Welcome to Spring Semester! Carrel Signup This Week

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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...

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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].