Amphibians Slipping Away: one third of all species threatened

From Defenders of Wildlife eNews:
"Frogs, salamanders and other amphibians are on a slippery path to extinction. Habitat loss, disease, global warming and other factors are taking their toll. Worldwide, a third of these key players in the web of life are considered threatened -- making amphibians the most vulnerable group of animals in the world.

"This month, Defenders Magazine profiles the plight of these slick critters -- and takes a look at what people are doing to save them."

Learn more about amphibians in this recent book in our reference collection:
The ecology & behavior of amphibians / Kentwood D. Wells

Laptop policy updated - 2 iBooks available for overnight use.

Please read our revised lending policy for the laptop loaners, available to students, faculty and staff with current and valid OCID.

Highlights: iBook G4s may go out overnight - but must be back by 10am the next day (Mon-Fri) or by 1pm the next day if borrowed on Friday or Saturday afternoon. There is now a penalty fee of $20 (ouch!) for unauthorized overnight use, so PLEASE pay attention to the due time and our closing times!

Robert Krulwich honored by Webby Award selection

Fans of Radio Lab will heartily support the selection of Robert Krulwich, OC '69, as an Official Honoree of the 12th Annual Webby Awards. Robert Krulwich — and his team of Odd Todd and BPP Video Producer Win Rosenfeld — were honored in the Online Film and Video - Best Use of Animation/Motion Graphics category, for their cartoon feature It's All About Carbon, part of NPR's Climate Connections series.

Visit the site:
Global Warming: It’s All About Carbon, Cartoon Series Main Page

'Fearless' Campaign Covered by NPR

Tune into NPR.org for yesterday's story on Oberlin's Fearless campaign. It's interesting listening, and Dan Bobkoff of member station WCPN in Cleveland does a good job of presenting different points of view.

All Things Considered, May 1, 2008 · A top-notch Ohio college's two-year-old marketing campaign — "We Are Oberlin: Fearless" — is the subject of internal mockery from Oberlin students.

Thanks to Kolleen for sharing this.

An April Shower of New Books!

The last week of April has showered us with new books, thanks to those fine folks working in the main library who order, process and catalog new materials. Look at all of these great new titles! No fewer than eight books are devoted to climate change and global warming; some are focused on the politics of implementing solutions, others present scientists' findings, two are devoted to predictions of how global warming will change Earth and human society, and one considers governmental censoring of Dr. James Hansen. Hansen was one of the first to bring the climate crisis to the public's attention, with testimony to Congress in the 1980s.

The Guardian (April 7, 2008) reported on Hansen's latest paper, co-published with eight others in arXiv, on appropriate targets for levels of atmospheric carbon.

Books on animal societies and behavior are also well-represented in this latest shipment: rhesus monkeys, gorillas, turtles, rodents, hornbills, eagles, ants and lizards - oh my! There are plenty of titles to entice those of you reading chemistry, geology, physics and other aspects of biology as well.

National DNA Day

I hope you are already aware that today is National DNA Day. And the day is half gone at the time of this posting... tsk! Now, if there is one thing we can all celebrate - and I do mean ALL - it is Deoxyribonucleic Acid! Gracious, we would be nothing without it, and Earth would be quite a different place. So give thanks for your genetic code, much of which you share in common with the rest of living organisms (evolution is a MARVELOUS thing). Squirmy worms, flying fowl, leaping lemurs... and us! Not so different on a molecular level, really.* There's still time to chat online about all things DNA-ish. Talk with the scientists at Genome.gov.

*How similar are we to those other species? I'm glad you asked! Here's the answer I received to that question on genome.gov:
Mary Schueler, Ph.D.

This expert's focus:
Comparing the DNA sequence of essential chromosomal regions from multiple primates to define functional changes that have occurred during evolution.

: Generally, human DNA is most similar to more closely related species like the great apes - chimp, gorilla, and orangutan. These are more closely related to us in evolutionary time. Species that have been separated from us for longer periods of time share less similarity. As you compare with species farther away from us on the evolutionary tree, we observe that DNA sequences that code for proteins are conserved while other sequence is not. This is thought to be due to the necessary function of the proteins in the life of the cell. If the sequence changes, the cell can't survive. We are less than 90% similar to most other species. Even within the primate lineage, as compared to old world monkeys, protein coding sequences can vary by as much as 15% (be 85% similar). As you move further away to mice and flies and yeast, the percentage similarity falls off quite a bit.

Earth Day! Get out there... read a book in the shade.

And what a glorious day it is.
Lie on the grass.
Breathe in the scent of magnolias.
Love the earth.
Take a book out with you!

A few suggestions:

• Beyond Earth Day. Main Library GE195.N45 2002
• Earth: the sequel. Science Library TJ163.4.U6 K78 2008
• Humanity's Footprint. Main Library GF75.D65 2008
  

Or Listen to the audio recordings of speakers at the Climate Change Solutions symposium... an excellent way to remind us that every day is Earth Day.

