Speaking of Science

Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography online

2012-02-14T13:49:00.000-05:00

We have owned the print format of the Dictionary of Scientific Biography for many years, and can access it in the OhioLINK Electronic Books Center. We now subscribe to the online version at the publisher's website (Gale/Cengage), part of the Gale Virtual Reference Library, where searching and browsing functions are very nicely supported. Link to it from the OBIS catalog record. Composed of 18 large print volumes, the title "Dictionary" does not do justice to this comprehensive encyclopedic work. Take time to browse the index volume and jump from one entry to another, and you will gain a new understanding of the development of science and the people who advanced that knowledge throughout centuries. Simply browsing the list of illustrations indicates the wide breadth of scientific information represented in the work. Go discover!

In Memoriam: Sonali Seth, '02

2012-02-13T14:00:00.000-05:00

We were so very sorry to learn of the passing of Sonali Seth, '02 who was one of the very bright, engaging and lively members of our student staff for two years. Sonali's welcome to all who entered in the library was always warm and genuine, and she was a wonderful reference assistant in the period of transition between the old and new library. As a senior science major, Sonali was truly helpful to everyone getting their bearings in the new science center. A 2005 graduated of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health as a new MPH, Sonali had a passion for humanitarian assistance and health & human rights. Her good works will be remembered by the hundreds of people whose lives she touched. This photo was taken when Sonali first began work with us, in the fall of 2000, in the last year of operation of the library in Kettering Hall.

Energy Matters: Oberlin Project Blog is launched

2012-02-09T21:41:00.000-05:00

Head over to Cindy Frantz's first post on the new Oberlin Project blog, where you can respond with your own thoughts on what is important about Oberlin and sign up for the project's e-newsletter. Associate Professor of Psychology Frantz is also the Co-Chair of the Energy Planning Committee of the Oberlin Project. Today's blog post appears in this week's Oberlin News Tribune, with the promise of future columns on "energy matters" in Oberlin and the immediate environs. Frantz concludes her first column with these remarks: "Energy matters in Oberlin because we care about each other, our community, and our planet. We all want Oberlin to be healthy and prosperous. By thinking carefully about our energy, we pave the way for a future we can all get excited about." These are sentiments we can support throughout the community. I encourage all residents - college and town - to learn more and be engaged in the Oberlin Project.

Spring Carrel Sign-Up Starts Today

2012-02-06T15:32:00.001-05:00

Welcome to Spring Semester! All carrels were cleared at the end of fall semester, and new carrel assignments for spring semester will be posted on Friday, February 10.
Carrel applications are on the circulation desk -- open to all students; preference is given to science majors, based on seniority. Carrel regulations and an application form are also online, here.

Wild-eyed forerunners

2012-01-27T16:35:00.000-05:00

Among the new books received today is this research monograph, with a strong emphasis on understanding evolution of the earliest non-mammalian therapsids through understanding their bone microstructure. Sixteen specialists contributed to the volume, edited by Anusuya Chinsamy-Turan (who also co-authored six of the book's eleven chapters).

Detailed research findings on cranial microstructure, bone and dental histology, bone degradation, and vascularized bone tissue patterns fill most of the chapters, within the context of relating those minute observations to new understandings of how the earliest land vertebrates evolved into modern day mammals. Fascinating stuff, evolution! See the OBIS record for table of contents and contributors.

Other new books received today cover a wide range of subjects, from anthropology to geophysics, as well as polar bears facing extinction, a birdwatching guide controversy, bioconstitutionalism and genomics, mountains in Antarctica and beaches worldwide, plus an impressively chunky dictionary of entomology. See the new book list.

Science Breakthrough of 2011: HIV Treatment as Prevention

2012-01-27T12:05:00.002-05:00

Science's editors and news staff have selected "HIV Treatment as Prevention" as the Scientific Breakthrough of the Year 2011, based on findings by the HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN) that antiretroviral drugs reduced the risk of heterosexual transmission by 96%. Read the full story.

Science is published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

7 new publications by Karla Parsons-Hubbard and colleagues

2012-01-26T13:33:00.000-05:00

All seven of the following articles by Associate Professor of Geology Karla Parsons-Hubbard are published in Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, special issue: The Shelf and Slope Experimental Taphonomy Initiative (SSETI): Thirteen years of taphonomic observations on carbonate and wood in the Bahamas and Gulf of Mexico. [access for subscribers at OhioLINK EJC or ScienceDirect.com]

Brett CE, Parsons-Hubbard KM, Walker SE, Ferguson C, Powell EN, Staff G, Ashton-Alcox KA, Raymond A. 2011. Gradients and patterns of sclerobionts on experimentally deployed bivalve shells: Synopsis of bathymetric and temporal trends on a decadal time scale. Palaeogeography Palaeoclimatology Palaeoecology 312(3-4):278-304.

Heise EA, Raymond A, Parsons-Hubbard K, Walker SE, Staff G, Powell EA, Brett C, Ashton-Alcox KA. 2011. Wood taphonomy in a tropical marine carbonate environment: Experimental results from lee stocking island, bahamas. Palaeogeography Palaeoclimatology Palaeoecology 312(3-4):363-79.

Krause RA, Jr., Parsons-Hubbard K, Walker SE. 2011. Experimental taphonomy of a decapod crustacean: Long-term data and their implications. Palaeogeography Palaeoclimatology Palaeoecology 312(3-4):350-62.

Parsons-Hubbard KM, Brett CE, Walker SE. 2011. Taphonomic field experiments and the role of the shelf and slope experimental taphonomy initiative. Palaeogeography Palaeoclimatology Palaeoecology 312(3-4):195-208.

Powell EN, Staff GM, Callender WR, Ashton-Alcox KA, Brett CE, Parsons-Hubbard KM, Walker SE, Raymond A. 2011. Taphonomic degradation of molluscan remains during thirteen years on the continental shelf and slope of the northwestern gulf of mexico. Palaeogeography Palaeoclimatology Palaeoecology 312(3-4):209-32.

Powell EN, Staff GM, Callender WR, Ashton-Alcox KA, Brett CE, Parsons-Hubbard KM, Walker SE, Raymond A. 2011. The influence of molluscan taxon on taphofacies development over a broad range of environments of preservation: The SSETI experience. Palaeogeography Palaeoclimatology Palaeoecology 312(3-4):233-64.

Walker SE, Parsons-Hubbard K, Richardson-White S, Brett C, Powell E. 2011. Alpha and beta diversity of encrusting foraminifera that recruit to long-term experiments along a carbonate platform-to-slope gradient: Paleoecological and paleoenvironmental implications. Palaeogeography Palaeoclimatology Palaeoecology 312(3-4):325-49.

Environmentalism at Oberlin

2011-12-20T13:10:00.002-05:00

All things environmental at OC is the overarching goal of a brand new web site created by Annika Sullivan, Sustainability Literacy Intern (also one of the many dedicated student assistants in the science library). Annika observed that this is a work in progress and will change as groups form, issues change and new initiatives emerge. Feedback is welcome. It looks great so far!

Go to Environmentalism at Oberlin.

Visualizing Photons @ MIT's Media Lab - the Camera Culture Group

2011-12-14T10:00:00.000-05:00

Visualizing Photons in Motion at a Trillion Frames Per Second. Remarkable! The investigators offer these observations for the possible applications of their work: "Beyond the potential in artistic and educational visualization, applications include industrial imaging to analyze faults and material properties, scientific imaging for understanding ultrafast processes and medical imaging to reconstruct sub-surface elements, i.e., 'ultrasound with light'. In addition, the photon path analysis will allow new forms of computational photography, e.g., to render and re-light photos using computer graphics techniques."

Annual Reviews on your mobile device

2011-12-08T11:25:00.001-05:00

annualreviews.org

This comes from Annual Reviews, Inc., publisher of some of our favorite titles in the library and now more convenient than ever! Connect to the Annual Reviews mobile site before leaving campus for winter break, and you will be able to access anything on the site while you are away.

The mobile site includes articles formatted for personalized browsing, searching, and provide a reading experience optimized for a variety of mobile devices. You can also download articles for offline reading and easily share article abstracts and links via email and social networks.

Visit annualreviews.org/page/about/mobile for more information.

While there, search "oberlin college" - an interesting list results, from personal narratives of scientists whose lives were influenced in some manner by Oberlin to in-depth review articles by past and present faculty members. Classic papers, such as Norm Henderson's Human Behavior Genetics, J. Milton Yinger's study on Ethnicity, and Birdsey Renshaw's early review on Nerve and Synaptic Transmission are followed by more recent reviews by Bruce Simonson on spherule layers and Daphne John on the division of household labor.

Whatever your research interests, there is an Annual Review title that undoubtedly includes an excellent article, written by a leading expert in the filed, that provides historical context, critical analysis of peer-reviewed literature and thoughtful conclusions to spur new investigations in that subject. We no longer receive the volumes in print, so the web site is our best access point. Take full advantage of all of the features now offered!

Predatory, open-access publishers

2011-12-01T13:42:00.000-05:00

Beall's List of Predatory, Open-Access Publishers has been updated, including publishers who are essentially fraudulent in their claims of scholarly peer-review and others who are launching far too many journals to adequately ensure a quality editorial process. Extraordinary author fees for manuscript submission do not guarantee an ethical, reliable scholarly communication cycle. Some are hardly more than vanity presses, according to Jeffrey Beall, academic librarian at the University of Colorado Denver. Researchers are forced into the position of "buyer beware" if sending a manuscript to one of these publishers, and, even more to the point for undergraduate students, readers must be very discerning to understand which papers have been given a rigorous peer-review by knowledgable scholars in the discipline of the article in question.

Journals from some of these publishers are listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals, which strives to list "quality controlled" scientific and scholarly journals. Inclusion in the DOAJ may help assure the reader of peer-review, but does not preclude predatory practice by the publisher to garner as many authors' manuscripts as possible, at the highest price, in a process that may undermine the goals of scholarly communication.

First Snowfall in Oberlin, Gone by Midday

2011-11-30T14:59:00.000-05:00

There was no hint of the early morning trace of wet snow by midday, as sun broke through gray clouds and blue skies chased away even the memory of slush on soggy ground.

According to the new edition of The Weather Almanac, received today, the last time we scrapped through November with just a trace of snowfall was 2001. The normal amount (mean) for the month is 5.1 inches (since 1980, as measured at Cleveland Hopkins Airport weather station). The Weather Almanac is full of interesting data, as well as lengthy, factually accurate narratives on climate topics.

The section on global warming and climate change is thoroughly updated. If you want an well-organized, easy to read, detailed account of how climate is changing, minus the hype and political posturing, take a look at pp. 317-352.

Impact of Hydrofracturing for Natural Gas on Ohio's Forests

2011-11-30T14:20:00.002-05:00

Buckeyeforestcouncil.org

Cheryl Johncox, Executive Director Buckeye Forest Council

will speak on

Impact of Hydrofracturing for Natural Gas on Ohio's Forests

Thursday Dec. 1, 2011 - 4:30 p.m.

