Entries in "Science and Technology" ( for this category only)

New Endowed Professorship in Chemistry

Gilles Klopman, the Charles F. Mabery Professor Emeritus of Research in Chemistry at Case Western Reserve University has made seven-figure will commitment to Case's chemistry department.

See full story for more information.

Happy 50th Birthday: Physical Review Letters

Physical Review Letters, started by Editor Sam Goudsmit as an experiment, reaches its 50th anniversary in July 2008. They are marking this occasion in several ways.

Case Mathematician Inspired By Science

Peter Kotelenez, professor of mathematics in the College of Arts and Sciences at Case Western Reserve University, recently published Stochastic Ordinary and Stochastic Partial Differential Equations: Transition from Microscopic to Macroscopic Equations.

See the Case announcement for more information.

Two copies have been ordered for the Kelvin Smith Library for use by the Case community.

Wii Preparation for Surgeons

Years ago we had reports that our Desert Storm pilots were better than their former colleagues, due to being raised as children with video games. Now, we a have a study that shows surgeons that warm up or train on Wii perform better in surgeries.

Game players scored nearly 50% higher on tool control and overall performance than other trainees.

Source: 'Wii warm-up' good for surgeons from BBC News (January 17, 2008)

Mathematical Biology Now Covered by Biology Direct

Biology Direct considers original research articles, hypotheses, comments, discovery notes and reviews in selected subject areas, and will eventually cover the full spectrum of biology. Subject areas already launched include Genomics, Bioinformatics and Systems Biology, Immunology, and Mathematical Biology.

Andrei Yakovlev wrote an editorial that kicked off the new commitment to Mathematical Biology.

Modern mathematics offers a much richer arsenal of tools and ideas than those that are frequently employed to describe the enormous diversity of biological phenomena.

Large Hadron Collider at CERN

Here is an example of science on YouTube - tour of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva. YouTube has become so mainstream it is nice to see educational and informative videos like this mixed in with all the humor, video blogs, birthday parties, and other uses of YouTube.

Reminder: Older Versions of SciFinder Retired

Please note that on January 2nd, 2008 CAS retired the following versions
of SciFinder/SciFinder Scholar, as communicated to customers in mid June
2007:

• SciFinder and SciFinder Scholar 2004.2 (MAC OS 9 and Windows)
• SciFinder and SciFinder Scholar MAC OS X 1.0
• SciFinder 2007.0 for Windows

Knovel Unit Converter

Knovel has added a unit converter to its collection of resources. It can be freely accessed by anyone, even nonsubscribers.

Unit Converter: www.knovel.com/unitconverter

Other free content is available for those that sign up.

Reminder:
For the Case community, the Kelvin Smith Library subscribes to Knovel content for your convenience.

National Chemistry Week: October 21-27, 2007

During this week, we celebrate the 20th anniversary of National Chemistry Week as promoted by the American Chemical Society.

MathSciJournalWiki

MathSciJournalWiki is a freely-editable resource for information on scholarly journals, especially in mathematics. It aims to be a central resource for understanding the journal system, both in its academic and economic aspects.

It lists the price history and numbers of pages for many of the journals used in mathematics and physics. It also highlights various news in the math and science publishing industry.

K-Theory Editorial Board Resigns

The Not Even Blog reported that the entire editorial board of K-Theory (Springer) has resigned and in 2008 will be publishing a new journal called Journal of K-Theory (Cambridge University Press) at about half the subscription cost.

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.

Google and NASA Partnership

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]

Continue reading "Google and NASA Partnership"

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.

Science Commons

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 a cross 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.

---

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.

Continue reading "Science Commons"

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 5, 2006]

Continue reading "Rediscovering Archimedes Writings"

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.

---

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 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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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)