Climate Change Solutions for Ohio - Symposium highlights

Reporting from the Climate Change Solutions Symposium in the Science Center's West Lecture Hall : here are a few of the solutions highlighted so far this morning -

• The technology that will save humanity "The solar energy you haven't heard of is the one best suited to generate clean electricity for generations to come." By Joseph Romm. Salon.com April 13, 2008
  

• A Renewed Push for Ethanol, Without the Coal. New York Times, April 17, 2007
• Cellulosic Ethanol - Renewable Fuels Association
  
• Wind Industry and Projects for Ohio Richard Stuebi, BP Fellow for Energy and Environmental Advancement
• Midwest Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership (on DOE Web site) and MRCSP.org
• The Wedge Stabilization model - supported by Dow Chemical, as outlined by Princeton Professors Socolow and Pacala in their article, "A Plan to Keep Carbon in Check", which appeared in the September 2006 issue of Scientific American.
• Solar Design Associates
  

How Science Will Heal the Earth

On the current periodical display shelf this week is Discover's special issue: How Science Will Heal the Earth. Read how to go carbon neutral, learn what food has no carbon footprint, and the daring plan to reclaim water.

Also check out A Science Fair for a Better Planet: "A contest to show Discover—and the rest of the humans—how to help Mother Earth". You can enter your own ideas in what is being billed as the World's biggest Show and Tell.

ScienceDebate 2008 - an appeal to the candidates

Sciencedebate 2008 is a citizen-led initiative to focus the presidential debate on matters of scientific inquiry and the urgent need for accurate scientific information in policy decisions. The call for presidential candidates to engage in a science-focused debate is rapidly becoming more wide-spread and publicized, with thousands of individuals joining the effort. Read the policy forum piece in the April 11 Science magazine, and see the many other news highlights at the Sciencedebate2008 web site.

Celebrate Science Poetry During National Poetry Month

April is National Poetry Month! A fine time to read science in verse - or communicate science in verse.

Consider:
"Shall not geology, which is the first science in affording scope for the imagination, be brought into favor with the Muses, and afford themes for the Poet?"
—Edward Hitchcock, Jr., 1849

You would surely enjoy the The Biochemist's Songbook (take to your next fireside sing-along and amaze your friends with references to complex biochemical pathways).

FirstScience.com offers an entire section on poetry.

The poetry collection in the main library is brimming with science-themed compositions - go explore books with call numbers that begin PS3551, for starters. You can spend a life-time there.

Submit your own science poetry here! Just leave a comment with your creative lines. We'll post your submissions in the science library at the end of April. An award (very modest, possibly edible) might be in the offing!

Go Green with GreenFILE from EBSCO

EBSCO has released a new, free, database for environmental literature. Give it a try!

From the EBSCO press release:
GreenFILE offers a unique perspective on the positive and negative ways humans affect the ecology. The initial release will include abstracting and indexing for more than 600 titles, including comprehensive coverage – from to volume 1, issue 1 to present – for Bioscience (back to 1964), Conservation Biology (back to 1987), Journal of Ecology (back to 1913) and Journal of Environmental Planning & Management (back to 1948). The total number of records is approximately 295,000, and full text is provided for more than 4,600 records from open access titles.

Check out our DVD collection

We've recently pulled the DVDs out of the closed cupboard behind the circulation desk and put them in the browsing rack along with the CD-ROM collection. It's right on your way to the iMac lab - so pause there for a moment, and see what's available. It's a very small collection, but offers excellent viewing (and educational!) opportunities.

See the list of DVDs owned by the Science Library [pdf].

Cognitive Neuroscience of Music

Robert Zatorre, co-editor of The Cognitive Neuroscience of Music, will be on campus for a lecture on April 2.

Stop by the library for a look at some related reading now on display in the front window. Although this book and other closely related titles are currently checked out from Oberlin's library, you can find other copies available through OhioLINK.

Downtown bookstores offer copies of Zatorre's work, along with two other fascinating books for the general reader : Daniel Levitin's This is Your Brain on Music and Musicophilia: tales of music and the brain, by Oliver Sacks.

Read a chapter or two, even if you think you don't have time - it's good for the brain! Possibly even better if you take a break and sing or play an instrument in between chapters...

Spring Break is coming! Need access from off-campus?

The sun is shining and Spring Break is just one day away - surely a better outlook than yesterday's drizzle which became falling slush before the snow set in once again. I hope everyone who plans to leave campus for a well-deserved week of relaxation and recreation does that just - but if you must also squeeze in a bit of research and need access to our subscription resources (how could you go a week without reading Nature and Science online?), remember to visit this page for login instructions. Easier still, download the VPN client from the CIT web page and launch that for seamless access to everything the library offers online.