Heiser Auditorium, Kendal @ Oberlin

Ms. Johncox will describe the environmental hazards associated with fracking, and pressures being brought to bear on landowners to lease public and private lands for drilling.
Sponsored by the Kendal Environmental Concerns Committee and League of Women Voters of the Oberlin Area.
Martha's Journal, official publication of the Buckeye Forest Council, is named for the last known Passenger Pigeon, who died in the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914. The Passenger Pigeon, once numbered in the millions throughout eastern forests, in flocks so huge that they took hours to pass while migrating, was driven to extinction in part by human-caused destruction not unlike the continued fragmentation of forests still standing.
Come learn what effect hydraulic fracturing could have on Ohio's forests. The public is invited.

Connect with Buckeye Forest Council on Facebook.

Bill McKibben in Craig Auditorium, 7 pm, Nov. 28

2011-11-22T12:28:00.009-05:00

Learn more about 350.org and Bill McKibben as a spokesperson for Tar Sands Action.

Read one of the dozen books by author Bill McKibben in the college library.

Read Nicholas Stern's review of Eaarth: Making a life on a tough new planet. Review published in the New York Review of Books 57(11): 35-37, June 2010. Borrow a copy of Eaarth.

Most importantly - show up at the Craig Auditorium to hear one of the most influential environmentalists of our time, and learn more about the potentially disastrous consequences of hydraulic fracturing or fracking: a practice that consumes millions of gallons of water in order to force natural gas from shale beds thousands of feet beneath the earth's surface, leading to methane release in groundwater and surface contamination, in addition to many other negative effects.

Be informed. More on fracking from the Buckeye Forest Council and New York Times Magazine (Nov. 17, 2011)

New publication from Norm Craig, in J Molecular Spectroscopy

2011-11-17T11:41:00.006-05:00

From ScienceDirect

A new publication from Norman C. Craig, Emeritus Professor of Chemistry, published October 2011:

Boopalachandran P., N. C. Craig, and J. Laane. 2011. Gas-phase Raman spectra of hot bands of fundamentals and combinations associated with the torsional vibration of s-trans-1,3-butadiene and its deuterated isotopologues. Journal of Molecular Spectroscopy 269:236-241.

OhioLINK users can access this in the Electronic Journal Center.

Supplementary data for this article are available on ScienceDirect and as part of the Ohio State University Molecular Spectroscopy Archives. [download the suppl. figure]

On this date in 1772: Lavoisier changed chemistry for all time.

2011-11-01T15:19:00.001-04:00

Source: Yale Univ Chem 125
history project

Here is a tidbit of chemistry history, from The Illustrated Almanac of Science, Technology, and Invention: "'A week ago I discovered that sulfur on being heated gained weight. It is the same with phosphorus,' reported Antoine Lavoisier, 29, in a simple note to the Secretary of the French Academy of Sciences. The discovery advanced and changed chemistry for all time." (November 1, 1772). Lavoisier showed that the weight gained equaled weight lost in the air, and established his Law of Conservation of Mass: The mass of the products of a chemical reaction are equal to the mass of the individual reactants.

What seems so basic, now, to any high school chemistry student was of phenomenal importance in 1772, invalidating the old phlogiston theory and establishing Lavoisier as the "Father of Modern Chemistry due to his use of step-by-step experimental procedures, making careful measurements, and keeping accurate records." (Scientific Laws, Principles, and Theories: a reference guide / Robert E. Krebs, p. 205).

Royal Society opens its archives and launches Open Biology

2011-10-28T19:54:00.001-04:00

Royal Society of London Open Access

Open access news from the Royal Society of London is very welcome. Read more about the recently launched Open Biology, "a journal run for scientists by scientists." The Royal Society says that the editors and editorial board intend to "ensure a fair and speedy review process without recourse to unnecessary rounds of revision," It is very new, so check back often for more publications.

The Royal Society open archive announcement coincides with Open Access Week, and celebrates free access to any article published more than 70 years ago. This is remarkable, considering the historically significant research findings published by the Royal Society. Try the advanced search at the Royal Society site, and you'll find that the publication date range extends back to 1665. There are not many (any?) other sites on the Internet where you can find such an authentic and rich archive of scientific discovery. Explore!

PLoS Blogs: Making Science Understandable and Accessible

2011-10-27T17:52:00.000-04:00

Today on one of the Public Library of Science (PLoS) Blogs is an interesting account of gathering sediment cores from tropical mud, to document changes in precipitation over thousands of years by measuring amounts of hydrogen ions in the sediment. What's so great about mucking around in the tropics to measure hydrogen ions? As author Conor Myhrvold of MIT SciWrite explains, it gathers "physical evidence of recent manifestations of tropical climate change several thousand years ago to make sure the parameters in the [climate change] models are grounded in reality." Reading this will give insight into what it takes, physically, to amass reliable data for understanding climate change, and a deeper appreciation for climate scientists' assessment of those data. At the very least, it's a good way to balance what you may have heard from certain politicians.

While at the PLoS Blogs site, take a moment to see all of the other perspectives offered there and link to the many wonderful open access PLoS journals. Open Access Week ends soon - take this open access challenge and find an article that interests you (try DOAJ for a start) to forward to a friend or colleague, confident that he or she will also be able to read it in its entirety. No subscription required.

Going away for Fall Break? Need access to journal articles?

2011-10-20T11:45:00.000-04:00

Information on remote access to the library's resources is here. In a nutshell, do this:

Download the VPN Client (Cisco) from the CIT website.
Launch the client and login before trying to search library databases or download articles.
Be sure the barcode on the back of your OCID has been input into the library's circulation system, if you will be requesting any items on the OhioLINK library catalog. We can do that over the phone, if needed. 440-775-8310.

Problems? Questions? Contact science.library@oberlin.edu or chat with us on Meebo IM.

Have a great break! The library will be open all week, Mon-Fri, 9-noon and 1-4:30, if you're staying on campus.

PubMed Central 10th Anniversary Video

2011-10-20T11:31:00.000-04:00

PubMedCentral (PMC) celebrated its 10th Anniversary in 2010, and this commemorative video was posted by NCBI NLM in July 2011. Just 12 minutes long, and definitely worth viewing despite the time elapsed since the video was distributed. Establishing the open access archive was one of the most important developments in scientific communication in the past decade, and the video chronicles its rapid rise to prominence and influence on other repositories of scientific articles. In addition to its role as an archive, PMC leads directly to NCBI and PubMed databases, with links to protein or nucleotide data or citing articles beyond those in the PMC, among other options. See this 2009 article co-authored by biology professor Michael Moore and explore some of those linking options:
Rosid radiation and the rapid rise of angiosperm-dominated forests.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2009 March 10; 106(10): 3853–3858.

Committed to Biodiversity? Go Swim with Sharks!

2011-10-14T17:58:00.000-04:00

Shark Tourism is a growing business with a helpful purpose that may not be entirely clear to thrill seekers in wet suits - preserving the diversity of predators essential for maintaining ecosystem balance. Listen to this great segment on Living on Earth, October 14, 2011, featuring Samuel “Doc” Gruber, a marine scientist at the University of Miami, who has been studying lemon sharks for 20 years from the beachfront lab he started on Bahamas’ Bimini island.

If you're considering a dip with sharks (or would prefer to appreciate them from afar), check out this magnificent reference book on our new book shelf: The Sharks of North America / José I. Castro ; color illustrations by Diane Rome Peebles. New York : Oxford University Press, c2011

PubMed: access to free medical articles online is unmatched

2011-10-12T15:38:00.001-04:00

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/

Open Access Gem of the Week:
For rapid, effective and entirely free (to the user) indexing to open access medical literature, PubMed can't be duplicated or surpassed. If you need to limit your search to medical articles that are freely available, PubMed is simply the best. Do any search and notice on the far right of the results screen a link to "Free Full Text" -- there are many other limits and very powerful search options, but this is one of the most obvious and helpful for the public.

Medline, the database underlying PubMed, can be simultaneously searched with Chemical Abstracts in SciFinder; with BIOSIS and the ISI citation indexes in Web of Knowledge; and with a whole host of databases in EbscoHost. There are excellent reasons to search Medline in those different platforms, but none of them are freely accessible by the public, world-wide, and offer the same ease of quickly linking to free articles online. PubMed: our tax dollars at work, and worth every penny. Try the advanced search interface with its "search builder" and be amazed at the options for creating a well-focused search. PubMed Mobile provides access from just about anywhere, anytime. Thank you, NCBI.

Cool Citation Tracking Tools @ the Geek Fest - Oct. 11

2011-10-06T12:58:00.000-04:00

Come to the library's Geek Fest on Tuesday October 11 and have fun following citations. Truly, it will be fun!

Easily find Oberlin faculty members whose research has been referenced (cited) by hundreds of other authors in the past twenty years.
See who has cited any published paper that interests you, from any discipline or time period, using the Web of Science - and, in one more step, find all of the papers related to those citing papers with the shared reference feature.
Leaping (linking) from one citation to the next in mere milliseconds, all within the context of millions of scholarly articles indexed in the Web of Science - including Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Social Sciences Citation Index and the Science Citation Index. Plus Conference Proceedings!

Once you've mastered the Web of Science, visit other stations around Azariah's Cafe, set up to delight you with new ways to find, store, organize and use information. Food, beverages, friendly librarians, fellow students, writing tutors, prizes! Mark your calendar... be there!

Rain Barrel Workshop at the Oberlin Depot

2011-09-26T15:42:00.000-04:00

Want to conserve water with your own rain barrel? Make your own? Head to the Oberlin Depot on Saturday, October 8, 2011.

OSWAMP-Oberlin Stormwater Management Project
Sign up for a RAIN BARREL WORKSHOP

Sat. Oct. 8, 2-5 pm
Oberlin Depot (beside the bike path, between S. Professor and S. Main St., just south of South Street)

Image from Chesapeake Bay Trust

Send $20 cash or check (made out to City of Avon Lake) before Oct. 1 to:
Annika Sullivan
OCMR 2515
Oberlin College
Oberlin OH 44074

Bring power tools!!!

Jennifer Crozier '09 published in Infectious Disease Reports

2011-09-23T11:55:00.001-04:00

It is great to see a paper by former science library student assistant Jennifer Crozier '09 in Infectious Disease Reports, an Open Access, peer-reviewed journal published by PAGEPress, Pavia, Italy. Crozier is one of five authors of Nanoparticles containing siRNA to silence CD4 and CCR5 reduce expression of these receptors and inhibit HIV-1 infection in human female reproductive tract tissue explants. The article reports research under the direction of Susan K. Eszterhas and Alexandra L. Howell of the V.A. Medical Center, White River Junction, VT and Dartmouth Medical School Department of Microbiology and Immunology. PAGEPress is devoted to "open access knowledge" and credits Public Knowledge Project for Open Journal Systems (PKP | OJP)

2011-09-21T14:27:00.001-04:00

Visit Open Access Week
Open Access Week will be celebrated world wide during Oberlin's Fall Break, so we will highlight Open Access resources in the sciences during the coming weeks. Some important Open Access journals are listed here. Have a favorite Open Access journal that isn't noted on the list? Let me know!

Summer slipped into September... need a study carrel?

2011-09-06T22:24:00.000-04:00

After weeks of anticipation, the new academic year has begun! It feels like late October already, but hot September weather is sure to hit us when we least need the distraction of summer breezes on top of September's academic expectations. Regardless, the science library is a great place to study. If you want a study carrel here, stop by and fill out an carrel application form. Leave it at the circulation desk anytime before 4pm on Friday, September 9, and you will have complete consideration along with everyone else in your class and major (senior science majors are given priority). More about Study Carrels in the science library.

