achievements (buckball discovery and the Center for Nanoscale Technology and Science) of Dr. Richard Smalley who recently died at 62.

The Republican War On Science from the Talk of the Nation

Listen to story at...
Talk of the Nation (National Public Radio), November 11, 2005
Chris Mooney on the "The Republican War On Science"

Chris Mooney about what he calls "the Republican War on Science." From evolution to climate change to stem cell research, he says politicians are mishandling science in pursuit of a larger political agenda.

Chris Mooney, author, The Republican War on Science; Washington correspondent, Seed Magazine

NSDL Report for Math, Engineering, and Technology Comes to an End - Links Updated

The NSDL Scout Report for Math, Engineering, and Technology published by the Internet Scout Project will come to an end with Volume 4, Number 12 (June 17, 2005).

[From NSDL Scout Report for Math, Engineering, and Technology]
With this edition, the Internet Scout Project ends the NSDL Report for Math, Engineering, and Technology after four years of publication. We are very excited about our newest NSF National Science Digital Library-funded effort, the Applied Mathematics and Science Education Repository (AMSER), a new four-year project that will link community and technical colleges to online applied math and science resources via a web portal and complimentary services. Our goal is to make AMSER the same kind of high-quality source of information about online resources that the NSDL Scout Reports have been.

If you have questions about AMSER or an interest in using AMSER in your classroom, please e-mail info@amser.org, or watch for information about the project on the Scout website where you can also find information about subscribing to our flagship publication, The Scout Report.

Knovel Roll-Out Kit - Updated Entry

Knovel has created a Roll-Kit that includes suggested announcements, field guides, print materials, search examples, and other training materials.

CASE's subscription can be accessed directly from www.knovel.com or the research database list.

Science Reference Services at the Library of Congress

Science Reference Services - Library of Congress

[About Science Reference Services]
The Science, Technology and Business Division's primary responsibilities are to provide reference and bibliographic services and to develop the collections in all areas of science and technology (with the exception of clinical medicine and technical agriculture, which are subject specialties of the National Library of Medicine and the National Agricultural Library respectively) and business, management and economics. Reference assistance and access to the Library's scientific collection is provided in Science Reference Services and access to the business, management and economics collections is provided in Business Reference Services.

The Technical Reports and Standards Special Collection has an extensive collection of over 4.4 million U.S. and foreign technical reports and standards. The Science, Technology and Business Division Overview includes additional information about the institutional origins of the Division, the Science Tracer Bullet Series, and the strengths of the Library's scientific collections.

Long-Lived Digital Data Collections: Enabling Research and Education for the 21st Century

In September 2005, the National Science Board published a report called Long-Lived Digital Data Collections: Enabling Research and Education in the 21st Century (NSB-05-40).

[Conclusions from Executive Summary]

The weakness of NSF strategies and policies governing long-lived data collections is that they have been developed incrementally and have not been considered collectively. Given the proliferation of these collections, the complexity of managing them, and their cost, action is imperative. The National Science Board is concerned about the current situation. Prompt and effective action will ensure that researchers and educators derive even higher value from these collections. The communities that create and use the collections will have to be fully engaged in this process. Consensus within the communities will have to inform Foundation policy, investment, and action. The need to address these issues is urgent. The opportunities are substantial.

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[About the National Science Board]
The National Science Board is the governing board of the National Science Foundation (NSF), an independent Federal agency established by the National Science Foundation Act of 1950 to:

• promote the progress of science,
  
• advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare, and
  
• secure the national defense.

The Board is composed of 24 part-time members, appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. They are selected on the basis of their eminence in basic, medical, or social sciences, engineering, agriculture, education, research management or public affairs. The NSF Director serves on the Board, ex officio.

Scientific Inquiries of Physicists

Studies like this could have great implications on how scientific students are educated in the future.