Birds of the World - on our shelves

We have now received 11 volumes of the acclaimed Handbook of the Birds of the World, published by the Spanish publishing house Lynx Edicions. This is a monumental work, gorgeously illustrated with color plates, and certain to be a valued source of important information for decades. We will continue to receive volumes as they are published, as a wonderful complement to the Birds of North America (available online and in print).

Read reviews of published volumes from various journals archived in the OhioLINK Electronic Journal Center. Wikipedia provides a very nice overview of the set, complete with all contents of volumes published to date. The most recently received volumes are on display with the new books, others are in the reference section.

Image taken from the jacket cover of vol. 8: Broadbills to Tapaculos, illustrated by Frances Jutglar. Black-and-red Broadbill (Cymbirhynchus macrorhynchos).

African plants photographed and desribed in Aluka

Aluka.org is a new resource for the library, offering many digital collections at one site. Its mission is to build a "digital library of scholarly sources from and about Africa." Aluka is an international collaboration, bringing together in one digital resource materials that are archived around the world. Read more about Aluka and explore the plant database. Enjoy the picture of the day, which frequently highlights a plant from the archive, including the Pretoria African Plant Slide Collection, just one of many collections contributed to Aluka.

Dragons and Damsels! Flies, that is... in OdonataCentral

OdonataCentral, sponsored by the Texas Natural Science Center of UT Austin, is just about the coolest thing since a new insect order was discovered in 2002. If you are an Odonata enthusiast (and why wouldn't you be?) this will become a favorite way to view dragonflies and damselflies without leaving your keyboard. The distribution maps are searchable and interactive, so you can locate, within seconds, all reported occurrences of a given species within a certain locale. Give it a try! In addition to the maps, OdonataCentral offers hundreds of amazing photographs (Red Saddlebags is just one example of exquisite detail), detailed identification records, an extensive bibliography of journal articles with its own search interface, back issues of the journals Bulletin of American Odonatology and Argia, and a well-organized list of related Web sites.

Thanks to Dr. John C. Abbot, Curator of Entomology, Texas Natural Science Center of University of Texas, Austin, for making such a fine and reliable source of information openly accessible, and to all contributors of OdonataCentral for building the database. John Abbott is author of Dragonflies and Damselflies of Texas and South-Central United States, which you can borrow through OhioLINK.

Under a Green Sky: Global Warming & Extinctions

Along with numerous other eye-catching titles on the new book shelf (come by and browse!), we have Peter Ward's latest monograph on mass extinction:

Under a Green Sky - Global Warming, Mass Extinctions of the Past and What They Can Tell Us About the Future.

Here is a snippet from the Booklist review:
"Paleontologist and science writer Ward combines tales of his own punishing fieldwork with a piquant history of the controversies that have dogged scientists seeking the cause of the "mother of all extinctions" in the Permian period. This provides the foundation for a stunning discovery: evidence of past greenhouse extinctions. As Ward carefully parses the data and its implications, he observes, 'the key to climate change seems to be both the level and the rate at which carbon dioxide rises in the atmosphere,' no matter its source."

The library owns several other books by Ward, equally useful for understanding the relationship between global climate and biodiversity.

Tuna: the Decline of a Once Vast Species

The Diane Rhem show for Wed. Feb. 13 featured a very lively conversation among host Diane Rehm and her guests:

Jackie Savitz, Pollution Campaign Director, Senior Scientist, Oceana

Carl Safina, founder of the Blue Ocean Institute, adjunct professor at the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University, and author of "Voyage of the Sea Turtle," "Song for the Blue Ocean," and other books [search OhioLINK catalog by author].

Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, cardiologist and epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health.

John Connelly, president, National Fisheries Institute

Listen to the show for a compelling account of overfishing and pollution that has caused a collapse of the blue-fin tuna population in the western Atlantic, and will undoubtedly lead to extinction without intervention on an international scale.

It's Darwin Day! Celebrate Genetics, Evolution and Diversity.

CHARLES ROBERT DARWIN
February 12, 1809 to April 19, 1882

Darwin Day Celebration is an "international recognition of science and humanity." On this 199th anniversary of Darwin's birth, take a few moments to marvel over the amazing interactions of genetics, habitat, adaptation, predation, mutation, and exploration that led, over millennia, to the satisfying specimen of biological achievement that is you.

We have a gazillion books and journal articles to help you learn more! Even a video or two.

Find genetics related videos from the OhioLINK Digital Video Collection by searching Genetics as a subject heading, limited to material type Videos. Genetics & Evolution, from Films for the Humanities & Sciences, summarizes the theory of natural selection and describes the process of trait inheritance.

Wonderful books about Charles Darwin await your reading pleasure in the library. Browse just a few of them now on display at the science library circulation desk, along with selected other titles on evolution, biological diversity, and genetics.