Julia Bair, 5th year double-degree student, publishes in Eur. J. Neurosci.

2011-08-11T14:41:00.000-04:00

Just indexed in ISI Web of Knowledge and co-authored by Julia Bair, double-degree Bassoon performance/Neuroscience major from Glencoe, Illinois:

What subcortical-cortical relationships tell us about processing speech in noise.
Parbery-Clark, Alexandra; Marmel, Frederic; Bair, Julia; Kraus, Nina

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE 33 (3): 549-557 FEB 2011 [access @ OhioLINK EJC]

Bair's co-authors are based in various departments at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, including the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory. The team investigated the "effects of background noise on both subcortical- and cortical-evoked responses, and the relationships between them, in normal hearing young adults."

See a sample issue of the journal at Wiley Online Library.

Amanda Schmidt's latest post from China: digging for snails

2011-08-09T11:06:00.000-04:00

Assistant Professor of Geology Amanda Schmidt is studying the properties of loess in China, as part of an effort to understand the natural hazards of a region characterized with this sediment. She writes from China: "These [samples] will be used to determine how strong [loess] is, what makes it break in blocks, and what makes it flow. We suspect that the original loess is rather weak and flows easily, but that once it has flowed and set up again, it is quite a bit stronger." Schmidt's posts appear in the New York Times Scientist at Work blog. The bit about snails refers to finding snails buried in undisturbed loess sediments, to use for dating the deposition age. Schmidt includes a great photo of the 3-year old daughter of the park science translator, enjoying her first time "playing in dirt," and helping to sort snails from sediment.

Basic Protocols Freely Accessible in JoVE

2011-08-08T15:32:00.001-04:00

JoVE: Journal of Visualized Experiments is a peer-reviewed online journal of videos and other forms of visualization that demonstrate complex procedures, most of which are rather more specialized than needed for our curriculum -- but the "Basic Protocols" section includes 56 videos that are freely accessible and of potential use in the undergraduate laboratory. See, for example, Generation of Single-Cell Suspensions from Mouse Neural Tissue, by Sandra Pennartz, Sandy Reiss, Rebecca Biloune, Doris Hasselmann, and Andreas Bosio. Free access to the protocol, which is accompanied by a written abstract and pdf describing the technique, is sponsored by Miltenyi Biotec.

Biology major Dylan Holmes co-author in Animal Behavior

2011-08-04T12:21:00.001-04:00

About the Journal

Congratulations to junior Dylan Holmes, who co-authored a paper appearing in the current issue of Animal Behavior:

Sing softly and carry a big stick: signals of aggressive intent in the song sparrow.
Akcay, Caglar; Tom, Mari E.; Holmes, Dylan; Campbell, S. Elizabeth; Beecher, Michael D.
Animal Behaviour 82 (2): 377-382 August 2011 [access at OhioLINK EJC]

Also recently published is an article by chemistry professor Matt Elrod:
Kinetics Study of the Aromatic Bicyclic Peroxy Radical plus NO Reaction: Overall Rate Constant and Nitrate Product Yield Measurements. Elrod, Matthew J.
Journal of Physical Chemistry A 115 (28): 8125-8130 July 21, 2011 [access at ACS Publications]

Diving bell spider, sea urchin, Arctic ground squirrel: on journal covers this week

2011-08-03T10:40:00.001-04:00

View this cover online (subscribers only)

We maintain print subscriptions to many journals still, even for those we also access online. Serendipitous discovery motivated by intriguing journal covers is one benefit of maintaining a print collection. Three issues received yesterday have gorgeous photographs that are best appreciated in hand - stop by and pick one up!

Seymour, R. S. and Hetz, S. K. (2011). The diving bell and the spider: the physical gill of Argyroneta aquatica. J. Exp. Biol. 214, 2175-2181. Photo, Stefan K. Hetz.

The cover of Development (July 1) shows the "mouth of an adult sea urchin (Lytechinus variegatus) as the animal attempts to consume a fragment of seaweed. This still frame from a rapid time-lapse sequence taken by Sarah A. Elliott and Nobuo Ueda at the 2010 Woods Hold MBL Embryology Course was chosen by readers of the Node." (Cover explanation taken from the table of contents)

Arctic ground squirrel (Urocitellus parryii)

A hibernating Arctic ground squirrel graces the cover of The Journal of Neuroscience, July 27, illustrating an article beginning on page 10752.

Jinka, T. R., O. Toien, and K. L. Drew. (2011). Season primes the brain in an arctic hibernator to facilitate entrance into torpor mediated by Adenosine A1 receptors. J. Neurosci. 31, 10752-10758.

Photo by Lesa Hollen and Leone Thieman.

Structure for cis,trans-1,4-Difluorobutadiene

2011-07-22T14:55:00.003-04:00

View cover at acs.org

New publication by Professor Emeritus of Chemistry Norm Craig:

Semiexperimental Equilibrium Structure for cis,trans-1,4-Difluorobutadiene by the Mixed Estimation Method. Demaison, Jean F.; Craig, Norman C.
Journal of Physical Chemistry A 115 (27): 8049-8054 published online June 8, 2011
[access at American Chemical Society Publications, for subscribers]

Belitsky Lab Research Presented at ACS Spring Meeting

2011-07-15T11:35:00.002-04:00

The abstracts of two presentations by Associate Professor of Chemistry Jason Belitsky have been published as part of the proceedings from the 241st National Meeting and Exposition of the American Chemical Society, held in Anaheim, CA, March 27-31, 2011.

The first presentation was a collaboration with Oberlin students (Lye and Moore both graduated in 2011, Ellowitz expects to graduate in 2012).

Melanin-based coatings for environmental applications.
Lye, Diane; Moore, Christine; Ellowitz, Micah; Belitsky, Jason M.
Abstracts of Papers of the American Chemical Society 241: CHED-547 March 27 2011

Structure image
from Wikipedia

This work involved immobilizing melanin from human hair and testing the binding of melanin and its synthetic analogs with heavy metals and dyes, and efforts toward heavy metal sequestration.

Melanin molecular recognition. Belitsky, Jason M.
Abstracts of Papers of the American Chemical Society 241: ORGN-676 March 27 2011
Belitsky's talk focused on analogs of eumelanin and their interactions with metal ions and boronic acids. His research furthers understanding of colorimetric sensors for lead and inhibitors of synthetic melanin, including applications for molecular imprinting and inhibition.

The abstracts do not appear on the ACS website for viewing by the public, but may be found in SciFinder.

"It was a lark." -- Freeman Dyson, on the early Los Alamos community

2011-07-08T11:29:00.001-04:00

On the new book shelf today is a very slim pamphlet, containing the transcript of the PBS production The Day After Trinity: J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Atomic Bomb (1981). Transcribed and printed by PTV Publications, Kent, Ohio, this written record of the public broadcasting production by Jon Else gives a fascinating picture of gathering the best physicists and their students in the "boom town" of Los Alamos. Under Oppenheimer's leadership, this group of brilliant thinkers, with "kind hearts and humanist feelings," went to work on a weapon of mass destruction. The Day After Trinity explores how and why the atomic bomb was developed, in the context of relationships of the scientists working together under great stress. "Their average age was 29, and their job was to construct a mechanism which would trigger, in a millionth of a second, a violet chain reaction. They had two dance bands, a soda fountain, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, a radio station with no call letters, aa cyclotron, and 7,000 fire extinguishers," says the narrator. Freeman Dyson, then a physicist with the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University, remarked "The most striking contraction is the fact that this man [Oppenheimer], who was so unworldly, so unpolitical in his youth, such a great scholar, so fond of metaphysical poetry, should suddenly emerge as the great administrator who put Los Alamos together and produced the atomic bomb."

It is still very thought-provoking reading, 30 years after the making of the documentary. As we approach the 66th anniversary of the destruction of Hiroshima and Nakasaki, Oppenheimer's words remain relevant: "I think the only hope for our future safety must lie in a collaboration, based on confidence and good faith, with the other peoples of the world." [OBIS catalog record]

Faculty publication: Tracie Paine, in Neuropsychopharmacology

2011-07-01T17:20:00.000-04:00

More into @ Nature.com

A new publication by Assistant Professor of Neuroscience Tracie Paine:

Schizophrenia- Like Attentional Deficits Following Blockade of Prefrontal Cortex GABA(A) Receptors.
Paine, Tracie A.; Slipp, Lauren E.; Carlezon, William A., Jr.
Neuropsychopharmacology 36 (8): 1703-1713 July 2011 [read the abstract]

Oberlin College Library does not have access to this journal (a print subscription costs $2,846 and an online site license would be considerably more). We can obtain a copy through Interlibrary Loan.

Climate Scientists Face Hostility, Undermining Scientific Freedom

2011-06-30T09:35:00.000-04:00

From the American Association for the Advancement of Science:
"Reports of personal attacks on climate scientists, including harassment, legal challenges, and even death threats, have created a hostile environment that inhibits the free exchange of scientific findings and makes it difficult for factual information to reach policymakers and the public, the AAAS Board of Directors said in a statement of concern."

Read “Statement of the Board of Directors of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Regarding Personal Attacks on Climate Scientists.” [pdf] Approved on June 28.

Faculty-Student co-authored publication in J PHYS CHEM

2011-06-14T15:18:00.000-04:00

Recent publication by Adam Birdsall, '11 and Professor of Chemistry Matt Elrod, as found in ISI Web of Science:
Comprehensive NO-Dependent Study of the Products of the Oxidation of Atmospherically Relevant Aromatic Compounds.
Birdsall, AW.; Elrod, MJ.

Journal home page

JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY A 115 (21): 5397-5407 JUN 2 2011. [subscriber access, @ ACS publications]

Imams add their support for teaching evolution

2011-06-06T13:24:00.001-04:00

The Clergy Letter Project expands and creates opportunity for Muslims to support evolution, explains Michael Zimmerman in a recent Huffington Post column (posted June 2, 2011).

Extracted from Zimmerman's column:
"One of the overarching goals of The Clergy Letter Project is to demonstrate that the battle that so many want to portray as being between religion and science is actually something very different. In fact, there are religious individuals whose beliefs are at odds with science, and those people, typically fundamentalists regardless of their religion, are convinced that their perspective is the only "correct" one; that all other religious views are wrong. But, regardless of how much attention these people receive, they are in the minority and their views are every bit as much in conflict with the broader religious world as they are with the perspectives of the scientific community. These fundamentalists are attempting to claim all of religion for themselves by casting it in their own image while working feverishly to redefine science in a way that privileges their idiosyncratic readings of ancient texts."

Related reading:
Being human in Islam : the impact of the evolutionary worldview / Damian A. Howard
Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2011

Black lung disease is back with a vengence

2011-06-03T14:00:00.000-04:00

Living on Earth on May 27, 2011 presented a sobering story on a highly aggressive form of black lung, or coal workers’ pneumoconiosis, saying "An investigation into last year’s [Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch] coal mine disaster in West Virginia reveals a tragedy within a tragedy: autopsies show most of the men who died in the explosion also had black lung." The prevalence of black lung had been declining since the 1970s, due to stricter regulations governing the amount of coal dust permitted in active work areas. "Lax enforcement and monitoring of dust" are considered likely contributors to the increased incidence and severity of black lung, coupled with changes in mining practice that result in more silica dust as well as coal dust in smaller, confined areas.

