"Forensic chemistry and its flip side"

New publication from Robert Thompson, Professor of Chemistry:

Thompson, Robert Q. Forensic Chemistry and Its Flip Side. Journal of Chemical Education 2016, 93, 1677-1678.

Abstract:

Forensic chemistry is the focus of this year's National Chemistry Week and a strengthening and growing discipline of research and teaching. Forensic science deals mainly with the aftermath of crime. The flip side is the science of eliminating or ameliorating violent acts before they happen. In our laboratories and classrooms, are there ways to address the targeted violence and terrorism that fill the news cycle and generate fear in us and our students? While we have conversations on our individual campuses, a conversation among us chemistry educators on a regional or national scale would be even more helpful. Copyright © 2016 The American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.

Subscriber access at the ACS website.

Carl Sagan's 82nd birthday on November 9

Today's book display gives a sense of perspective, with post-Election Day thoughts tempered by a longer view.  There are nearly 20 books by or about Sagan in the library, many now on display across from the science library circulation desk.

Listen to Sagan's 'Pale Blue Dot' speech, as suggested by Adam Frank, in NPR Cosmos and Culture. 

Selected book list:

Billions and billions : thoughts on life and death at the brink of the millennium / Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan : a life / Keay Davidson

Comet / Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan

Carl Sagan's cosmic connection : an extraterrestrial perspective / by Carl Sagan

Cosmos / Carl Sagan

Pale blue dot : a vision of the human future in space / Carl Sagan

New publications from Amanda Schmidt and Brad Carter

Recent publications from two relatively new members of the science faculty, Assistant Professor of Geology Amanda Schmidt and Visiting Assistant Professor of Neuroscience Bradley Carter:

Schmidt, Amanda H., Thomas B. Neilson, Paul R. Bierman, Dylan H. Rood, William B. Ouimet, and Veronica Sosa Gonzalez​.  Influence of topography and human activity on apparent in situ 10Be-derived erosion rates in Yunnan, SW China.  Earth Surface Dynamics 4, 819-830, doi:10.5194/esurf-4-819-2016, 2016.​  Open Access.
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Earth Surface Dynamics is "an interactive open access journal of the European Geosciences Union"

Azevedo, Joshua A., Bradley S. Carter, Fan Meng, David L. Turner, Manhong Dai, et al.   The microRNA network is altered in anterior cingulate cortex of patients with unipolar and bipolar depression.
Journal of Psychiatric Research, 82 58-67; 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2016.07.012 NOV 2016.  Subscriber access on sciencedirect.

Eleven alumni scientists: 2,416 articles cited 132,211 times by others

A recent symposium in the Science Center prompted a bit of citation analysis using the Web of Science. The eleven National Academy of Sciences members and OC alumni who presented during the three concurrent sessions have published a total of 2,416 articles, which have been cited by other articles 132,211 times (not including self-citations).

OC class years for these alumni range from 1954 to 1977.

This seems a good case in point on the impact of a liberal arts education for advancing scientific research and knowledge.

Three of the most highly cited papers from these researchers were published in Nature titles, two were published in Cell and two were published in Science.

The other papers appeared in:
Annual Review of Biochemistry
Journal of Neurophysiology 
Psychological Review, and
Transactions of the American Mathematical Society.

Complete citations are shown in the next image.  A Word document version of the list is shared in Google drive.

Citation reports in Web of Science are quickly compiled from a list of search results for any author - making certain of the correct form of the author's name and refining search results by broad subject categories helps produce a fairly accurate report of a researcher's publishing record.  Just click on Create Citation Report when you are confident that the search results adequately represent the publications from one author (see the screen shot, below, of the top right corner of a search results page).

Displays - Library Resources for Peter Jobson's Talk and Disability Awareness Month

Peter Jobson, Senior Botanist of the Northern Territory Herbarium, Alice Springs, Australia will present "More than Sand Dunes and Beaches: a Tour of Australian Plant Life" on Thursday.  We've gathered together a few of the books in the science library that relate to his talk - come see the display of both print and online resources.

This display replaces "Accepting Disability: Then Vs. Now"  put together by students in Elizabeth Hamilton's First Year Seminar to recognize Disability Awareness Month during October.  Thanks to Mecky Kuijpers, Gabe Friedin and Johnson Liu for your work last month.  The exhibit (pictured below) attracted a lot of attention.