An online course on Evolution, Creationism, and the Nature of Science,

More: www.DarwinDay.org
Online Course: Evolution, Creationism and the Nature of Science

C&EN Online!

Thanks to our subscription through OhioLINK, we now have access to C&EN Online (Chemical & Engineering News, the magazine for American Chemical Society members). Our access includes the archive of issues from 1998 to the present, as well as the ACS 125th anniversary issue and the Jan. 12, 1998 issue celebrating 75 Years of C&EN.

The bottom left corner of C&EN's home page offers a number of special features, including C&EN blogs, Critter Chemistry, Green Chemistry, and Climate Change. The last three are collections of articles and news specific to those subjects. Enjoy reading this weekly news magazine from ACS.

Web of Science database search updated

The ISI Web of Science database, which includes Science Citation Index, has a completely new search interface. Check it out! Let us know what you think - leave a comment here or email science.library@oberlin.edu.

Across the Universe Day: Beatles' Song Beamed to Polaris

For the first time ever, NASA will beam a song -- The Beatles' Across the Universe -- directly into deep space at 7 p.m. EST on Feb.4.

The transmission over NASA's Deep Space Network will commemorate the 40th anniversary of the day The Beatles recorded the song, as well as the 50th anniversary of NASA's founding and the group's beginnings. Two other anniversaries also are being honored: The launch 50 years ago this week of Explorer 1, the first U.S. satellite, and the founding 45 years ago of the Deep Space Network, an international network of antennas that supports missions to explore the universe.

As part of the celebration, the public around the world has been invited to participate in the event by simultaneously playing the song at the same time it is transmitted by NASA. Many of the senior NASA scientists and engineers involved in the effort are among the group's biggest fans.

Read more.

How is Global Warming Affecting Your State?

The National Wildlife Federation has developed 52 fact sheets, detailing the effects of global warming on wildlife in every state, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. See the list for all areas. Download the pdf for Ohio.

From the Ohio fact sheet: "Rising temperatures and drops in lake levels in the state will likely change the makeup of entire ecosystems, forcing wildlife to shift their ranges or adapt." Each fact sheet includes solutions for global warming that are specific for the state or region.

Philica features transparent peer-review

Philica is an online, open-access journal accepting manuscripts in any discipline. It describes itself as "instant academic publishing with transparent peer-review" and currently features 121 articles and observations. Submitted papers span the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences, with greater numbers of articles in astronomy, physics, biology and chemistry. Music, philosophy, political studies, anthropology, and history are just some of the other disciplines represented, so it is truly multidisciplinary.

Learn more at the Philica site, taking special note of the essay "What's the problem with academic publishing?" and the list of articles needing review. You may find a paper that you are uniquely qualified to review, and are invited to do so. To write a review, simply click the link at the bottom of the article or observation.

Open Access Papers Draw Readers' and Media Attention

Recent papers published in Public Library of Science are grabbing attention from readers and the media alike, owing to the research presented and open access nature of PLoS articles. Here's a bit from the PLoS Blog, submitted by Rebecca Walton:

In "Cryptochromes Define a Novel Circadian Clock Mechanism in Monarch Butterflies That May Underlie Sun Compass Navigation," published in PLoS Biology, Steven Reppert and colleagues reveal that the circadian clock of the monarch uses a novel molecular mechanism, heretofore not found in any other insect or mammal."

Read the story by the Associated Press in Google news as well as Walton's blog entry and papers in PLoS.

Barack Obama: Pushes for Evidence-Based Science Policy

Science considers the support for scientific research among the presidential candidates in the Jan. 4 issue. Considering the credentials of Barack Obama seems particularly timely, following his win among Democrats in the Iowa caucus.

The Science news article illustrates Barack's support for science policy and research based on factual, peer-reviewed evidence:
"Deborah Burnet, a pediatrician at the University of Chicago who studies the connection between obesity and diabetes, says Obama displayed the same evidence-based philosophy whenever she invited the Harvard Law School grad and community organizer to lecture her class on racial disparities in health. The 30-something Obama would urge her students to think about "how to use scientific inquiry to make intelligent public policy," says Burnet."

Read the full story (DOI: 10.1126/science.319.5859.28a). For on-campus users or your Oberlin login required.

Top 25 Science Stories of 2007 - from Scientific American

Scientific American extolls the top 25 science stories of the past year in their Dec. 21 Weekly Review, including "some exciting new developments and discoveries: human skin cells were transformed to stem cells; primates came within a hair of being successfully cloned; scientists found that if they killed the virus behind some cancers, they might also kill the cancer; the discovery of a new planet with the most Earth-like characteristics yet observed; and, the unveiling of the first quantum computer."

Check out the entire list, from antibiotic resistant infections, California wildfires and James Watson to the disappearance of the Yangtze River Dolphin.

Sign up for Scientific American e-newsletters.

