MIT OpenCourseWare: Introduction to Geology

If you are having difficulty remembering the details of the Earth's geological structure or the nature of major minerals and rock types, you can consult this excellent introductory course offered as part of MIT's OpenCourseWare initiative. The materials are drawn from Professor Lindy Elkins-Tanton's Spring 2008 "Introduction to Geology" course, and they include a syllabus, a course calendar, readings, lecture notes, and assignments. The course is designed for undergraduates, though anyone can benefit from examining the materials. Visitors can make their way through lecture notes that cover metamorphic rocks, rock deformation, earthquakes, and the formation of continents. The site also contains some great handouts which cover time scales, New England geology, and oxygen isotopes. Finally, visitors can also send feedback about the course.
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Earth--Atmospheric--and-Planetary-Sciences/12-001Spring-2008/CourseHome/index.htm

From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout 1994-2009.
http://scout.wisc.edu/

ticTOCs Journal Tables of Contents service

The ticTOCs Journal Tables of Contents service makes it easy for academics, researchers, students and anyone else to keep up-to-date with newly published scholarly material by enabling them to find, display, store, combine and reuse thousands of journal tables of contents from multiple publishers. With ticTOCs, it only takes a or two to keep up to date.
The ticTOCs Consortium consists of: the University of Liverpool Library (lead), Heriot-Watt University, CrossRef, ProQuest, Emerald, RefWorks, MIMAS, Cranfield University, Institute of Physics, SAGE Publishers, Inderscience Publishers, DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals), Open J-Gate, and Intute.
http://www.tictocs.ac.uk/

Measurements of atmospheric composition in the ultraviolet and visible

This site, offered by the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), provides “the results and ongoing data studies for the study of ozone and other gases, aerosols, radiances, and ultraviolet radiation, and what has been learned about atmospheric pollution and air quality from the international science missions making these measurements.” More specifically users can access tropospheric composition data, obtained using ultraviolet and visible spectroscopy, for total ozone concentrations, aerosol index, radiative cloud fraction, surface UV flux, cloud fraction, as well as the atmospheric concentrations of pollutant gases such as sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, formaldehyde, bromine monoxide and chlorine dioxide. Active dates for the available atmospheric composition records depend on the instrument used to collect the data, with some datasets dating back to 1978. The site also provides information about the specific instruments used to collect these measurements and documentation on how to download and interpret the available datasets.
http://macuv.gsfc.nasa.gov/
Copyright © 2006-2008

2008

Tropical cyclones : SciDev.Net

The Science and Development Network (SciDev.Net) is a non-profit organisation which provides authoritative information on developments in science and technology for the developing world. This section of the SciDev.net provides a collection of news, articles, opinions, analyses and background information on tropical cyclones and their associated impacts. Specific emphasis is given on the effects of global warming on the occurrence and intensity of tropical cyclones as well as the expected costs of cyclones in the affected regions. Users can also express their own views on published articles and respond to other comments.
http://www.scidev.net/en/agriculture-and-environment/tropical-cyclones-1/
Copyright © 2006-2008

Structure and properties of condensed matter

This page contains a series of lecture notes on the structure and properties of condensed matter, presented by Professor Athene M. Donald of the University of Cambridge. The notes are presented in both HTML and PDF formats and cover a wide range of topics in materials and soft matter science. These include: liquid crystals, amorphous solids (glasses), crystalline solids, polymers, rubbers, and a variety of materials with biological origins such as starch and cellulose.
http://www.bss.phy.cam.ac.uk/~amd3/teaching/A_Donald/
Copyright © 2006-2008

Electric and magnetic fields : Physics 1Y

A set of lecture notes/slides on electric and magnetic fields is presented here by Professor Miles Padgett of the University of Glasgow. The link goes directly to a PDF file containing the slides. The topics covered include the basic theory of electrostatics and magnetism, along with descriptive examples. Also covered are the fundamentals of electric motors and electron beam motion.
http://www.physics.gla.ac.uk/Optics/Lectures/EMFields.pdf
Copyright © 2006-2008

American Society of Limnology and Oceanography

If you've ever wondered about the fields of limnology or oceanography, you
need look no further than the homepage of the American Society of Limnology
and Oceanography (ASLO). On their site, visitors can learn about their
professional activities, which include international symposia, conferences,
and their scholarly journals. In their "About ASLO" area, visitors can learn
about the discipline and read up on ASLO history. Most visitors will get the
most use out of the "Programs" area. This section of the site includes an
image library, articles about ethical considerations in the field, resources
for early career scientists, and programs for current students. The image
library is a highlight here, and it includes well over 2000 images submitted
by registered users covering everything from estuaries to sampling
techniques
http://aslo.org/index.html
From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout 1994-2008. http://scout.wisc.edu/

Scirus reviewed - Péter's Digital Reference Shelf

Scirus stands out among the few multidisciplinary science-oriented databases that are freely available on the Web by virtue of its capable and intelligent software.... and deep indexing and searching of more than 53.5 million scholarly and/or professional documents.....
Scirus has been progressing and expanding steadily since its debut in 2001. With the significant additions of tens of millions of high quality scholarly papers, it is an outstanding source even for users whose libraries don’t have subscription to many digital journal packages. It is a very good free federated search engine for those who are looking for scholarly publications, and can live with finding a few far less than scholarly pages in the process.
http://www.gale.cengage.com/reference/peter/200806/scirus.htm
Source: Gale.com Copyright Notice

Database Documents Names for More Than 150,000 Diptera Species

Distinguishing between insect pests and partners starts with an ironclad identification. So Agricultural Research Service (ARS) entomologist Chris Thompson headed up efforts to accurately identify and name almost 157,000 flies, gnats, maggots, midges, mosquitoes and related species in the order Diptera.