The Government Accountability Office in 2008 found that 87% of miners' claims for disability benefits due to black lung were initially denied (Black Lung Benefits Program, report to U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Health Care, Committee on Finance).

Ironically, Senate Hearing 110-527 [Coal: a Clean Future] does not once mention black lung in its 252 pages (hearing before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Energy, Natural Resources, and Infrastructure, Committee on Finance). The "clean future" does not, apparently, include miners' lungs -- or the environment around coal mining sites.

More about --
Black lung: National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
Massey's denial of culpability for the disaster: Wall Street Journal, June 3.
Mountain top removal for coal extraction.

Three new publications from science faculty

2011-05-29T15:57:00.002-04:00

Articles by Dan Stinebring, Francis D. Federighi Chair in Physics, and Mike Moore, Assistant Professor of Biology, were published recently:

PNAS.org May 17, 2011

Contemporaneous and recent radiations of the world's major succulent plant lineages.
Arakaki, Monica; Christin, Pascal-Antoine; Nyffeler, Reto; Lendel, Anita; Eggli, Urs; Ogburn, R. Matthew; Spriggs, Elizabeth; Moore, Michael J.; Edwards, Erika J.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 108 (20): 8379-8384 MAY 17 2011
--
Angiosperm phylogengy: 17 genes, 640 taxa.
Soltis, Douglas E.; Smith, Stephen A.; Cellinese, Nico; Wurdack, Kenneth J. ... Moore, Michael J., et al.
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF BOTANY 98 (4): 704-730 APR 2011
--
Effects of intermittent emission: noise inventory for the scintillating pulsar B0834+06.
Gwinn, C. R.; Johnson, M. D.; Smirnova, T. V.; Stinebring, D. R.
ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL 733 (1): Art. No. 52 MAY 20 2011

Welcome to Alumni, Family and Friends of Grads!

2011-05-26T17:40:00.002-04:00

OA Librarian Blog

The science library will be open for 17 hours during Commencement/Alumni weekend, and we look forward to greeting all visitors - especially former student assistants of the science library (and family and friends of our graduating seniors). Stop in and make yourself at home! Check out the science faculty & student publications display at our entrance, enjoy access to the Web from any of the 19 public Macs, and learn about open access journals in the sciences by following the link on the Science Library web page [Open Access Journals in the Find Articles box].

It isn't too early to start planning for Open Access Week. Please share good ideas for promoting open access on campus. I will be in the library on Sunday afternoon - be sure to say hello! [Staff profile]

The Books Are All Shelved!

2011-05-23T16:23:00.000-04:00

It's true, we've completely caught up with shelving all of the end-of-semester book returns. At least until the next armload is deposited on the circ desk or dumped into the book return. You can return books to the outside book drop (east wall of the library) anytime, so if the warm breeze, blue sky and brilliant sun have kept you happily engaged outdoors (and who could blame you?), drop off your library books anytime you remember - before you leave campus!

Summer reading possibilities are endless, if you're staying in Oberlin for the summer (even if you're going away but plan to return for fall semester!). Take a look at the New Books list; The Darwin archipelago caught my interest. You're sure to find something appealing here!

If you really want the books currently checked out to you (for the summer), just stop by and let us update your patron record with your summer address. Takes just a moment or two!

New publications by Simonson and FitzGerald

2011-05-06T10:01:00.001-04:00

Physicist Stephen FitzGerald's article, co-authored with current Oberlin students Jennifer Schloss and Christopher Pierce, is accessible through the OhioLINK EJC which links to the American Chemical Society publications site, pubs.acs.org.

Neutron Scattering and Spectroscopic Studies of Hydrogen Adsorption in Cr-3(BTC)(2)-A Metal-Organic Framework with Exposed Cr2+ Sites.
Sumida, Kenji; Her, Jae-Hyuk; Dinca, Mircea; Murray, Leslie J.; Schloss, Jennifer M.; Pierce, Christopher J.; Thompson, Benjamin A.; FitzGerald, Stephen A.; Brown, Craig M.; Long, Jeffrey R. JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY C 115 (16): 8414-8421 APR 28 2011

Geology professor Bruce Simonson's newest publication appears in the relatively new journal Elements: an international magazine of mineralogy, geochemistry and petrology. Oberlin library users can download it from elementsmagazine.org. It is also in print, in the science library.

Iron Ore Deposits Associated with Precambrian Iron Formations.
Simonson, Bruce M. ELEMENTS 7 (2): 119-120 APR 2011

On this day in 1925 - John Scopes arrested for teaching evolution

2011-05-05T10:41:00.001-04:00

This comes from:

The illustrated almanac of science, technology, and invention day by day/facts, figures, and the fanciful / Raymond L. Francis. New York : Plenum Trade, c1997.

1925 - "John T. Scopes is arrested for teaching Darwin's theory of evolution in a Tennessee public school. In the famous 'Monkey Trial' the next month in Dayton, Scopes was found guilty and fined $100. The verdict was reversed on appeal. Ironically, Scopes was not a biology teacher (he was a physics teacher substituting for a sick biology teacher), and he was not even in school the day when evolution was taught."

The Scopes trial is considered in this recent book in the science library:

Galileo goes to jail : and other myths about science and religion / edited by Ronald L. Numbers. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2009. The myth in this case being that the Scopes trial ended in defeat for anti-evolutionists - they won the case then (though lost on appeal), and continue to push anti-evolution legislation.

Learn more about current efforts to challenge the teaching of evolution at the National Center for Science Education.

ncse.com

Biology and Chemistry student-faculty collaboration: J Chem Ecol paper

2011-04-29T21:18:00.001-04:00

This paper, published in the April issue of Journal of Chemical Ecology, is the result of collaboration among faculty members in Biology and Chemistry (Garvin and Whelan, respectively), current students Rutter and Austin, and recent graduate Shaw:


Gray Catbird - thanks to Lake County Species report.

Volatile and Semivolatile Compounds in Gray Catbird Uropygial Secretions Vary with Age and Between Breeding and Wintering Grounds.

Shaw, Clara L.; Rutter, Jordan E.; Austin, Amy L.; Garvin, Mary C.; Whelan, Rebecca J.

JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL ECOLOGY 37 (4): 329-339 APR 2011 [access at OhioLINK EJC for subscribers]

Transactions from WIT Technology conferences, 1993-2009, now open access

2011-04-26T11:54:00.000-04:00

From a press release received today. More @ WIT Press e-library website

WIT Press has announced that, effective immediately, Wessex Institute of Technology papers in their e‑library published from 1993 through 2009 are available on an Open Access basis.

The Wessex Institute of Technology is making the papers Open Access in order to ensure the widest dissemination of papers presented at WIT Conferences.

The WIT Press e-library consists of six sets of Transactions containing papers presented at Wessex Institute of Technology conferences, as follows:

Biomedicine and Health
The Built Environment
Ecology and the Environment
Engineering Sciences
Information and Communication Technologies
Modelling and Simulation

A seventh set of Transactions, State of the Art in Science & Engineering, contains selected chapters from WIT Press books on the latest developments in various fields of science and engineering.

Happy 226th Birthday, John James Audubon

2011-04-26T09:16:00.004-04:00

Enjoy just a small selection of John James Audubon's beautiful birds by browsing one of the many compilations of his works and guides in the science library. Start with:
Audubon : early drawings / introduction by Richard Rhodes ; scientific commentary by Scott V. Edwards ; foreword by Leslie A. Morris. Cambridge, Mass. : The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2008. QL674 .A85 2008 (in oversize shelving)
and follow up with an author search in OBIS on Audubon, John James, 1785-1851

The University of Pittsburgh Library has made available, online, their complete double elephant folio set of Audubon’s Birds of America, accompanied by his Ornithological Biography. It is a marvelous collection to have digitized and made public. Thank you, University Library System staff! Univ Pittsburgh Audubon web site.

Thanks also to Google Doodle for commemorating John James Audubon.

"In Brief" in New Scientist - always satisfying!

2011-04-14T10:19:00.000-04:00

If you're curious about the natural world and don't have time or the inclination to delve deeply into scholarly journal literature, the New Scientist section "In Brief" is for you. Every week, just 10 minutes will reward you with a wealth of startling new research findings, summed up in engaging reports aimed at a general audience. You can always find an issue of New Scientist on our "Journals Received This Week" display - settle into the comfy chair positioned there and enjoy brief summaries condensed from peer-reviewed journal articles. New Scientist writers are marvelous at their craft, and you may well be drawn to read the entire issue cover to cover.

"In Brief" this week includes:

Angry birds kiss and make up after a brawl
Stem cells grow into partial eyeball
Prejudice linked to fertility cycle
Like cannabis, but without the buzz
Bye-bye electrons, hello atomtronics

The headings alone draw one's attention, and reading these short summaries is always satisfying. So pause as you pass by the new journal display, and learn something amazing - did you know, for example, that bird parents choose which chicks to feed by discerning the amount of UV light reflected from the chicks' foreheads? Wild, right? Heavier chicks reflect less UV light than lighter nestlings, and parents give more food to the chicks reflecting more UV light. The study that led to this conclusion: Aviles, J., et al. Behavioural Ecology and Sociobiology, DOI: 10.1007/S00265-011-1164-8.

Thousands of Scientific Posters in Open Access Repository

2011-04-13T15:53:00.003-04:00

Access F1000Posters.com

The Faculty of 1000 Open Poster Repository for Biology and Medicine offers the poster presentations from 180 international meetings, to date. Free access to anyone in the world, with links to the full-text of subsequently published articles (accessible by subscription, as required). F1000 invites submissions for the repository. The most recent conference invited to be represented in the repository is the New York Academy of Sciences meeting on Music, Science and Medicine, including a presentation on music treatment for redirecting repetitive behaviors of children on the autism spectrum.

Scientific posters presented at conferences typically represent the most up-to-date research in a given area, with results and methodology that may or may not be published at a later date. The information in posters has traditionally been limited to those attending the conference; the F1000 repository allows access to anyone, widening the potential impact of the research and speeding communication.

More info.

When Science and the Media Mix

2011-04-08T13:46:00.005-04:00

Christopher Reddy's editorial, When Science and the Media Mix, published April 1 in Science (the print issue just received today) is perfectly timed with today's symposium (Day 2 of Journalism in the Age of New Media), sponsored by The Oberlin Review and a host of other college departments and organizations.

Reddy says, "At their best, science and journalism both research exhaustively, discover knowledge, and communicate it accurately and objectively." Come hear David Schlesinger, former Editor in Chief of Reuters give the keynote presentation today at 4:30pm, followed by a panel at 7pm including Robert Krulwich and Jad Abumrad of Radio Lab. Krulwich and Abumrad excel at communicating science for the general public, and would no doubt agree with Christopher Reddy's statement, "Communicating is risky, but not doing so is riskier." He goes on to say that scientists and journalists must "make continual efforts to learn each other's languages" so that knowledge is not "locked in laboratories, misunderstood, unused, or even worse, misused."

The journalism symposium events are in Hallock Auditorium of the A.J. Lewis Center.

Reading for Spring Break

2011-03-24T15:25:00.001-04:00

Some lovely and important books were received today - consider taking one along on your spring break travels, or to enliven a quiet spring break on campus.

This is especially relevant if you're heading to warmer climes:

Hot : living through the next fifty years on earth

publisher's description

]

Noted journalist Hertsgaard has covered climate change stories for years, and the birth of his daughter five years ago gave rise to an entirely new perspective on the urgency for action.

