No Impact Week is Coming! Sign up with HuffPost Green

The Huffington Post / HuffPost Green is launching the inaugural No Impact Week, beginning October 18. Sign up to learn more, and to join the No Impact Project mailing list. The No Impact Project is a nonprofit started by Colin Beavan, star of the documentary film No Impact Man and author of the book by the same title. The project has created a detailed guide to reducing your ecological and climate footprint, day by day, throughout the week. Borrow Beavan's books through OhioLINK. All 24 copies in the OhioLINK catalog were checked out when I looked, however, so purchasing your own might be the best bet!

Celebrate the National Parks, "America's best idea," with Ken Burns

From the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC):
National parks are "America's best idea," filmmaker Ken Burns says in his new PBS documentary. He talks to NRDC's OnEarth magazine about the tragedy of wolf hunts, the need for wilderness preservation and the threat of global warming.

The National Parks film by Ken Burns has been spectacular so far. Tune in and you will be inspired by the stories of dedicated individuals who campaigned to preserve some of the most extraordinary wild places in our country.

The library has an enormous amount of material devoted to the national parks; just search national parks and reserve as a subject heading in OBIS to get started. Virtually explore any national park at the National Park Service web site.

Visit NRDC's Action Center at www.nrdc.org/action.

Environment Ohio Seeks Advocates for Clean Water Act Enforcement

Environment Ohio is launching an urgent campaign to document support for cleaning up and protecting Ohio's rivers and streams. You can join the campaign online.

From their web site:"Since 1990, Environment Ohio staff have filed 12 lawsuits under the Clean Water Act, forcing illegal polluters to pay over $2 million in fines. In a landmark case, Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel paid $700,000 for polluting the Ohio River." Read more.

Learn more about water pollution in Ohio from library materials found with a subject search in OBIS on "water pollution ohio", including this Scientific Investigations report from the U.S. Geological Survey:
Occurrence of organic wastewater compounds in the Tinkers Creek watershed and two other tributaries to the Cuyahoga River, northeast Ohio [electronic resource] / by J.S. Tertuliani.

A Solar Panel That Produces Oil

This just arrived in my email from Scientific American, and was too intriguing not to share.
September 17, 2009
Oil Rig of the Future: A Solar Panel That Produces Oil
Researchers propose a novel approach to producing biofuel using diatoms

By Saswato R. Das
a brief excerpt:
"Scientific analysis of diatom oil has shown that it is very suitable for use as biofuel, says T. V. Ramachandra, a professor of ecological sciences at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) who is working on this project with IISc researchers Durga Mahapatra and Karthick Balasubramanian, along with Richard Gordon, a radiology professor at the University of Manitoba in Winnepeg.

[Rmachandra says,] "The oil can be as much as a quarter of the total mass of a diatom cell, and if a way could be found to efficiently wrest it from diatoms, he adds, a hectare of "diatom cultivation could produce 10 to up to 200 times the oil that is produced by soybean cultivation."

Read the article and many comments that express both skepticism and support, at the Scientific American web site.

Want more information on algae as a biofuel? Search:
(algae or algal or diatom*) and biofuel*
in ISI Web of Knowledge (from an OhioLINK library). Over 70 references result, including a number of articles in oil trade publications and business sources as well as technical papers on algae bioengineering.

The library has many books on biofuels, including some ebooks:
Biofuels, solar and wind as renewable energy systems: benefits and risks / David Pimentel, editor. Springer, 2008.
Biofuels for road transport: a seed to wheel perspective / Lucas Reijnders, Mark A.J. Huijbregts. Springer, 2009.

These books, published by Springer, are accessible electronically from any OhioLINK library on the OhioLINK EBook Center. They can also be accessed by OhioLINK members at SpringerLink.com.

Michael Pollan on Health Care Reform

Living on Earth interviewed Michael Pollan this past week (author of The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food), who argued that health care reform begins with improving what "we put on our plates."

