The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released updated environmental and public health indicators and made them available in an online database. “This is an online update to EPA’s Report on the Environment. Users can explore 85 individual indicators– on our air, water, land, human exposure, health and ecological condition– using interactive graphs, tables, and maps, and download the data for each indicator.”
Source: ResearchBuzz by Tara Calishain, July 21, 2015
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
UNESCO has launched the World Library of Science. “The library will be accessible to internet users everywhere in the world, at no cost. The majority of the content is for university-level students, giving them resources to ‘complement their learning’.” Target groups are students and teachers in the more underdeveloped parts of the world, especially, Africa. “The library – WLoS – ‘contains’ more than 300 articles, 25 eBooks and some 70 videos, as well as a digital platform that “provides a community hub” for learning, according to UNESCO, which created the site jointly with the international Nature Education publishing group and the Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche.
“The library – WLoS – ‘contains’ more than 300 articles, 25 eBooks and some 70 videos, as well as a digital platform that “provides a community hub” for learning, according to UNESCO, which created the site jointly with the international Nature Education publishing group and the Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche.”
From ResearchBuzz Saturday Afternoon Buzz, November 15th, 2014, Tara Calishain
NTIS is launching greater access to federally funded science & technology information and reports. Starting in October 2014, U.S. citizens will have free access to all electronically-available documents in the NTIS collection.
Currently there are more than 850,000 documents digitized for free public access. For the first time, Individuals will have the option to subscribe to the NTRL in order to benefit from the Premium features of the database, such as Digitization-on-Demand (NTRL Premium Individual). Premium Institutional subscribers (including corporations) will continue to have access to the more than 2.8 million records with a variety of enhanced features as listed in the chart below.
More at: http://www.ntis.gov/pdf/NTRNews7-3.pdf
Princeton University Library has a subscription to NTRL reports,
“ Thomson Reuters and DataCite collaborate to expand discovery of research data –29 Aug 2014
The Intellectual Property & Science business of Thomson Reuters has announced a collaboration with DataCite, a global non-profit organization dedicated to enabling people to find, share, use, and cite data. The collaboration will promote the discovery of research data sets through the Data Citation Index, a single-point solution providing access to quality research data sets from multi-disciplinary repositories around the world.
This collaboration will connect the Data Citation Index to high quality research data from repositories worldwide that work with DataCite. This will ensure that the valuable content that has been made citable by DataCite is globally discoverable, properly attributed and reusable by other researchers. As part of the Web of Science – the premier scientific search and discovery platform and industry authority in science, social science, and arts & humanities citation indexes – inclusion within the Data Citation Index will also further DataCite’s mission of increasing acceptance of research data as citable contributions to the scholarly record.
Since creating the Data Citation Index, Thomson Reuters has worked closely with global industry leaders to expand the breadth of research discovery by capturing bibliographic records and cited references for digital research, as well as literature describing research which cites or uses the data, stewarding the accurate identification, attribution and measurement of this growing body of scholarship. The Data Citation Index allows users to gain a comprehensive view of the genesis of research projects and influence the future paths they may take, while minimizing the duplication of work and speeding the scientific research process to keep pace with the changing global research landscape. Through linked content and summary information, this data is displayed within the broader context of the scholarly research ecosystem, enabling users to gain perspective that otherwise would be lost if viewed in isolation.”
Source: Knowledgespeak Newsletter
ChemSpider
“This astonishingly powerful, award-winning database from The Royal Society of Chemistry provides fast access to over 30 million chemical structures and properties, as well as nearly unlimited links and related information. For a quick introduction, go to the About page and watch the ten-minute introductory video. Then start searching! Simple searches expedite your exploration when you enter the trade name, synonym, or systematic name of the compound you wish to find. Conversely, you can input by Structure, with an innovative Edit Molecule function. Lastly, Advanced searches allow you to combine methods. In addition, the ChemSpider blog boasts frequent entries about the site and the field at large. [CNH]“
A not-for-profit bioscience information service,
from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
bioRxiv contains hundreds of papers that present new, confirmatory, or contradictory findings
More details, including submission instructions, at
bioRxiv.org
NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration presented an online webinar on Feb. 26, 2014. From their description:
“Summary: NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) maintains the world’s largest climate data archive and provides climatological services and data to every sector of the United States economy and to users worldwide. Records in the archive range from paleoclimatic data, to centuries-old journals, to data less than an hour old. The Center’s mission is to preserve these data and make them available to the public, business, industry, government, and researchers.
Data come to NCDC from not only land-based stations but also from ships, buoys, weather balloons, radars, satellites, and even sophisticated weather and climate models. With these data, NCDC develops national and global datasets. The datasets are used to maximize the use of our climatic and natural resources while also minimizing the risks caused by climate variability and weather extremes. NCDC has a statutory mission to describe the climate of the United States, and it acts as the “Nation’s Scorekeeper” regarding the trends and anomalies of weather and climate. NCDC’s climate data have been used in a variety of applications including agriculture, air quality, construction, education, energy, engineering, forestry, health, insurance, landscape design, livestock management, manufacturing, national security, recreation and tourism, retailing, transportation, and water resources management.”
“Participation is free, however registration is required. Upon registering, an e-mail confirmation of registration will include instructions for joining the Webinar. …Parts 2 and 3 of the webinar series will be presented in the spring of 2014. More information will come out on those individual webinars later.”
The NCDC webinar is directly at: http://login.icohere.com/connect/d_connect_itemframer.cfm?vsDTTitle=NCDC%20%2D%20The%20World%3Fs%20Largest%20Climate%20Data%20Archive&dseq=18332&dtseq=84935&emdisc=2&mkey=public1172&vbDTA=0&viNA=0&vsDTA=&PAN=2&bDTC=0&blog=0&vsSH=A
Government webinars are listed here: http://login.icohere.com/public/topics.cfm?cseq=1172.
The NOAA and NOAA Fisheries are collaborating in a new ocean climate change Web portal in trying to assess the effects of climate change on fish.
What is the Ocean Climate Change Web Portal?
“It’s an online system that provides an easy way to display maps of climate data, such as ocean temperature and salinity, over portions of the globe. For example, it can allow you to view how the temperature in the North Atlantic would change in the 21st century as compared with the 20th century.”
Reported by ResearchBuzz, Tara Calishain, Mar. 5, 2014.
GenEngNews – http://gen.epubxp.com/t/13060/2
“Best of the Web”, Jan, 15, 2014: 1000 Genomes could keep “genetics junkies” happy for days. Discover human variation. Engage in a project. http://www.1000genomes.org