Analysis of the Actual Scientific Inquiries of Physicists I - Focused on research motivation
By Jongwon Park and Kyoung-ae Jang (June 27, 2005)

This study was investigated to understand the in-depth features and processes of physicists' scientific inquiries. At first, research motives were investigated by interviewing six physicists who were prominent worldwide. As a result, three main types - incompleteness, discovery, and conflict - and nine subtypes of research motivation, were identified. Six additional background factors were found which might affect the design and start of research. Based on these findings, implications for teaching scientific inquiries to students were discussed.

Science and Photography Through the Microscope

From The Scout Report (Volume 11, Number 44, November 4, 2005) comes an announcement about a web site focused on microscopic images. Science and Photography Through the Microscope (a web site devoted to microscopy science education) contains images by award-winning photomicrographer Dennis Kunkel.

The Image Library contains over 1500 micrographs of scientific, biological and medical subjects photographed with light and electron microscopes. The Image Use Policy is well posted, including how educators may gain permission to use an image.

Changes in Scientific Academic Libraries

Chemical & Engineering News (October 10, 2005, v.83:11, pp.52-53) highlighted the major issues facing academic chemistry libraries in an article called The 21st-Century Chemistry Library. The developments discussed, such as digital media, usage of storage facilties, competition for space on academic campuses, cost of scientific publications, etc. are issues relevant to all scientific libraries, and libraries in general.

Many of the services and resources discussed in the article are available to the Case community: laptops for circulation within KSL, collections in a storage facility close to campus, electronic journals and books, and an Engineering librarian available in the Case School of Engineering.

Thomson Scientific Laureates

Thomson Scientific, based on total citation counts from its ISI Web of Knowledge product, has predicted the 2005 Nobel Prize winners in chemistry, economics, physiology or medicine, and physics.

(Originally posted by Bob Michaelson on the STS-L listserv.)

Is 50% of all scientific papers in error?

EngLib on August 31st, 2005, shared information on an article which suggests that 50% of all scientific papers present the wrong conclusion.

The New Scientist contained a short article with a summary and some commentary. The original article, Why Most Published Research Findings Are False, can be found on PLOS Medicine's web site.

[About PLoS Medicine]

PLoS Medicine is an open-access, peer-reviewed medical journal published monthly, online and in print, by the Public Library of Science (PLoS), a nonprofit organization. The inaugural issue was launched on 19 October 2004.

Caltech: Applied and Computational Mathematics

This website from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) features "the interwoven fields of applied and computational mathematics." Highlighting the interdisciplinary nature of the field, the group's work draws on modeling, analysis, algorithm development, and simulation to address problems arising in the pure sciences and engineering. Students and faculty explore the mathematical properties of systems in physics, chemistry, biology, geology, astronomy, materials science, fluid mechanics, and other disciplines. At the time of this report, the section offering Technical Reports was still under development. However, some of the individual researchers have links to websites (within the People section) with a list of publications, some of which are available to download free of charge. Abstracts of Colloquia at Caltech also provide the visitor an overview of topics that interest this group of researchers.
[From NSDL Scout Report for Math, Engineering, and Technology, Volume 4, Number 12, June 17, 2005]

Natural History Highlight: The Scanning Electron Microscopy Lab

[From the Librarians' Index to the Internet]
Images from and information about the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History's "Scanning Electron Microscopy Lab (SEM Lab) [which] has assisted researchers at the Museum to explore and understand our world at the microscopic level." Includes microscopic images of spiders, dinoflagellates, Sikh artifacts, and items from around the house (such as food and germs).

Scientists and Literature

UPDATE:
AAAS link for presentation appears to be dead and no alternative has been posted.

At the 30th Annual AAAS Forum on Science & Technology Policy, Dr. Carol Tenopir (Professor of Information Sciences at the University of Tennessee) gave a presentation, titled "What Scientists Really Need Regarding Publishing and Access." She highlighted studies that showed scientists are reading more in less time, relying on the technology to locate articles rather than browsing complete journal issues, and making decisions based on convenience.