Here is a snippet of the conversation, considering the difficulty faced by people on limited incomes who want to eat healthy food.
Pollan - "You can get 1,250 calories per dollar of chips or cookies but only 250 calories of carrots or broccoli. Um, that is due to the fact that the farm policies we have are favoring the really unhealthy calories. We subsidize corn and soy, which are really the building blocks of fast food. We subsidize feedlot meat, we do a lot to ensure that fast food is cheap. So, I think the personal responsibility argument breaks down pretty quickly and I think you really need to look at the environment in which we're eating and the system that is dictating the choices that we supposedly have."

Listen to this segment on loe.org for September 18, 2009.

Jane Goodall Trumpets Biodiversity on Diane Rhem Show

Why Study Biodiversity? - the big question of the focus for September in the Year of Science - was beautifully answered by Jane Goodall on the Diane Rhem show September 9. One remarkable example given by Ms. Goodall was the endangered burying beetle, which systematically buries carcasses that will provide food for its young and transports the tiny mites which eat fly larvae off the carcass. The marvels of co-evolution are evident in the life cycles of both beetle and mite, as well as the impact on the environment if that partnership is disrupted by the extinction of either.

Listen to the episode, and hear Ms. Goodall discuss the essential roles played by organisms of all types and sizes, the vast number of species in danger of extinction before they are even described or understood, and our dependency on biodiversity for maintaining healthy ecosystems that support human as well as other forms of life. A copy of Goodall's new book is on its way to the Science Library:
Hope for animals and their world : how endangered species are being rescued from the brink / Jane Goodall, with Thane Maynard and Gail Hudson.

• See a preview on You Tube.
• You can also borrow the book through OhioLINK.

Textbooks in the Science Library

Is your required science textbook on reserve in the Science Library? It's quite likely. We routinely look at the textbooks listed for science courses on the Oberlin College Bookstore website, and often decide to add the required textbook to the science library collection.

It is not guaranteed, however, and even if we do place the text on reserve your use is limited to 3 hours at a time and not for overnight use. So it does not take the place of owning your own book, with all of the benefits of being able to write in the margins, underline and highlight text to your heart's content, or read far into the night if necessary. We are just a bit more convenient than lugging around 1200+ pages of biochemistry (Voet and Voet is perhaps the heaviest text on reserve and one of the most popular for in-library reading).

Once you've found your textbook listed at the college bookstore, search OBIS and you'll see whether we own it and the course number for which it is reserved. Read all about reserve policies.

Health Care Reform Questions? FactCheck.org helps.

Competing ideas and accusations over health care reform are flying through the media and in town hall meetings across the country. Many of the recent articles on FactCheck.org address common misconceptions and expose false claims regarding different plans being considered by Congress. Help someone without internet access by reading through these articles and passing along accurate, nonpartisan information. Have a specific question that isn't addressed in an article? Pose your question directly on the web site.

The Benefit of Doubt for Decision Making in a Civil Society

Doubt is an important part of scientific inquiry, in part because it causes the investigator to consider different variables and conditions necessary to test a hypothesis and evaluate research results. Sociologist Peter Berger argues (with not a small amount of certainty) that doubt is just as necessary in civil discourse. Listen to a provocative interview between Berger and Diane Rhem on the second segment of today's Diane Rhem Show (National Public Radio on WAMU.org). Podcast or transcripts are available approximately one hour after the end of the show.

From the Web site: "Civil discourse today is in danger of being shouted down by talking heads and single-minded bloggers. How doubt can help people on opposite sides of an issue to disagree more agreeably." Peter Berger is a faculty member at Boston University and founder of Boston University's Institute of Culture, Religion, and World Affairs. His newest book: In Praise of Doubt: How to Have Convictions Without Becoming a Fanatic. A very timely message as we witness the distinctly un-civil discourse around Town Halls on health care reform.

Find other books by Peter Berger in the college library [this newest title is not yet ordered].