The Library is Closed

The Science Library is closed for Winter Break - from 4:30pm Dec. 21 through Jan. 1.
Hours for Winter Term, January 2 through February 4: Monday-Friday, 9am-noon and 1-4:30pm.
Closed on Saturday & Sunday.

Last minute gift ideas and great reading recommendations

Eco-Libris presents The Holiday Green Gift Guide for Book Lovers

You may find these gems in your local bookstore, just in time for gift-giving - or in your local library, just in time for Winter Break reading. One book on the list that caught my eye is Bill McKibben's Deep Economy : the wealth of communities and the durable future.

The college library's copy is out on OhioLINK loan right now, but you can request a copy from another OhioLINK library and look foward to reading it in January.

If you want more suggestions for good reading, check out NPR's Science Friday archives. The December 7, 2007 show covered a slew of notable science books published in 2007.

Happy reading, and best wishes for a restful Winter Break!

Extended Hours for Reading Period

Come study here this weekend! We're open later and earlier than typical: 'til 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday nights; open at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Thanks to our student assistants for taking on extra hours!

Complete end-of-semester library hours.

Best wishes for a good end to fall semester, and a wonderful winter break!

Climate Policy Center updates now on Earthscape

The Climate Policy Center (CPC), an independent, bipartisan, non-profit organization, is one of the newest contributors to Earthscape, published by the Columbia University Center for Digital Research and Scholarlship. The CPC was established to develop policies to counter global warming.

Recent updates on Earthscape have focused on environmental issues in mountain regions around the globe, and new U.S. climate reports by region. Earthscape also posted updates on environmental issues in Africa and Asia, as well as a collection of reports from the European Union. Earthscape continued to add to the collection of Congressional Research Service publications on environmental issues this month as well.

Try a search on Earthscape.

Resources for AIDS Awareness Month

December 1 was World AIDS Day. The National Institutes of Health commemorated the day with a joint statement and announcement of awards.

The main library has created an exhibit that highlights materials in the collection related to AIDS and HIV [more about the exhibit].

The science library subscribes to Exchange on HIV/AIDS, a useful source of current information from around the world.

One very recent book in the collection of electronic books from Springer is The Biology of Dendritic Cells and HIV Infections.

Find more books on the biology of HIV infections by searching HIV infections as a subject heading in OBIS.

Get comprehensive information from the National Institutes of Health from the AIDSinfo Web site.

John Muir's papers digitized online

The University of the Pacific Library is home to the papers of John Muir, famed naturalist writer, founder of the Sierra Club, and forefather of the environmental movement. Digital images of all of John Muir's journals and drawings in the Univ. Pacific Library's Special Collections are now accessible online, as part of the Holt-Atherton Special Collections Digital Collections. The journals consist of 78 volumes and over 7,000 pages written between 1867 and 1913. The drawings consist of 371 images.

John Muir related Web sites of particular note:

• John Muir’s Birthplace
  
• Dunbar’s John Muir Association
  
• John Muir Trust
  
• John Muir National Historic Site, Martinez
  
• John Muir biographic sketch from the National Park Service [source of the John Muir portrait shown above].

Search: Books about John Muir in the college library.

Climate Creeping onto Texan Agenda

Heard on NPR's Morning Edition, November 26, 2007 · "Texas emits more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than any other state. And if Texas were a country, it would be the seventh-largest carbon dioxide polluter in the world.

Texas's high carbon dioxide output and large energy consumption is primarily a result of large coal-burning power plants and gas-guzzling vehicles, both of which contribute to the pollution problem. But while many Texans think bigger is better, there are signs of an attitude change on energy consumption."

[listen to the story]

Conservation now available online

Conservation is now available online for Oberlin College library users. Our subscription is accessible only at the publisher's website, Blackwell Synergy, rather than the OhioLINK Electronic Journal Center (EJC). The magazine is published by the Society for Conservation Biology, supported in partnership with six other influential organizations in conservation: the Pew Institute for Ocean Science, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, World Wildlife Fund, Nature Conservancy, Center for Applied Biodiversity Science, and University of Washington. Find the title on OBIS as Conservation (Seattle, Wash.).

The scholarly journal of the Society, Conservation Biology, is online at the EJC, but this sister publication (previously titled Conservation in practice and sometimes referred to as Conservation magazine) is not part of the OhioLINK-Blackwell agreement. Paper copies of these titles are in the science library.

Reduced Hours for Thanksgiving Break

The library closes at 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday of this week, to observe Thanksgiving.

We will be open on Friday afternoon from 1-4:30 p.m. only, and return to normal hours on Saturday and Sunday (12:30-5:30 p.m. and 12:30-11 p.m., respectively).

If you need to access online library resources from off-campus during the break, login to the college proxy server in advance (see Connect from Off Campus on the library's web site).

Questions? Chat with us online! obescience on Yahoo, AIM, Meebo. Quick Meebo access

Nanostructures, nanobiotechnology, nanofabrication, oh my!