The slim volume noted below will inspire you to give serious consideration to a science teaching career, and packs into a small spot in your luggage or back pack:

The X factor : personality traits of exceptional science teachers / by Clair Berube

There are at least two dozen other good books on the new book shelf. Take a look as you turn your thoughts to a break from required reading and academic deadlines.

Understanding the earthquake in Japan

2011-03-18T10:23:00.000-04:00

From today's News & Analysis on the AAAS Science web site:
"The 11 March Tohoku earthquake ranks among the five strongest temblors recorded by modern instrumentation. The U.S. Geological Survey and the Japan Meteorological Agency now peg the magnitude at 9.0. The quake ruptured more than 400 kilometers of crust along the Japan Trench subduction zone, where a tectonic plate is diving beneath the northeast coast of Honshu Island."

Learn more about subduction zones, plate tectonics and earthquake occurrence in these titles:

access at USGS pubs

Subduction zone geodynamics / Serge Lallemand, Francesca Funicello, editors. Berlin : Springer, c2009
Fault-zone properties and earthquake rupture dynamics / [edited by] Eiichi Fukuyama. Boston : Elsevier Academic Press, c2009
Dynamic planet: monitoring and understanding a dynamic planet with geodetic and oceanographic tools / Paul Tregoning, Chris Rizos (eds.)
Berlin ; New York : Springer, c2007
Relative motions between oceanic and continental plates in the Pacific Basin / David C. Engebretson, Allan Cox, Richard G. Gordon. Boulder, Colo. : Geological Society of America, c1985
Earthquakes and tsunamis in the past : a guide to techniques in historical seismology / Emanuela Guidoboni, John E. Ebel. Cambridge, UK ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2009
The orphan tsunami of 1700 : Japanese clues to a parent earthquake in North America / Brian F. Atwater ... [et al.]. Reston, Va. : U.S. Geological Survey ; Seattle : In association with University of Washington Press, 2005

New publications by science faculty and students

2011-03-18T09:56:00.003-04:00

Oberlin Author:
Karla Parsons-Hubbard, Associate Professor of Geology.

The relationship of bionts and taphonomic processes in molluscan taphofacies formation on the continental shelf and slope: eight-year trends: Gulf of Mexico and Bahamas. Powell, EN; Brett, CE; Parsons-Hubbard, KM; Callender, WR; Staff, GM; Walker, SE; Raymond, A; Ashton-Alcox, KA. FACIES 57 (1): 15-37 JAN 2011 [access at OhioLINK EJC]

More about facies in AccessScience

Oberlin Authors:
Adam Darer '11, Neil Cole-Filipiak '10; Alison O'Connor '11; and Associate Professor of Chemistry Matthew Elrod.

Formation and stability of atmospherically relevant isoprene-derived organosulfates and organonitrates. Darer, AI; Cole-Filipiak, NC; O'Connor, AE; Elrod, MJ ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY 45 (5): 1895-1902 MAR 1 2011 [access at ACS web site]

More about organosulfur compounds in AccessScience.

Recent science publications by Oberlin students and faculty

2011-03-11T14:09:00.000-05:00

Three new publications from Oberlin authors were just indexed in ISI Web of Knowledge:

Oberlin author: Professor of Chemistry Rob Thompson

Applications of argentation solid phase extraction to the capsaicinoids: Purification of commercial standards and isolation of homodihydrocapsaicin (8-methyl) from 'Bhut Jolokia.' Thompson, Robert Q.; Loa, Kathleen. FOOD CHEMISTRY 126 (3): 1424-1430 JUN 1 2011 [access in OhioLINK EJC] [image of capsaicin]

Oberlin author: Julia Bair, 5th year, double degree student.

What subcortical-cortical relationships tell us about processing speech in noise. Parbery-Clark, Alexandra; Marmel, Frederic; Bair, Julia; Kraus, Nina. EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE 33 (3): 549-557 FEB 2011 [access in OhioLINK EJC]

Carbon is published by
Elsevier; more info at
Sciencedirect.com

Oberlin author: Jacob Schalch, Senior physics major.

Micro-channel development and hydrogen adsorption properties in templated microporous carbons containing platinum nanoparticles. Yang, Yunxia; Brown, Craig M.; Zhao, Chunxia; Chaffee, Alan L.; Nick, Burke; Zhao, Dongyuan; Webley, Paul A.; Schalch, Jacob; Simmons, Jason M.; Liu, Yun; Her, Jae-Hyuk; Buckley, C. E.; Sheppard, Drew A. CARBON 49 (4): 1305-1317 APR 2011 [access in OhioLINK EJC]

Discovery shuttle headed for home

2011-03-07T09:53:00.001-05:00

Space shuttle Discovery undocked from the International Space Station this morning, on the last leg of its final journey. Noah Adams presented a nice piece yesterday on All Thing Considered, about the push from museums to "land" a shuttle for permanent display. It would be great to see Discovery come to roost in Ohio, at The National Museum of the U.S. Air Force! (located at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base just a few miles from Dayton). An archive of events and work completed on Discovery's last journey is at the NASA web site archive of mission updates.
Today's feature from Reuters.com

Will Scripps Institution of Oceanography lose its library?

2011-03-03T12:11:00.000-05:00

The news that University of California San Diego may have to close its Scripps Institution of Oceanography Library is alarming news, indeed. Losing the expertise of the staff, some of whom would lose their positions, as well as losing the integrity of a collection of such historical and research significance, would affect the the oceanographic teaching and research community far beyond California's borders. Although selected parts of the collection would remain available, both digitally and in a proposed consolidated science library, the use and management of those materials in a cohesive marine science collection with dedicated staff, would be adversely impacted. The prospect is sad to contemplate.

Learn more: Nature news article; Library Journal report. Save the SIO Library now has a Facebook presence, and Deep Sea News posted a Scripps Library update yesterday.

Lectures celebrating the 125th Anniversary of C.M. Hall's discovery

2011-02-23T18:36:00.002-05:00

C.M. Hall, from Oberlin College Archives
see also CM Hall collection guide

Presentations by Gregory H. Robinson, Franklin Professor of Chemistry at University of Georgia, and Kevin Anton, Vice President, Chief Sustainability Officer, Alcoa, are highlights of today's Charles Martin Hall celebration.

An ISI Web of Knowledge cited reference search of Professor Robinson's publications, dated 1984-2010, resulted in 187 cited publications, several of which have been cited well over 100 times, for a total of 1,509 citations. One of the most recent and frequently cited publications (co-authored with Oberlin alumnus Bruce King) is this article published in Science:

Wang YZ, Xie YM, Wei PR, King RB, Schaefer HF, Schleyer PV, Robinson GH. 2008. A stable silicon(0) compound with a Si=Si double bond. SCIENCE 321(5892):1069-1071.

The article with the highest citation count dates from 1997, and was published in JACS:

Su JR, Li XW, Crittendon RC, Robinson GH. 1997. How short is a -Ga Ga- triple bond? Synthesis and molecular structure of Na-2[Mes*2C6H3-Ga Ga-C(6)H(3)Mes*(2)] (Mes*=2,4,6-i-Pr3C6H2): The first gallyne. J AM CHEM SOC 119(23):5471-5472.

Robinson's talk this afternoon drew an appreciative crowd of faculty, students, staff and townspeople. We all look forward to the keynote address by Mr. Anton this evening!

To not want to know is disastrous.

2011-02-09T21:17:00.001-05:00

This quote from Marcelo Gleiser, posted on NPR today, is a perfect introduction to Evolution Weekend, just a few days away:

To not know is fine. To not want to know is disastrous.

Here is a further observation: Some people want to know, but don't know how to find or assess the accuracy of their information sources. More alarmingly, they don't know that they don't know how to find or assess information. The apparent ease of finding so much so quickly through any Web search engine does not translate into knowledge. Next time you feel completely certain, absolutely sure, that your understanding of a particular issue or problem is correct, take careful stock of the source of your information: who funded the research? is it free of bias? who reviewed the data before publication? who is likely to profit (or suffer) from the research results? do the authors hold educational degrees or certification relevant to their research findings?

Evolution Weekend is an excellent time to consider how scientific theory can be reconciled with personal belief without undermining faith or denying the integrity of scientific data.

Related reading:
The Prism and the rainbow: a Christian explains why evolution is not a threat / Joel Martin
Evolution vs. Creationism: an introduction / Eugenie Scott

Congratulations, Mike! Assistant Professor Moore wins NSF CAREER grant

2011-02-08T14:21:00.000-05:00

Great story on Oberlin.edu - and exciting to see Mike Moore's work to be rewarded with this NSF grant! It is especially nice to learn that the grant will support collaboration with area high school teachers, in addition to teaching and research with college students and colleagues:

(From Oberlin College Headlines) "In addition to supporting student-faculty research opportunities in his lab, Moore will use the CAREER grant to improve student understanding of the core concepts in evolutionary biology both at the college and high school levels. He plans to run a summer workshop for area high school teachers in which he’ll give instruction on phylogenetic concepts — material that isn’t covered in Advanced Placement biology curriculum, but necessary for intro-level biology courses in college. He will also work with the faculty who teach the introductory BIOL 102 course to implement new lab activities aimed at getting students up to pace on extracting plant DNA and building an evolutionary tree."

For an artistic view of plant evolution, check out
The art of plant evolution / W. John Kress and Shirley Sherwood, Richmond : Kew Pub., 2009

Welcome to Spring Semester! Carrel Signup This Week

2011-02-07T11:53:00.000-05:00

Study Carrel applications for spring semester are at the circulation desk; carrel assignments will be posted on Friday morning. Any senior science major who had a carrel in the fall may keep that assigned carrel - but you must let us know you want it still! Send a message to science.library@oberlin.edu or tell whomever is at the circ desk. More info.

Closed this afternoon! Snow and ice have us down, but not defeated.

2011-02-02T13:42:00.000-05:00

The library should re-open on Thursday, after this mega-storm blows itself farther north and east. Is this a contender for one of the biggest snowstorms in weather records? You decide. Read "10 Biggest Snowstorms of All Time."

Helen E. Blackwell '94, co-editor of Chemical Reviews, Jan. 2011

2011-01-31T16:32:00.000-05:00

Helen Blackwell, class of 1994, is co-editor with Clay Fuqua of 2011 Bacterial Signals and Chemical Communication, special issue of Chemical Reviews [access on the American Chemical Society site is limited to subscribers]. Their editorial, Introduction to Bacterial Signals and Chemical Communication, is a cogent and easily understood explanation of the ability of bacteria to communicate through the release of chemical compounds. A significant aspect of this communication is known as "quorum sensing" - that is, releasing certain compounds in response to the density of bacterial cells and other environmental factors, which facilitates coordination among bacteria so they can more "effectively colonize and manipulate host organisms." The mechanisms for chemical signaling between bacteria species and among bacteria and host species are complex and varied, as evident from the different review articles in this special issue, and the implications for human health are exciting.

The editors conclude, "Understanding these processes [of bacterial conversation] provides the opportunity for scientists to intervene in the conversation and guide it in specific directions that potentially mollify the negative activities of microorganisms and promote the their beneficial attributes."