One Man's Search for Natural Silence in a Noisy World

"Silence is not the absence of something but the presence of everything." So says author Gordon Hempton, acoustic ecologist, in the prologue to his new book One Square Inch of Silence (now on the new book shelf). Hempton's early work for the book was considered by another author promoting stillness during the June 13, 2003 edition of Living on Earth. Richard Mahler, author of Stillness, pointed out that "clinical studies confirm that stillness may also lower stress and blood pressure while promoting a sense of happiness and well being." Yet silence is vanishing from our lives and from even the most pristine wilderness. Gordon Hempton warns that the "unchecked loss of silence is a canary in a coal mine -- a global one. If we cannot make a stand here, if we turn a deaf ear to the issue of vanishing natural quiet, how can we expect to fare better with more complex environmental crises?"

A sound disc accompanies the book, so you can listen to the sounds of silence or the "silences of nature." I did, on one of the wonderful new Macs in our public computer area, which has remarkably good speakers. Twittering birds and crickets were clearly audible in the silence of a western preserve; then, the unmistakable rumble of distant traffic blurred the edge of birdsong. I suggest you try this without the distraction of multiple computers and the ever present hum of lights and the HVAC system in the science library - even in the middle of summer, without another soul in the library, it is not a peaceful silence.

• One Square Inch blog.
• Free Press: a division of Simon & Schuster.

Comet Calamity Considered in Sky & Telescope

The July issue of Sky & Telescope just arrived, in time for the last few days of July's theme: Celebrate Astronomy! as part of the Year of Science. The cover, by S&T artist Casey Reed, is sure to draw you in, illustrating the question "Did a comet wipe out early North Americans and the huge beasts they hunted?" How can you resist such a provocative query? "Demise of the megabeasts" indeed - and what role was played by the Clovis people thought to be in North America at the time? Those "ice age big game hunters" were sophisticated predators, notes Paul Martin of the University of Arizona.

Science is so fascinating when astronomy, geology, paleontology and anthropology mesh together like reading a good mystery or detective story.

The article, Ice Age Impact, was written by Ivan Semeniuk. Listen to a podcast of scientists who were interviewed for the article at SkyandTelescope.com/iceageimpact.

NPR Interviews Natl Geographic Spelunker and Photographer Stephen Alvarez

National Public Radio unveiled its re-imagined NPR.org site today and a host of great stories are suddenly at your fingertips. I was immediately drawn to The Picture Show, featuring "Caves, Cameras, and Explosives," and applaud NPR's collaboration with National Geographic to broaden the audience of photographer Stephen Alvarez. I was entranced by all of the photos, from the sublime and awesome to the arguably undignified (the shot of a spelunker's feet in the air, upper torso down a hole is such a great contrast to the grandeur of spelunker suspended in Ellison's Cave, Georgia). The feature article, "Deep Southern Caves" by Mark Jenkins was published June 2009, and can be perused in print in the Main library (Azariah's Cafe popular magazine collection) or explored online.

Scientific American on 40th Anniversary of Apollo 11

from Scientific American: The 40th Anniversary of Apollo 11
"Four decades after mankind's giant leap, a look at the harrowing first lunar landing, the Apollo missions that never flew, and how the historic event looked from the Soviet Union."

Related resource from Springer and Praxis Publishing, available to Oberlin users electronically at SpringerLink.com:

Author	Harland, David M
Title	The first men on the moon [electronic resource] : the story of Apollo 11 / David M. Harland
Publish Info	New York ; Berlin : Springer ; Chichester, U.K. : Praxis Publishing, 2007

Carbon, Oil Peak, and Climate Change

This title, now on the new book shelf, may answer questions raised by Sarah Palin's op-ed piece last week (and also explains relevant issues that Ms. Palin did not address):

Carbon shift : how the twin crises of oil depletion and climate change will define the future / edited by Thomas Homer-Dixon with Nick Garrison.
[Toronto] : Random House Canada, 2009.
QC981.8.G56 C36 2009.

From the publisher's web site:
Carbon Shift brings together six of Canada’s world-class experts to explore the question of where we stand now, and where we might be headed. It explores the economics, the geology, the politics, and the science of the predicament we find ourselves in. And it gives each expert the chance to address what they think are the most important facets of the complex problem before us.