Have you explored the new all-things-nano journal from the American Chemical Society? Check it out: ACS Nano.

See also the free website for the nanoscience community hosted by ACS @ ACS Nanotation. The image gallery and nano picks features are especially noteworthy. Contribute to the Wiki, submit a question to a nanoscientist, and be part of the commnity.

Questions are Good - send 'em our way!

We have more ways you can contact us! Student staff in the science library are now monitoring the science library's general IM account: obescience. Find our obescience chat window (Meebo widget) on the library's Ask a Question page. Or add obescience to your IM list of friends - we want to be your buddy. You can also contact me - the science librarian - with the widget over on the right side bar (blue box, Contact me) or alisonricker (yahoo, AIM). I'm not at the computer as reliably as the student staff, so please leave a message and your email address so I can contact you later!

Send us any question you have about using the science library, accessing electronic journals, searching for articles that are primary sources, recommended formats for citing references, or any science library-related mystery you're contemplating (is it true that you can't get trapped in the movable compact shelving?) - no question is too big or too small! Heck, we'll even tell you how to add OBIE$ to your ID. And the difference between print quota and OBIE$ needed for photocopiers - we've had a lot of practice with that question. Or even - our favorite - how to find a pencil sharpener (yes, we have two. Do you prefer electric or manual?). Don't be shy - talk to us!

E-Books! So many books, so little time, all at your fingertips from OhioLINK

The Electronic Book Center at OhioLINK offers thousands of new titles, a large number of which are from Springer, a noted publisher of high-quality science monographs. One title featured now at the ebook center is Interfacial Nanochemistry: Molecular Science and Engineering at Liquid-Liquid Interfaces.

The Advanced Search option allows precise searching of keywords in title or text or chapter/section, etc., with various ways of focusing the search (e.g., subject area, date of publication, publisher). My search on "climate change" within the subject area "Environmental" resulted in 135 titles, including this 2007 popular science book from Springer:
Hot House: Global Climate Change and the Human Condition, by Robert Strom.

Note that you *can not* find this book in OBIS. Not all of the titles in the ebook center have been cataloged for member libraries' catalogs, or even the OhioLINK central catalog, so take advantage of the search options offered at the ebook center to find new stuff!

OhioLINK offers even more electronic books than those at the ebook server - note the icons lined up at the bottom of the web site (you might have to scroll down a bit to see them) - including Oxford Reference and Safari Books on computer and technology titles. Go read!

Have You Read Dot Earth Today?

The New York Times offers Dot Earth - A blog about climate change, the environment and sustainability.

Today's blog post offers Two New (and Very Different) Roadmaps for Climate Progress, by Andrew C. Revkin.

Revkin compares the Kyoto Protocol (due for renewal in 2012) with a cap-and-trade strategy embodied in the International Carbon Action Partnership.

Read more at the NYT blog and in Nature's Climate Blog. Considering the press release of the Nobel prize committee, the more attention to and positive action given to these issues, the better!

The following observation is from the Nobel press release:

"By awarding the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007 to the IPCC and Al Gore, the Norwegian Nobel Committee is seeking to contribute to a sharper focus on the processes and decisions that appear to be necessary to protect the world’s future climate, and thereby to reduce the threat to the security of mankind. Action is necessary now, before climate change moves beyond man’s control." nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2007/press.html

How to bury the problem: carbon capture & storage

From the Royal Society of Chemistry's Chemistry World, October.

"Carbon capture and storage (CCS) could allow us to burn fossil fuels without climate consequences - but only with more investment in R&D, argues Stuart Haszeldine.

"CCS is a suite of technical and chemical processes which allow CO₂ to be separated, liquefied under pressure, and then transported by pipe for storage in porous geological rock formations, deeper than 800 metres beneath the seabed. Suitable geological sites may be depleted oil or gas fields, or salt water aquifers not already used for other purposes.

"CCS can directly reduce CO₂ emissions, enabling industrialised countries to continue using coal and gas for electricity generation while still meeting targets of 60 to 80 per cent reductions in CO₂ emissions from power generation by 2050."

Read more at Chemistry World.

While you're at the RSC publications site, check out their other news magazines, which "provide a snapshot" of the latest findings in chemistry:

• Chemical Science
• Chemical Biology
• Chemical Technology

The State of Science in America

Disover's Oct. 2007 issue is a special anniversary issue reviewing the current state of science in America. The future is not entirely rosy, though there is enough promise to motivate even a resigned pessimist in the endeavor of educating tomorrow's scientists. From The Edge of Medicine to hypersonic missiles (Defense Department research), NASA's intelligent flight control system, and an encouraging interview with Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, Discover's writers cover a lot of ground. A worrisome essay is Jennifer Washburn's Science Under Siege, which identifies the biggest threat to science as the decline of government support and the growing dominance of private spending over American research. Stop by the library and read the whole issue.