Publishing Relationship in Chemistry & Physics

William W. Armstrong wrote a great article (Communication in the Sciences as Seen through Physics and Chemistry: A Look at the Complex Relationship between Author, Publisher, and Distributor as They Relate to the Reader) on the exploration of the publishing process in the chemistry and physics academic environment. It appeared in the March 2005 issue of College & Research Libraries (American Library Association).

The Case community can find the article at several of the Case Libraries.

Chemical Market Reporter

Chemical Market Reporter has removed its chemical pricing information from the print publication to a secured website. I have been working with the publisher to find a way for Case's faculty and students to continually have access to this title.

The Case community can expect an announcement for electronic access to the web site in the near future.

Paleo Art Digitized

The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History has provided online access to a selection of historical art in paleobiology.

Classic Textbooks in Science

Catherine Lavallée-Welch (EngLib) shared information about the digitization of out of print classic science texts.

Classic Textbooks in Science, a project of the National Academy of Sciences, currently includes Heredity and Development, 2nd Edition, by John A. Moore.

Scirus Toolbar for Scientific Information

The search engine Scirus (designed specifically for scientific information) has released a tool bar interface.

Scirus is the most comprehensive science-specific search engine on the Internet. Driven by the latest search engine technology, Scirus searches over 200 million science-specific Web pages...About Scirus.

Physics/Astronomy Alerting Service

From Press Release (April 18, 2005):

The NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS), headquartered at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) in Cambridge, Mass., is a virtual library that offers "one-stop shopping" for physicists and astronomers seeking the latest research. ADS provides free access to a huge database of abstracts and full-text papers in those scientific fields. Many of those papers reside within the arXiv.org e-print server, which is owned and operated by Cornell University.

Sifting through these huge research archives presents an ongoing challenge. In April 2005, ADS and arXiv will join forces to improve the services they offer scientists by implementing three separate customizable Web and e-mail alerts. Now, scientists around the world will be automatically notified when preprints or journal papers relevant to their research field are published.

Read the full story for more information.

New search engines for free scientific e-journals

EEVL has announced the release of 4 new search engines that index freely available e-journals in engineering, mathematics, and computing. The EEVL search engines search over 250 free titles.

[Source: About EEVL]
EEVL is the Internet Guide to Engineering, Mathematics and Computing. EEVL's mission is to provide access to quality networked engineering, mathematics and computing resources, and be the national focal point for online access to information in these subjects. It is an award-winning free service, created and run by a team of information specialists from a number of universities and institutions in the UK.

Science.gov ALERTS

Science.gov now offers an email alerting service.

A user that completes a simple registration process can have a weekly notice of new resources sent directly to their email. The registration process will allow the user to pick a specific topic area (such as astronomy & space) or seach the whole site.

About Science.gov (Source: http://www.science.gov/about.html)
Science.gov provides public access and a unified search of the government’s vast stores of scientific and technical information. Science.gov is an interagency initiative of 17 U.S. government science organizations within 12 Federal agencies.

Two major types of information are included — selected authoritative science Web sites and often hard-to-access scientific databases (specific content varies by database). This gateway to government science information allows searches across 30 databases and more than 1,700 science Web sites. Science.gov currently accesses over 47 million pages of government science information.Science.gov now offers an email alerting service.

A user that completes a simple registration process can have a weekly notice of new resources sent directly to their email. The registration process will allow the user to pick a specific topic area (such as astronomy & space) or seach the whole site.

About Science.gov (Source: http://www.science.gov/about.html)
Science.gov provides public access and a unified search of the government’s vast stores of scientific and technical information. Science.gov is an interagency initiative of 17 U.S. government science organizations within 12 Federal agencies.

Two major types of information are included — selected authoritative science Web sites and often hard-to-access scientific databases (specific content varies by database). This gateway to government science information allows searches across 30 databases and more than 1,700 science Web sites. Science.gov currently accesses over 47 million pages of government science information.