PLoS One Projected to Become Largest Scholarly Journal Worldwide

This message was sent by Heather Morrison today, with exciting news regarding one of the newest journals from the Public Library of Science (PLoS):

"PLoS One is projected to publish about 4,300 articles in 2009, making it the world's third largest journal (and already the world's largest non-physics journal). In 2010, PLoS One is anticipated to publish 8,000 articles, which would make it the world's largest scholarly journal, by far.

"One of the world's other really large journals - the American Physical Society's Physical Review D - is on the list of journals 100% convertible to the SCOAP3 Open Access Consortium. So it is entirely possible that TWO of the world's dozen largest journals will be fully open access within the next year or so."

Read more at Heather Morrison's blog, The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics

A Plethora of New Books

The July shipment of books offers enough reading for this summer and the next three, possibly, in nearly every subject area of the Science Library. Books on worms, hedgerows, nutrigenomics, chaos mathematics, corridor ecology (and that doesn't refer to mold and mites in the hallway in your building), evolutionary genetics, Einstein, color, atmospheric thermodynamics, molecular networks, polymers, the Medea hypothesis, fluvial systems, hormones, Valles Caldera, marsupials, stem cells, wild mushrooms, phytoplankton, ants, bioinorganic chemistry... the list could go on and on!

Farming with nature or Organic agriculture might be the most seasonal of titles, along with Fresh: a perishable history, as we are in the midst of the northern growing season and harvesting local produce already.

Check out the new books list and borrow something interesting for summer reading!

YoS July: Celebrate Astronomy!

The Year of Science focus for July is ASTRONOMY, and our shelves are overflowing with great, new books on the subject. Do a subject search, limited to 2007-2009, in OBIS.

The Day We Found the Universe is one of dozens of books received in our latest new books shipment. From the book overview in Google Books [link there from OBIS]: "On January 1, 1925, thirty-five-year-old Edwin Hubble announced the observation that ultimately established that our universe was a thousand trillion times larger than previously believed, filled with myriad galaxies like our own."

This is a fascinating account of early astrophysics. Follow that historical review with books on current research, perhaps a title on Kerr black holes.

2009 is also the International Year of Astronomy (IYA). The U.S.A. web site for IYA offers Galileoscopes to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s use of a telescope to study the skies.

The web site includes a calendar of current and historical events in astronomy, including moon phases and positions of observable planets in the night sky. Full moon, Tuesday July 7 at 3:21 a.m. Later that day (4pm) the moon will be at Apogee. Learn more about the difference between Apogee and Perigree.

Art of Science Competition - Help Select People's Choice Winner

Princeton University's Art of Science Competition is underway, and you are invited to participate! Look for beauty in the representation of scientific results, by comparing images side by side and making a judgment as to which is "more Art of Science." The People's Choice competition remains open through noon, July 1, 2009. Click on Cast Your Votes to get started. Details on the science behind each art piece is part of the online exhibit. According to American Scientist (July-Aug 2009, p. 292) a competition is already being planned for 2010, and Andrew Zwicker of the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab, one of the show's organizers and a past prizewinner, encourages other communities to hold similar competitions.

H1N1 Virus Declared a Pandemic

The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the swine flu pandemic. Read or listen to the story and related information on NPR. On Wednesday, WHO said 74 countries had reported nearly 27,737 cases of swine flu, including 141 deaths [from the AP]. Find more information on H1N1 in the USA at the Center for Disease Control, and GenBank sequences for the 2009 outbreak at the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI).

Earth 2100: the Final Century of Civilization?

Received from the Sierra Club, Northeast Ohio group:

"Earth 2100" is a two-hour television event from ABC, scheduled for Tuesday, June 2, at 9 p.m. ET. Bob Woodruff explores the potential scientific scenarios for our future, with the underlying premise that the planet is at risk: population growth, resource depletion, and climate change could bring catastrophe in the next century. Two possible futures will be considered, ending with an optimistic outlook that presents the actions humanity must take now, in 2009, to create a future that ensures health and sustainability for ourselves and the rest of the planet.

Earth 2100 News and Related Stories from ABC News.