Art work by middle-school students enhances the entire issue, and their aspirations for learning math and science are a pleasure to read.

The Dirty Truth About Coal

The Oberlin City Council voted on October 1 to pass an ordinance which approves a purchase contract with American Municipal Power-Ohio (AMP Ohio), investing in the proposed 1,000-megawatt pulverized coal burning power plant in Meigs County (southeast Ohio). The proposed coal plant, known as the AMP Generating Station (AMPGS) is one of 138 coal plant projects being tracked by The Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Council.

A new report by The Sierra Club provides more information: The Dirty Truth About Coal. It's concluding chapter is "Clean Coal," or America's Lead Energy Misnomer.

A more in-depth look at the coal industry is found in Big Coal, by Jeff Goodell. The Science Library's copy is checked out right now, but you can borrow it through OhioLINK.

Elise Young, a resident of southeast Ohio, shared with City Council some experiences of life in this region, which may eventually become home to 9 coal power plants within a 10-mile radius. Listen to Ms. Young at Coal Stories.

The Textbook Used by Scopes

During Banned Books Week (beginning Sept. 24) we have on display at the circulation desk a copy of the 1914 textbook used by Tennessee high school teacher John Thomas Scopes, which led to his arrest and trial for teaching evolution. [more on the Scopes trial]

Authored by George William Hunter, A Civic Biology: Presented in Problems, the book devotes just five pages to evolution, leading to this statement: "We have now learned that animal forms may be arranged so as to begin with very simple one-celled forms and culminate with a group which contains man himself." [p. 194] On the next page, Hunter notes "If we follow the early history of man upon the earth, we find that at first he must have been little better than one of the lower animals." Interestingly, although Hunter references Charles Darwin as "the great English scientist" he does not specifically cite Origin of Species or any other work by Darwin in this particular section of the book. A separate section on "Some great names in biology" gives Origin its due, along with tributes to Edward Jenner, Louis Pasteur, Gregor Mendel, and others.

The display copy of Hunter's text belongs to Ohio State University, on loan through OhioLINK. Stop by for a glimpse into legal, social and biological history.

Earthquake Prediction on Shaky Ground

From Science News of the Week

by Richard A. Kerr

"The recent run of large quakes off the Indonesian island of Sumatra is providing fodder for both sides in the debate over whether earthquakes behave consistently enough to be reliably anticipated." Read the full story at sciencemag.org

Deep Earthquakes by Cliff Frolich (Cambridge, 2006) offers an excellent review of the subject. Get it in the Science Library.

Hurricanes, Heaven's Gate, Ice Age Caves, and Mine Disasters

This week's shipment of new books brings some fascinating titles, come in and browse!

Two on hurricanes and storms related to climate change include
Storm World by Chris Mooney (author of the Republican War on Science). Mooney was interviewed last month on Talk of the Nation - Science Friday (Aug. 24 broadcast).

Harcourt Books links to a number of interesting reviews and other information about the book.

As for Heaven's Gate, Ice Age Caves, and Mine Disasters... browse the new books list online, and find these and other intriguing titles!

Study Carrels Available! Sign-up anytime.

Initial study carrel assignments have been made, based on requests made before September 10. There are 13 carrels still unassigned, you are welcome to make one of them your study space. Just stop by the science library circulation desk and ask to see the list of available carrels - pick out the one you want, and fill out the carrel form. It's all yours!

Do you really need to buy that textbook?

If you’re enrolled in a large science class that requires the use of an expensive textbook, chances are you will find a copy of your textbook on reserve in the science library [search by reserve course in OBIS]. Required textbooks only circulate for 3 hours at a time and can’t be borrowed overnight.

That’s handy for a quick read, but doesn’t really substitute for having your own copy for extended reading, re-reading and marking text as you want for in-depth study.

You might be able to borrow a copy of the text from another OhioLINK library [search the OhioLINK Catalog], but don’t count on it. Many textbooks are required by professors at other colleges and universities, so you’ll have competition from students in your class at Oberlin and in courses around the state.

You may have better luck finding an OhioLINK copy to borrow if you’re looking for a book that is needed for a humanities or social sciences course, whose course content is more unique to Oberlin. Consider, after all, that all chemistry students throughout the state must take organic chemistry, just as all physics majors will learn fundamentals of mechanics and relativity, and you’ll understand why basic science texts can be difficult to borrow during certain periods of the semester.

So… buy the text! And some highlighters. Make it your own. It's a good investment in your own education.

