Category Archives: Biology

Viruses: Timeline, Structure, Biology

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From Genetic Engineering &  Biotechnology News (GEN), March 15, 2015

URL:virologyhistory.wustl.edu/index.htm

“Sure, the year 1941 may best be remembered for being the year of the attack on Pearl Harbor, but it was also the year in which X-ray diffraction patterns were obtained for the tomato bushy stunt virus (TBSV) and tobacco mosaic virus (TMV). You can find this and other world history/structural biology history side-by-side comparisons in the nifty timeline feature on the Viruses: From Structure to Biology website. This site—the creation of Sondra and Milton Schlesinger at Washington University School of Medicine —provides some nice background on key milestones in structural virology and the resulting biological breakthroughs in the field. There isn’t a ton of information on the site—one might call it a single-serving website—but within that serving you’ll be able to chew on some interesting science history.”

Gendered Innovations in Science, Health & Medicine, Engineering and Environment

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From Genetic Engineering &  Biotechnology News, Best of the Web, Feb. 15, 2015

http://www.genengnews.com/best-of-the-web/gendered-innovations/2935/

URL:genderedinnovations.stanford.edu  The purpose is to get away from using the male as the default, to help us be more mindful of the significant differences in male and female in research.

Virus Evolution — New OA journal from OUP

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The Virus Evolution      http://ve.oxfordjournals.org/

“Virus Evolution is a new Open Access journal focusing on the long-term evolution of viruses, viruses as a model system for studying evolutionary processes, viral molecular epidemiology and environmental virology.

The aim of the journal is to provide a forum for original research papers, reviews, commentaries and a venue for in-depth discussion on the topics relevant to virus evolution.”

“Editors-in Chief, Professor Oliver Pybus, University of Oxford, and Professor Santiago Elena, Instituto de Biología Molecular y Celular de Plantas (CSIC-UPV) welcome submissions at:https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/vevolu.”
Source of information:  Knowledgespeak Newsletter, Feb. 9, 2015

Table of Contents Alerts to > 25,000 Scholarly Journals

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  • http://www.journaltocs.hw.ac.uk/

    “Current Awareness Services have been published by libraries for a long time. They usually include new books, table of contents alerts, blogs, citation alerts, and other information. JournalTOCs builds on the idea by offering tables of contents (TOCs) for the newest issues of thousands of academic journals via this free website. Readers may type in the name of any journal in the search function on the homepage to access that journal’s latest table of contents. They may also browse by publishers and subjects. For librarians, students, and scholars who want to keep up to date on the breaking research in their field, this is a valuable resource. [CNH]“

  • Main Publishers
  • Source:  The Scout Report, Vol. 21(4), University of Wisconsin, Jan. 30, 2015

History of Vaccines website from College of Physicians, Philadelphia

Status

“Vaccinations have had a profound impact on human health, and yet there remains a lot of misinformation floating around out there regarding vaccines. (No, no, no, they do not cause autism.) The History of Vaccines website by the College of Physicians of Philadelphia is an excellent educational resource that covers many different aspects of vaccines and their history, including information about the science of vaccines, vaccine-preventable diseases, misconceptions about vaccines, and answers to the question, “why vaccinate?” Beyond articles addressing each of these (and many other) topics, the website includes a number of interactive features such as timelines, animations, and activities for students. Activities include, among others, a game in which players try to develop vaccines to protect a population of a society fighting disease, as well as a game that has players apply the scientific method to epidemiological scenarios.”

4-star website according to “Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News”

Jan 15, 2015 (Vol. 35, No. 2)

http://www.genengnews.com/best-of-the-web/the-history-of-vaccines/2926/

Planet Earth’s Stability is significantly affected

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Summary:
“Almost half of the processes that are crucial to maintaining the stability of the planet have become dangerously compromised by human activity. That is the view of an international team of 18 researchers who provide new evidence of significant changes in four of the nine systems which regulate the resilience of the Earth.”