Diptera is one of the four largest groups of living organisms on Earth, and its members are critical components in virtually all non-marine ecosystems. Carl Linnaeus, who devised the scientific classification system still in use today, compiled the first index of Diptera species names in 1758. But even though an average of 800 new Diptera names are proposed every year, the nomenclature has not been comprehensively updated since 1805.

The group assembled the tenth edition of the Biosystematic Database of World Diptera (BDWD). This massive index contains nomenclature data for 156,599 living and extinct Diptera species in 154 families and 11,671 genera—around 10 percent of the known biodiversity in the world today.

The BDWD, which is available at www.diptera.org, has two components. The Nomenclator allows users to check names, confirm species status, and obtain information about type, family classification and sources for all names in the collection. The Species database is being designed to answer queries about different species, including their distribution, biological associates and economic importance.

http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2008/080829.htm

Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service

Freshwater Ecoregions of the World

Freshwater Ecoregions of the World, (FEOW) provides a new global biogeographic regionalization of the Earth’s freshwater biodiversity. Covering virtually all freshwater habitats on Earth, this first-ever ecoregion map, together with associated species data, is a useful tool for underpinning global and regional conservation planning efforts, particularly to identify outstanding and imperiled freshwater systems; for serving as a logical framework for large-scale conservation strategies; and for providing a global-scale knowledge base for increasing freshwater biogeographic literacy.
Click on any of the ecoregions in the map below for more information, or use the menus at the top of this page.
http://www.feow.org/
Source: The Nature Conservancy

MacTutor History of Mathematics

This history of mathematics web site includes biographies of important mathematicians, histories of major concepts, and an index of important curves with illustrations. There is a time line based on the biographies, as well as indexes of Fields Medal winners, Nobel Prize winners, the most requested biographies, and women mathematicians.
http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/index.html
Copyright © 2008 Thomson Reuters

MendelWeb

MendelWeb is a teaching and learning resource built upon Gregor Mendel's famous paper of 1865, "Experiments in Plant Hybridization." The site is a useful resource for studies in classical genetics, introductory data analysis, elementary plant science, and the history and literature of science. The site contains German and English versions of Mendel's paper in a variety of formats, as well as essays and commentary on the significance and influence of Mendel's work. Other features of the site include a glossary, a statistics calculation page, and a time line covering Mendel's lifetime.
http://www.mendelweb.org/
Copyright © 2008 Thomson Reuters

GROW - Geotechnical, Rock and Water Resources Library

This digital library, sponsored by the National Science Foundation and created by the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Arizona, is a collection of links to free, high-quality digital learning objects harvested from the Web on the topics of geotechnical engineering, rock engineering, and water resources. The learning objects/resources considered for inclusion in the collection are classified as elements, learning units, modules, and themes. Each item in the collection, which may be browsed or searched by a variety of options, is submitted by an expert and peer-reviewed. The GROW digital library also contains papers and slide presentations and a list of partners and collaborators.
http://www.grow.arizona.edu/
Copyright © 2008 Thomson Reuters

Global Hydrology Resource Center

The Global Hydrology Resource Center (GHRC) is the data management and user services arm of the Global Hydrology and Climate Center (GHCC), providing both historical and current Earth science data, information, and products from satellite, airborne, and surface-based instruments. Data available through the site include space-based lightning observations; global sea surface temperature, atmospheric water vapor, wind direction, and atmospheric temperature; and high-resolution spatial and temporal information of hurricane structure, dynamics, and motion. GHRC site users may browse the complete dataset list, search and order data, read GHCC project descriptions, and access a glossary of related terms and links to hydrology-related sites.
http://ghrc.nsstc.nasa.gov/
Copyright © 2008 Thomson Reuters

Bourne shell programming

This book provides UNIX users with a guide to shell programming. The book assumes that the reader has at least a general knowledge of UNIX including its commands, syntax, and operation, and of simple programming techniques.
Shell and scripting basics are covered as are debugging scripts and command line options, along with an appendix of built-in command references.
http://sayle.net/book/
Copyright © 2006-2008

Superconductivity : so simple yet so hard to explain

This site describes in some detail the discovery of a theory for superconductivity. It is presented by the American Institute of Physics as part of their "Moments of Discovery" series. Audio interviews with the scientists involved are provided, along with full transcriptions. A science historian's account of the discovery is also provided, along with a reasonable amount of superconductor theory. A list of links and books for further reading is also provided, as well as some notes for teachers.
http://www.aip.org/history/mod/superconductivity/
Copyright © 2006-2008

Plastics today

This site includes current news stories covering plastics and injection moulding technology as well as information on events around the world.
Links to two online magazines: 'Injection Molding Magazine' and 'Modern Plastics Worldwide' are provided. There is a blog and also discussion forums.
http://www.plasticstoday.com/
Copyright © 2006-2008