Evolution! of planets, landscapes, mammals, birds and brains

Evolution in a broad sense is a very common theme in our most recent shipment of books, as is evident by these titles:

• Lives of the planets : a natural history of the solar system
• After the dinosaurs : the age of mammals
• Galapagos : the islands that changed the world
• Evolutionary bioinformatics
• Making sense of evolution
• Biological emergences : evolution by natural experiment
• Scientists confront intelligent design and creationism
• The geometry of evolution : adaptive landscapes and theoretical morphospaces
• Evolution and the levels of selection
• The tinkerer's accomplice : how design emerges from life itself
• The inner bird : anatomy and evolution

One of the most intriguing of this batch is David Linden's The Accidental Mind: how brain evolution has given us love, memory, dreams, and God. David Linden shows how the "brain is not an optimized, general-purpose problem-solving machine, but rather a weird agglomeration of ad-hoc solutions that have been piled on through millions of years of evolutionary history." Linden addresses the question "are there some aspects of brain function that, on the average, make it easy for humans to acquire and transmit religious thought?" He then tries to convince the reader that "our brains have become particularly adapted to creating coherent, gap-free stories and that this propensity for narrative creation is part of what predisposes humans to religious thought."

Now on the new book display. Visit The Accidental Mind Blog.

Nature cover story: Geckos + Mussels = inspiration for new adhesive

The cover of Nature received today is too fetching to overlook. And the research letter:

A reversible wet/dry adhesive inspired by mussels and geckos [launches pdf] by Lee Haeshin, Bruce P. Lee & Phillip B. Messersmith,

is too remarkable not to read. The Editor's summary gives an excellent overview, including this: "A new adhesive, called 'geckel', [combines] gecko-type nanostructures with the chemical approach to underwater adhesion used by mussels." Stop by the library to read the print issue, which also includes a fascinating account of the paleogeography of the English Channel and the evidence provided for "two catastrophic floods arising from the drainage of huge glacial lakes in the area of the southern North Sea." (Philip Gibbard, p. 259)

Or go online to view the entire issue, and all of Nature from 1997 to the current issue. The print issues are typically received in the library one week after publication.

Poison Ivy and Dandelions Thrive With Global Warming

It isn't simply my imagination that the poison ivy around the little reservoir at the end of our street is incredibly lush and spreading like mad. A recently published study in Weed Science, July 2007 documents that poison ivy responds positively to even small, incremental increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Dandelions are likewise blooming and spreading more aggressively, says another study in the same issue of Weed Science. I long ago made peace with dandelions, but do hope they keep to the yard (which I prefer to think of as a healthy multi-species community rather than weed-infested) and don't invade the meager tomato patch.

You can read both articles in the OhioLINK Electronic Journal Center

• Rising Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Potential Impacts on the Growth and Toxicity of Poison Ivy (Toxicodendron radicans). Ziska, L.H.; Sicher, R.C.; George, K.; Mohan, J.E. Weed Science 55(4): 288-292.
  
• Reproduction of Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) in a Higher Co2 Environment. McPeek, Tamara M.; Wang, Xianzhong Weed Science 55(4): 334-340.
  

  Also Listen to John Nielson's story Dandelions, Poison Ivy Grow With Global Warming on NPR's Morning Edition.

Seeing Sicko Soon? Here's Related Reading

Michale Moore's latest movie, Sicko, opened in theaters across the nation this past weekend. Reaction has been swift and varied [see Los Angeles Times review; press release from EarthTimes.org, more from Google news].

The college library and the OhioLINK catalog offer hundreds of books on the nation's health care system and health insurance specifically. Search the subject headings
Health care reform and Insurance, health -- United States

One recent book in the main library:

The truth about health care : why reform is not working in America / David Mechanic. Rutgers University Press, c2006.  RA395.A3 M4184 2006

As Michael Moore advises at the end of the movie, at the very end of the credits:

Eat your fruits and vegetables. Go for a walk. Do something!

www.michaelmoore.com

Angel's Trumpet to Zombie Poison: in The Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Plants

The very substantial (nearly 1000 pages), exhaustively indexed and thoroughly referenced Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Plants is now on the new book shelf. Beautifully illustrated with photographs, drawings, and historically significant botanical sketches, each entry (typically at the species level) provides Latin and common names and synonyms, a brief history, cultivation, and appearance of the plant, plus its chemical composition of the psychoactive material and constituents, medicinal and ritual usage, cultural significance, addictive properties and commercial forms and regulations. A separate section of the work lists plant constituents, from Atropine to Yohimbine, giving molecular structure, formula, plant sources for the substance, and list of references. It is a marvelous source for a quick introduction to more than 400 plants and fungi and their properties. It will be on the Science Library Reference Desk shelf after a brief display period in the new book area.

The Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Plants: Ethnopharmacology and Its Applications / Christian Ratsch, forward by Albert Hofmann, translated by John R. Baker. Park Street Press, 2005.

Left: the peyote cactus (Lophophora williamsii) from p. 327 of the Encyclopedia. Used ritualistically for centuries; considered a "magical plant of the gods" and found in "archaeological contexts approximately six thousands years old."