Space Shuttle Challenger Astronaut Remembered

2011-01-28T10:08:00.000-05:00

photo from aerospaceguide.net

From NPR's Morning Edition: "Ronald McNair was one of the astronauts killed 25 years ago on Jan. 28, when the space shuttle Challenger exploded. As his brother recalls, McNair's life was all about exploring boundaries - and exceeding them." [more]

Each Friday Morning Edition features a remembrance or interview from StoryCorps. Today's story came from Carl McNair, brother of Ronald McNair, the second African-American to become an astronaut. Perseverance to borrow books from the public library, then restricted to whites only, was an early indication that the young McNair would pursue his dreams. That, and his interpretation of Star Trek's diverse crew as possibility rather than science fiction, is a touching tribute to a young person's goals. That public library in Lake City, S.C., now celebrates Ronald E. McNair's legacy [story from the Charlotte Observer].

Radioactive... a tale of love and fallout

2011-01-27T12:28:00.000-05:00

We have received an extraordinary book; part biography, part art, part science, and full of passion and creativity. It is a delight for the eyes and intellect - and it smells delightfully bookish, from the combination of so many colored inks and fine paper. The cover offers an extra treat of tactile pleasure, with slightly fuzzy imprinting of images and lettering. The content, of course, makes it truly special, giving insight into the lives of Marie and Pierre Curie, and their abiding love and shared genius in the discovery of radioactivity. The book considers also the scientific and romantic partnership of their daughter, Irene, with Frederic Joliot, who as a team discovered that radioactivity could be "provoked rather than simply observed," and worked so closely together that they could not always say who had an idea first. The author, Lauren Redniss, brings the reader to more contemporary issues as well, and provides copious source notes. It is sure to be off the shelf and into a borrower's hands quickly!

More new books arrived! High time, too.

2011-01-25T20:52:00.000-05:00

Just when cobwebs threatened to form on the books displayed since mid-December, a shipment of new books was wheeled into the library. Good stuff, all of it. The World is Blue caught my eye immediately, and reminded me of the BBC story heard today of the polar bear who swam continuously for nine days, seeking sea ice, losing 22% of her body fat and her yearling cub in the process. A photograph of a polar bear, looking directly into the camera, is the last image in The World is Blue.

The world is blue : how our fate and the ocean's are one / Sylvia A. Earle.
Washington, D.C. : National Geographic, c2009.

Sylvia Earle is former NOAA Chief Scientist, and the first person to walk untethered at the lowest depth ever—1, 250 feet. She is founder and director of Deep Ocean Research and Exploration, which designs instruments for deep-sea exploration.

It seemed very fitting that we received a replacement copy of Wendell Berry's The gift of good land : further essays, cultural and agricultural (Counterpoint Press, c1981) in the same shipment as Rebels for the soil : the rise of the global organic food and farming movement / Matthew Reed. (Earthscan, 2010). The two books are excellent bookends for the past two decades of progress toward sustainable agricultural practices.

Browse the new book shelf - you will find a good read for that lull between the end of Winter Term and the start of spring semester!

Wag the Dog - last showing in the Big Read film series

2011-01-25T10:53:00.004-05:00

Join us for the last showing in our Fahrenheit 451 film series!
Sponsored by the Oberlin Big Read.

Wag the Dog

Wednesday, Jan 26, 2011

7 pm

Oberlin Public Library

Before elections, a spin-doctor and a Hollywood producer join efforts to "fabricate" a war in order to cover-up a presidential sex scandal.

Director: Barry Levinson
Writers: Larry Beinhart, Hilary Henkin
Staring: Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro and Anne Heche

Faculty publication: Zeb Page in Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta

2011-01-21T16:53:00.000-05:00

As indexed in ISI Web of Knowledge:

Cryptic metasomatism during exhumation of Franciscan eclogite and hornblendite revealed by in situ delta O-18 analysis of garnets.
Page, F. Zeb; Essene, Eric J.; Kita, Noriko T.; Valley, John W.
GEOCHIMICA ET COSMOCHIMICA ACTA 74 (12): A785-A785 Suppl. 1 JUN 2010

This is an abstract of a presentation made at the 19th Annual V.M. Goldschmidt Conference (Goldschmidt 2010: Earth, Energy, and the Environment, Knoxville Tennessee, June 13-18, 2010)

Nicole Foss speaking in Oberlin on January 28

2011-01-21T15:50:00.001-05:00

Nicole Foss will be speaking in Oberlin on Friday, January 28 at 7pm, on A Century of Challenges: Building Local Resilience in an Era of Economic Turmoil & Resource Depletion. She writes at The Automatic Earth under the pseudonym Stoneleigh. The talk will be held at First Church in Oberlin, 106 N. Main St.

This event was announced on her blog and on Mike Ruppert's radio show, The Lifeboat Hour.
see More details and a poster [pdf]. About Nicole Foss.

Foss runs the Agri-Energy Producers' Association of Ontario, where she has focused on farm-based biogas projects and grid connections for renewable energy. A new publication from the OECD gives an overview of biogas and related topics: Bioheat, biopower and biogas: developments and implications for agriculture / Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Yet one more reason to thank industrious microbes

2010-12-22T09:44:00.003-05:00

This delectable collection comes from
Malley's of Cleveland, Ohio. And,
closer to home: Suzin L. Chocolatier

Improving some of the world's best chocolate by optimizing a microbial starter culture is sweet research, as reported in December 1, 2010 issue of Applied and Environmental Microbiology. The article is nicely summarized on the ASM news site (Researchers Select Microbes to Improve Chocolate). Fine chocolate is most definitely the product of careful science and creative culinary art!

Read the full article:
T. Lefeber, M. Janssens, N. Camu, and L. De Vuyst. Kinetic analysis of strains of lactic acid bacteria and acetic acid bacteria in cocoa pulp simulation media toward development of a starter culture for cocoa bean fermentation. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 76: 7708-7716.

Food microbiology is well-represented in each issue of Applied and Environmental Microbiology. For a general introduction, try Food microbiology / Martin R. Adams and Maurice O. Moss. Royal Society of Chemistry, 2008. Human diets were be very boring, indeed, without the myriad types of food we enjoy only through microbial action (not discounting the essential role of microbes in the gut!).

Good Luck on Exams! Check out a new book when it's all over...

2010-12-17T17:08:00.002-05:00

Exam Day 1 is looming, and every table is occupied here in the science library - though some chairs are still free, if you're willing to share space at the big reading tables. Good luck to everyone; may your short-term memory perform brilliantly and solidify into long-term knowledge.

More than a dozen new books were delivered today, which could entice you to explore a new subject once this semester's exams are behind you. The potential disaster of a world without bees is explored in-depth by Allison Benjamin and Brian McCallum. Nothing like the prospect of world famine due to the loss of these amazing pollinators to redirect your attention from whatever you are studying so madly at the moment. There are, coincidentally, two more books focused on bees on the new book display right now: Why do bees buzz, and Honeybee democracy. Check out all three and you could find yourself taking the first step toward apiculture!

There are plenty of other options, including a compilation of this year's best science and nature writing, so take a break and browse our display.

Alumna Felisa Wolfe ('00), now Wolfe-Simon, and her work on arsenophiles

2010-12-17T12:23:00.000-05:00


Felisa Wolfe, when she was an Oberlin College Science Library student assistant

MSNBC's Cosmic Log has been attentive to the research of Felisa Wolfe-Simon and her colleagues, and the response from other researchers to their provocative findings, published in Science, that a bacterium can utilize arsenic rather than phosphorus ['Weird life' researchers answer critics]. Before heading off to graduate school and her present position with the U.S. Geological Survey, she was Felisa Wolfe of the science library student staff! A little known fact of her life at Oberlin, no doubt. As a 2000 grad, Felisa was one of many science majors who lived through the upheaval of Science Center construction, without reaping any of the benefits - we moved to the new science library in August 2001 and the rest of the center was completed the following year. Felisa was also among the last group of students given the Metcalf Student Assistant award when that award was based strictly on merit, rather than longevity of employment. She was one of the best, providing excellent service at our combination reference/circulation service desk. It is always great to see scientific publications of former students, and especially exciting when novel research findings challenge long-held assumptions.

Faculty and Student Publications

2010-12-17T11:03:00.000-05:00

The following articles, published last month, were just indexed in ISI Web of Knowledge. Three former students (Mauck, van den Heuvel, and Hull) are named as co-authors of the first paper, with Assistant Professor of Chemistry Catherine Oertel.

Synthesis and Structures of Pb3O2(CH3COO)2·0.5H2O and Pb2O(HCOO)2: Two Corrosion Products Revisited.
Catherine M. Mauck, Titus W. P. van den Heuvel, Michaela M. Hull, Matthias Zeller, and Catherine M. Oertel
Inorganic Chemistry 49 (22): 10736–10743 Nov 15, 2010. [access at ACS Publications]

Low luteinizing hormone enhances spatial memory and has protective effects on memory loss in rats.
Shira G. Ziegler, Janice E. Thornton.
Hormones and Behavior 58 (5): 705-713 NOV 2010. [access at OhioLINK EJC]

Extended Hours for Exam Period!

2010-12-16T15:40:00.001-05:00

The Science Library has never offered so many hours on a weekend before. To accommodate the exam schedule, we will stay open until midnight on Friday, and be open 8:30 am - midnight on Saturday and Sunday. Come on in! But leave your food outside, please. More hours.

Media Oddly Silent on Climate Talks

2010-12-07T10:13:00.010-05:00

This is a disturbing development, perhaps indicative that the American public has difficulty focusing on long-term, complex problems in competition with WikiLeaks, tax cuts, the economy in general, and a lame duck legislative body focused on other issues. Climate change waits for no lawmaker or policy wonk, however. As one of the "most serious challenges facing us today" (Union of Concerned Scientists), media coverage needs to be accurate, thorough and accessible to all.

"At last year’s climate meeting in Copenhagen, the room was buzzing with thousands of reporters. However, today climate change seems to be a forgotten story. Democracy Now! reviewed the transcripts of last week’s evening news broadcasts on ABC, CBS and NBC in the United States. The Cancún talks were not mentioned a single time." (Democracy Now!, Dec. 6, 2010).

National Public Radio, however, provided good coverage of the talks on All Things Considered. Thank you, NPR.

Roger Pielke, Jr. writes with clarity and insight about climate change policy in his new book, The Climate Fix. There are nearly 200 books on similar topics in the same section of shelving; it is an excellent place to learn the facts regarding climate and global warming.

Just ordered: When a billion Chinese jump

2010-11-29T16:40:00.000-05:00

Spurred by today's interview between NPR's Steve Inskeep and author Jonathan Watts, journalist for The Guardian, I've just requested purchase of his book "When a billion Chinese jump: how China will save the world - or destroy it." The interview provided a glimmer of hope for solving China's enormous environmental problems, as well as the challenge of balancing economic progress and environmental responsibility. "I think China is moving very, very quickly on renewable energy and clean tech," Watts says, "precisely because its environment is so bad that they have to take extreme actions." Until Oberlin's copy is here and ready to be borrowed, request a copy from another OhioLINK library. Read an excerpt from the book at NPR's Morning Edition.

Mountain Top Removal Road Show & Deepening Our Connections

2010-11-29T14:46:00.002-05:00

I am posting these event announcements on behalf of Oberlin Earth First! and Students for Carbon Neutrality.