Nine planetary boundaries  (the crucial processes)

  1. Climate change
  2. Change in biosphere integrity (biodiversity loss and species extinction)
  3. Stratospheric ozone depletion
  4. Ocean acidification
  5. Biogeochemical flows (phosphorus and nitrogen cycles)
  6. Land-system change (for example deforestation)
  7. Freshwater use
  8. Atmospheric aerosol loading (microscopic particles in the atmosphere that affect climate and living organisms)
  9. Introduction of novel entities (e.g. organic pollutants, radioactive materials, nanomaterials, and micro-plastics).                                                                   Journal Reference:
    1. Will Steffen, Katherine Richardson, Johan Rockström, Sarah E. Cornell, Ingo Fetzer, Elena M. Bennett, R. Biggs, Stephen R. Carpenter, Wim de Vries, Cynthia A. de Wit, Carl Folke, Dieter Gerten, Jens Heinke, Georgina M. Mace, Linn M. Persson, Veerabhadran Ramanathan, B. Reyers, and Sverker Sörlin. Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet. Science, 15 January 2015 DOI: 10.1126/science.1259855

Source: McGill University. “Nearly half the systems crucial to stability of planet compromised.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 15 January 2015. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150115163533.htm>.

SCOPUS reviewed in Choice, January, 2015

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Scopus. Elsevier.http://www.elsevier.com/online-tools/scopus.

A very complimentary review by –J. N. Jeffryes, University of Minnesota

“Scopus’s nearest competitor is Web of Science http://thomsonreuters.com/thomson-reuters-web-of-science/ (CH, Jan’11, 48-2436), and the two tools remain somewhat complementary.  For post-1996 information, Scopus comes off as the more impressive of the two with its advanced citation analysis visualizations, wider inclusion of conference papers, and adoption of alternative impact metrics.  Because the citation counts and h index calculations go back only to 1996, Web of Science has the historical edge.  In the areas of interface design and record readability, Scopus is the stronger tool.  It provides an intuitive search format to explore an impressively broad base of research; if the depth of coverage were expanded (or as 1996 becomes more distant), this tool would become even more valuable.  Even as it is today, it is a very valuable resource for academic and professional libraries. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above”

The complete review is here:  http://www.cro3.org/content/52/05/52-2504.full

 

 

EPA Coal Plant Emissions Data included in TOXMAP

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10 Dec 2014

*NLM Technical Bulletin, Nov-Dec 2014, NLM Resource Update: TOXMAP Now Includes EPA Coal Plant Emissions Data

Data was obtained from the Air Markets Program Data (AMPD) tool, a publicly-available data system for searching and downloading data collected as part of EPA emissions trading programs. In 2013, about 2.1 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions were attributable to electricity generated from coal.

TOXMAP is a Geographic Information System (GIS) from NLM that uses maps of the United States to help users visually explore data from the EPA Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) and Superfund Programs.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/techbull/nd14/brief/nd14_epa_coal_plant_emissions_data.html

Institute of Biodiversity Genomics, Smithsonian Institution

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Smithsonian Jumps Into Biodiversity Genomics With New Institute

“On the heels of two vast analyses of the genomes of both birds and insects, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., has announced that it will launch a virtual biodiversity genomics institute to accelerate efforts to capture and catalog all the DNA from Earth’s flora and fauna. Science, 12/12”

 

From: Total E-Clips <totaleclips@fbresearch.org>

To read more:

http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2014/12/smithsonian-jumps-biodiversity-genomics-new-institute

Wonders of Life, with Brian Cox and Andrew Cohen

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SLJ1412w Top10 Apps WondersofLife SLJ’s Top 10 Apps for 2014   http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01rgjt0

“In Brian Cox’s Wonders of Life (HarperCollins/William Collins; Gr 4 Up), the renowned physicist-cum-BBC host and Andrew Cohen take viewers around the world on an awe-inspiring trip to locations both forbidding and exotic while delving into the origins and mysteries of life on Earth. The app’s illuminating text and commentary, 1,000-plus high-resolution photos, numerous 3-D images, and hours of video clips will leave viewers with a profound respect for and curiosity about the diverse life forms and environs found on our planet, and inspire a desire to protect them. Up-close footage of numerous species is guaranteed to produce lots of “ooohhh…” moments.”

http://www.slj.com/2014/12/reviews/best-of/sljs-top-10-apps-for-2014/#_

One of the top 10 aps for 2014, assessed by School Library Journal, Dec. 9, 2014.