Tonight 7:30pm Oberlin College Wilder Hall [room location TBA]

The Mountaintop Removal Road Show includes a stunning 20-minute slide show about the impacts of mountaintop removal on coalfield residents, communities and the environment, and features traditional Appalachian mountain music and shocking aerial photos of decapitated Appalachian mountains.

Tuesday 4pm OC Wilder Hall Room 112

Deepening Our Connections is a workshop linking the fields of deep ecology, ecofeminism, social ecology, environmental justice, and mysticism and showing how they can work together to fight oppression and move towards the collective liberation of all living beings. Integral theory is used in the workshop to show the importance of bringing different perspectives together. The workshop is very participatory, no prior knowledge of any of the subjects is required.Sponsored by Oberlin Earth First! and Students for Carbon Neutrality.

Call Your Legislator - ask for LSTA Funding!

2010-11-29T11:47:00.004-05:00

A message from the American Library Association

Fund LSTA at $300 Million!

Please call your Congressional representatives and tell them to fund the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) at $300 million for FY 2011. LSTA funding is distributed to states by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) through population-based grants. LSTA the only source of federal funding for public libraries, and with more and more public libraries facing state and local budget cuts, it is critically important that libraries receive this money.
Take Action!

Travel with a good book

2010-11-23T15:37:00.001-05:00

Heading off for Thanksgiving break? Take along some good reading!

Info @ Google books

Fragile web : what next for nature? / edited by Jonathan Silvertown, will give you a renewed interest in the biodiversity of whatever region you are visiting in the next few days.

From the publisher's summary: [Fragile Web] "discusses the importance of the world's ecosystems and how directly or indirectly humans are responsible for the fate of nature. Crucially, it also examines what can be done to protect the natural world and why it matters. Although we cannot undo all that we have done, ignoring the current crisis facing biodiversity could fundamentally change the lives of future generations."

We have at least 50,000 other great books close at hand, so stop in before you leave campus. Have a good break!

And, for those staying in Oberlin, the library will be open Friday afternoon as well as normal hours on Saturday and Sunday. See our HOURS.

Paleobotany text a hefty addition to new book shelf

2010-11-05T18:31:00.001-04:00

Paleobotany: the biology and evolution of fossil plants, 2nd ed., by Thomas N. Taylor, Edith L. Taylor and Michael Krings (Academic Press, an imprint of Elsevier, 2009) is by far the heaviest book on the new book shelf, and may have on average the most images per page, so it caught my attention in our most recent shipment of new books. What a treasure of authoritative text, illustrations, photographs and other visually presented data! Far more than a simple compendium of fossil data, the authors provide historical context of the interpretation of systematics and classification, and photographs too numerous to count of cited authors. The photographs and other illustrations of researchers easily span 180 years, and give a human face to the history and ongoing story of paleobotany. This is a delightful feature in such a comprehensive tome, and will be appreciated by anyone interested in the history of science.

Understanding climates of the past is essential for understanding current climate change, and paleobotany is an vital tool for the study of ancient climates. The Encyclopedia of paleoclimatology and ancient environments is an excellent resource for more on this subject [view at OhioLINK EBC or Springerlink.com].

Entropy and Rust [Letter], D. F. Styer

2010-11-05T17:20:00.000-04:00

New publication from Daniel F. Styer, J&M Schiffer Professor of Phyics, as indexed in ISI Web of Knowledge.

Styer, D. F. 2010. Entropy and Rust [Letter]. American Journal of Physics 78: 1077-1077.

It's Open Access Week! Celebrate with PLoS, DOAJ, SPARC, and more.

2010-10-18T14:52:00.003-04:00

See Reading Girl Speaks for more information about Open Access at Oberlin. For a great overview on Open Access and its impact on scholarly communication, see this video from the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC):

Open Access Week 2010 from SPARC on Vimeo.

Don't have time for the whole presentation? Take a peek at this animated short from McGill University.

How else can you celebrate your freedom to read scholarly works, made accessible without payment from you, the reader? Search the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and enjoy immediate access to everything found there. Browse the extensive collection of articles at Public Library of Science (PLoS): you are certain to find something remarkable among its seven journals. Even traditional scientific publishers offer a public access option for certain articles, based on contractual agreements with authors and payment of a public access fee by the author(s) or funding agency (e.g., the Author Choice program at American Chemical Society Publications and Springer's Open Choice). PubMed, the public access database incorporating Medline, offers "free full text" as a limiting option in the Advanced Search, and also as a refine option from the search results screen.

There is no doubt that increasing public access to scholarly research benefits members of the public as well as students and scholars - so maximize your use of open access materials!

New Publications by Elrod, Birdsall, Andreoni, and Stinebring

2010-10-15T14:33:00.001-04:00

As indexed in ISI Web of Science, recent publications by Matthew Elrod, Associate Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and Daniel Stinebring, Francis D Federighi Chair in Physics and Astronomy:

Birdsall, AW; Andreoni, JF; Elrod, MJ. 2010.
Investigation of the Role of Bicyclic Peroxy Radicals in the Oxidation Mechanism of Toluene
JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY A 114 (39): 10655-10663 OCT 7 2010 [access at American Chemical Society Publications]
Co-authors Adam Birdsall and John Andreoni are seniors at Oberlin College, anticipating graduation in May 2011.

Hobbs, G; et al. [including Stinebring, D.] 2010.
The International Pulsar Timing Array project: using pulsars as a gravitational wave detector.
CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM GRAVITY 27 (8): Art. No. 084013 APR 21 2010 [access at OhioLINK EJC]

Open Access Database of Breast Cancer Publications

2010-10-15T14:14:00.000-04:00

In honor of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October, ebrary recently announced availability of an open access database of breast cancer publication, created in collaboration with librarians from other organizations.

ebrary's Breast Cancer Searchable Information Center is just one of a growing number of open access collections created by ebrary staff and customers. See the list of additional databases.

In related news, NPR's Talk of the Nation aired "Sorting Through Mammogram Confusion" yesterday [October 14, 2010], following a Morning Edition story on October 11 (In Mammogram Debate, Differences Aren't So Big).

Learn more at the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes for Health.

One-Two Punch: Virus/Fungus Found to Cause Bee Colony Collapse

2010-10-08T12:15:00.004-04:00

This fascinating story comes from the New York Times front page (A1) on October 7: Scientists and Soldiers Solve a Bee Mystery. The fate of honeybees is of critical importance for ecosystems generally and human food supply, specifically, as has been documented in countless other publications and news stories (search: CCD colony collapse honey bees in google and the result is overwhelming). This book provides good background information: A world without bees / Alison Benjamin, Brian McCallum.

The U.S. House of Representatives held a Hearing to review the status of pollinator health including colony collapse disorder (hearing before the Subcommittee on Horticulture and Organic Agriculture of the Committee on Agriculture, House of Representatives, One Hundred Tenth Congress, second session, June 26, 2008), providing abundant evidence of the cost and effect of CCD on farmers nationwide and USDA's research efforts to date.

The NYT story addresses the mysterious nature of colony collapse, and the fortuitous result of academic/military collaboration to research the cause:

"Human nature and bee nature were interconnected in how the puzzle pieces came together. Two brothers helped foster communication across disciplines. A chance meeting and a saved business card proved pivotal. Even learning how to mash dead bees for analysis — a skill not taught at West Point — became a factor.
"One perverse twist of colony collapse that has compounded the difficulty of solving it is that the bees do not just die — they fly off in every direction from the hive, then die alone and dispersed. That makes large numbers of bee autopsies — and yes, entomologists actually do those — problematic."

Now that the cause of CCD is more clearly understood, how can it be treated? That remains elusive:

"Scientists in the project emphasize that their conclusions are not the final word. The pattern, they say, seems clear, but more research is needed to determine, for example, how further outbreaks might be prevented, and how much environmental factors like heat, cold or drought might play a role.
"They said that combination attacks in nature, like the virus and fungus involved in bee deaths, are quite common, and that one answer in protecting bee colonies might be to focus on the fungus — controllable with antifungal agents — especially when the virus is detected."

Published in NYT online September 6, 2010.
By KIRK JOHNSON

Nobel 2010 in Chemistry: Palladium-Catalyzed Cross Coupling

2010-10-06T19:47:00.000-04:00

The 2010 Nobel Prize in Chemistry is shared by Richard F. Heck, Univ. Deleware; Ei-ichi Negishi, Purdue Univ.; and Akira Suzuki, Hokkaido University, for their developments of palladium-catalyzed cross coupling, including refining the method and reagents used for synthesizing complex molecules. As noted on the Nobel Prize site, "the Heck reaction, Negishi reaction and Suzuki reaction are of considerable importance to chemists." Among the many applications of their work, their methods have led to the efficient synthesis of compounds used to treat cancer and other disease, to protect agricultural crops from fungi, to create new materials that benefit computer technology, and to advance research through the synthesis of naturally occurring molecules in test tubes.

A search of the phrase "Palladium-Catalyzed Cross Coupling" resulted in 1,406 references in ISI Web of Knowledge, in an amazing array of subject disciplines - characterized as agriculture, allergy, immunology, genetics, ophthalmology, endocrinology, electrochemistry, materials sciences, and so much more (the refine by subject areas is such a useful option in ISI WoK!). For a good overview of the chemistry, see Palladium in Organic Synthesis, available to OhioLINK users at SpringerLink.com as part of the Topics in Organometallic Chemistry series.

Graphene the Focus of 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics

2010-10-05T15:22:00.000-04:00

Graphene was first described in this 2004 publication in Science, accessible to Oberlin users both in JSTOR. org and on the AAAS sciencemag.org site:

Novoselov, K. S.; Geim, A. K.; Morozov, S. V.; Jiang, D.; Zhang, Y.; Dubonos, S. V.; Grigorieva, I. V.; Firsov, A. A. 2004. Electric field effect in atomically thin carbon films. Science, 306, 666-669.

Since that publication, co-authors and 2010 Nobel Prize winners Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov have published together at least 63 times (as found through an author search in INSPEC). The "Information for the Public" offered at the Nobel Prize website is wonderfully prepared to help non-physicists understand the significance of graphene's development and utilization:

"Graphene is a form of carbon. As a material it is completely new – not only the thinnest ever but also the strongest. As a conductor of electricity it performs as well as copper. As a conductor of heat it outperforms all other known materials. It is almost completely transparent, yet so dense that not even helium, the smallest gas atom, can pass through it.

"The list of possible applications for graphene is long. The relentless activity that began following its discovery will eventually most likely bear fruit. No-one can predict what the future might bring, not even this year’s Nobel Laureates."

Take a look and enjoy the graphics. The images give a much better idea of graphene's structure! See also this book at SpringerLink: Progress in industrial mathematics at ECMI 2006 / Luis L. Bonilla ... [et al.], editors] for a few chapters on graphene.

Big Read Kickoff! Saturday @ The First Church

2010-10-01T14:31:00.002-04:00

After months (and months) of planning, we are at last embarking on our community read of Fahrenheit 451. The kickoff event, long scheduled at the fire circle in Tappan Square, will instead be indoors at The First Church, in the Meeting House (Sat., Oct. 2, 4pm). The forecast of rain and cold wind made the outdoor location less and less desirable (so unlike the brilliant blue sky, bright sun and fluffy white clouds visible from the science library windows at this moment).

Come hear readings of the book by Marvin Krislov, Eric Norenberg and Geoffrey Andrews, and remarks from Molly Raphael OC'67, President Elect of the American Library Association. We'll still offer popcorn, cider and the opportunity to make a small facsimile of your favorite book, which will then be destroyed in some manner, in a dramatization of our abhorrence of book burning. This is ultimately a celebration of the Freedom to Read and a fitting end to Banned Books Week. Join Us!

The Big Read will continue through March, with more events and book discussion groups. Stay informed at oberlinbigread.org

Publication co-authored by recent grad Johanna Weaver

2010-09-26T22:09:00.000-04:00

Johanna Weaver graduated in May 2009. Co-authors of this paper are from University of Oklahoma, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute of Panama, and Pomona College of Claremont, California.

Kaspari, Michael; Chang, Charlotte; Weaver, Johanna. 2010. Salted roads and sodium limitation in a northern forest ant community. Ecological Entomology 35:543-548.

Indexed in ISI Web of Science. Full-text access at the OhioLINK EJC or Wiley Online [subscribers only].

Ocean cooling linked to dip in global temperatures in 1970s

2010-09-23T11:04:00.000-04:00

While exploring the redesign for Nature this news article (published online September 22) caught my eye:

When the North Atlantic Caught a Chill - Surface cooling could have pushed down temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere 40 years ago."

"The sudden cooling event [of 0.3 °C ] that Thompson and his colleagues report¹ on page 444 of this issue [September 23] could help to solve a mystery: a prominent drop in the global mean surface temperature record around the same time. The ocean cooling, which may have resulted from a shift in currents, also offers a reminder of the North Atlantic's outsize role in climate."

Excellent background information is available in this text:
Atmosphere, ocean, and climate dynamics : an introductory text / John Marshall and R. Alan Plumb. Elsevier Academic Press, c2008. Science Library QC880.4.A8 A877 2007 [plus 7 other copies in OhioLINK]

Achieving Scientific Literacy

2010-09-21T09:56:00.000-04:00

A new edition of Robert Hazen and James Trefil's Science Matters: achieving scientific literacy is on the new book shelf. "From plate tectonics to leptons to the first living cell, now you can understand the simple science behind our complex world," is the promise of this little book, and its purpose couldn't be more important. The authors begin with convincing arguments of why scientific literacy is so crucial, including, "The threats to our system from a scientifically illiterate electorate are many, ranging from the danger of political demagoguery to the decay of the entire democratic process as vital decisions that affect everyone have to be made by an educated (but probably unelected) elite."

I am especially struck by this section's conclusion: "If you expect someone to know something, you have to tell him or her what it is." A scientifically "illiterate" individual may not readily pick up this book, if that person is unaware of or unconcerned about his or her lack of knowledge. But it speaks directly to the reader who understands the need for scientific literacy, and provides a wonderful model of how to teach others essential scientific principles.

Each chapter title is accompanied by a true statement elucidating the title, e.g., The Cosmos - "The universe was born at a specific time in the past, and it has been expanding ever since." The subtitle of the final chapter, Ecosystems, says simply "All life is connected." Indeed.

I hope this book is borrowed and read by many!

New publications from chemistry faculty and alumni

2010-09-10T12:08:00.006-04:00

Here are the newest articles by Oberlin science authors, indexed in the ISI Web of Knowledge:

Authors include Oberlin alumni Leyden, Moore, Patchen, and van den Heuvel:

A reevaluation of the assignment of the vibrational fundamentals and the rotational analysis of bands in the high-resolution infrared spectra of trans- and cis-1,3,5-hexatriene. Craig, Norman C (Emeritus Professor of Chemistry).; Leyden, Matthew C.; Moore, Michael C.; Patchen, Amie K.; van den Heuvel, Titus; Blake, Thomas A.; Masiello, Tony; Sams, Robert L.
JOURNAL OF MOLECULAR SPECTROSCOPY 262 (1): 49-60 JUL 2010 [access at the EJC]

Authors include Oberlin alumni Cole-Filipiak and current senior O'Connor:

Kinetics of the Hydrolysis of Atmospherically Relevant Isoprene-Derived Hydroxy Epoxides. Cole-Filipiak, Neil C.; O'Connor, Alison E.; Elrod, Matthew J. (Associate Professor of Chemistry)
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY 44 (17): 6718-6723 SEP 1 2010 [access at ACS]

The Oberlin author of the following paper is Catherine McKay (Katie) Mauck, a chemistry major who graduated May 2009. She completed this work with researchers at the Art Institute of Chicago Department of Conservation.

Direct identification of early synthetic dyes: FT-Raman study of the illustrated broadside prints of Jos, Gaudalupe Posada (1852-1913). Casadio, F; Mauck, K; Chefitz, M; Freeman, R
APPLIED PHYSICS A-MATERIALS SCIENCE & PROCESSING 100 (3): 885-899 SEP 2010 [access at EJC]

Craig lab publication, co-authored with Michael Moore (OC '06)

2010-09-08T17:12:00.000-04:00

New publication from the lab of Emeritus Professor of Chemistry Norman C. Craig. Michael C. Moore was a student in Professor Craig's lab, and this work reflects research completed in Oberlin. Michael is now a graduate student at UC Berkeley.

Infrared Spectra of CF2=CHD and CF2=CD2: Scaled Quantum-Chemical Force Fields and an Equilibrium Structure for 1,1-Difluoroethylene.
McKean, Donald C.; Law, Mark M.; Groner, Peter; Conrad, Andrew R.; Tubergen, Michael J.; Feller, David; Moore, Michael C.; Craig, Norman C.
JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY A 114 (34): 9309-9318 SEP 2 2010
(access for OhioLINK subscribers, at the American Chemical Society web site)

Science News digital edition in Wiley Online Library

2010-08-31T16:11:00.003-04:00

The complete digital edition for subscribers of Science News is now part of the Wiley Online Library. Free content remains available at sciencenews.org, including Web-only multi-media enhancements, but the Wiley Online Library archive is our location for downloading pdf versions.

The September 11 issue includes an article of conflicting reports between scientific teams working in the Gulf of Mexico:

Story one: Teams disagree over breakdown of BP oil in Gulf: Two studies offer confusing picture of deep-sea plumes [download pdf]
by Janet Raloff
Article first published online: 31 AUG 2010

Library Hours during Orientation Week

2010-08-30T11:54:00.003-04:00

As we prepare to welcome new students to campus tomorrow, today is, figuratively, our last day of summer. New beginnings! Library hours are a bit extended this week to accommodate departmental open houses held in the library and course registration in the iMac lab.

Monday - Wednesday 9 am-noon, 1-4:30 pm
Thursday 9 am-7 pm
Friday 8 am-noon, 1-4:30 pm

15-minute orientation tours for new students will be offered continuously beginning at 1 pm on Friday. The last tour starts at 2:30 pm. Hope to see many new science-minded students on Friday afternoon!

Cruz lab research in Developmental Biology

2010-08-13T10:58:00.004-04:00

Three new abstracts of research by Yolanda Cruz, Professor of Biology, as indexed in Web of Science are included in the August 1 issue of Developmental Biology. The abstracts summarize presentations made at the 69th Annual Meeting of the Society for Developmental Biology, held earlier this month in Albuquerque, NM. Neils Bantilan, Jeremy Morrison, Vicki Wang and Joanna Johnson are (or were) Oberlin College students who conducted research with Professor Cruz.

Expression of Oct4, Cdx2 and Yap1 during blastocyst formation in the marsupial, Monodelphis domestica [access in OhioLINK EJC, for OhioLINK users].

Authors: Cruz, Yolanda P.; Morrison, Jeremy T.; Bantilan, Niels S.
Source: DEVELOPMENTAL BIOLOGY 344 (1): 425-425 37 AUG 1 2010

Expression pattern of E-Cad, Ocln and ZO-1 in cleavage-stage Monodelphis domestica embryos [access in OhioLINK EJC]

Authors: Wang, Vicki N.; Cruz, Yolanda P.
Source: DEVELOPMENTAL BIOLOGY 344 (1): 440-440 75 AUG 1 2010

Pregnancy-related changes in progesterone receptor expression in the uterine glands of Monodelphis domestica [access in OhioLINK EJC]

Authors: Johnson, Joanna M.; Lydon, John; Harder, John D.; Cruz, Yolanda P.
Source: DEVELOPMENTAL BIOLOGY 344 (1): 477-477 214 AUG 1 2010

van der Heide publishes in Journal of Cell Science

2010-08-06T09:42:00.000-04:00

Dana van der Heide, a rising senior Biology major, is co-author of a paper published online June 22 in the Journal of Cell Science. Unfortunately, Oberlin does not have a subscription to this journal, published by Cambridge Univ. Press, but the abstract is accessible at the publisher's site. Congratulations to Dana on her research and scholarship.

Rollins, MF; van der Heide, DM; Weisend, CM; Kundert, JA; Comstock, KM; Suvorova, ES; Capecchi, MR; Merrill, GF; Schmidt, EE. Hepatocytes lacking thioredoxin reductase 1 have normal replicative potential during development and regeneration. JOURNAL OF CELL SCIENCE 123 (14): 2402-2412 JUL 15 2010 [print citation]. doi: 10.1242/jcs.068106
view this record in ISI Science Citation Index (Oberlin users only)

Whelan article in Tumor Biology on ovarian cancer biomarker

2010-08-03T16:55:00.002-04:00

The most recent article published by a member of the science faculty, in collaboration with three undergraduate students, appears in Tumor Biology [online first]. Rebecca Whelan is Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

Zach T. Berman, Lee J. Moore, Kathleen E. Knudson and Rebecca J. Whelan. Synthesis and structural characterization of the peptide epitope of the ovarian cancer biomarker CA125 (MUC16). Tumor Biology. Published online Monday, June 21, 2010. DOI - 10.1007/s13277-010-0062-4
http://www.springerlink.com/content/Q4740054V36410R6 [abstract and page 1 only are accessible to non-subscribers]

Whelan's research advances understanding of the structural characterization of CA125, particularly the amino acid sequence and oxidation state of the protein. CA125 is acknowledged as the "best validated and most widely assayed biomarker" of ovarian cancer, and the "gold standard" against which other biomarkers are measured. Understanding CA125 and its potential for simultaneous use with other biomarkers is an important step toward more reliable and earlier detection of ovarian cancer.

Science from Facts on File

2010-08-02T16:55:00.002-04:00

Facts on File offers the database Science Online (not to be confused with Science, the premier journal from AAAS), which includes far more than simply a handy compilation of facts. The Science in the News feature is well worth a daily visit, bringing together news articles from around the world in easy-to-browse subject categories. A recent post in the "natural science" category, dated July 30, 2010, is of regional interest: New Research Examines Midwest Earthquakes. Melting ice sheets, rapid erosion from the Mississippi River, and stored stress from ancient mountain building in the Appalachians and Rocky Mountains once combined to produce mighty earthquakes in the middle of the country, where fault stress is longer a major concern.
Explore more at Science Online. [off-campus users: authenticate using VPN Client before following the links]

Cool & quiet in here, and plentiful summer reading. Check us out!

2010-07-23T11:46:00.000-04:00

It never fails that we receive big shipments of marvelous new books just when there are so few people on campus to enjoy them. And, with less competition for those great window seats, you have not only your pick of good reading but also a lovely, cool spot with a grand view of north campus and the tours of prospective students with family in tow.

Here are just a few titles to entice you to the new book shelf:

...and so many more! See the entire list of books received in June and July.