Please send web site recommendations to ahern@orst.edu.
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Consulted as an authoritative source by media outlets ranging from NPR to the BBC, the Index to Ornithology is best described by the uppermost hyperlink on its site: “A Celebration of Birds.” Replete with fun and useful information, the Index to Ornithology has most of its data organized in hyperlinks and an informative set of FAQs. It also has an impressive collection of images and is not without a few surprises. Were you aware, for example, that about $2 billion is spent annually in the U.S. on backyard birdhouses and birdfeeders, or that birds have less than 1% the number of taste buds of humans? Impacting everything from human health (avian flu) to seed dispersal, our feathered friends deserve all of the significant attention they get at Ornithology.com.
Vadim Onishchenko © 2004–2005, www.wildlife-photo.org
SphingoismSphingolipids are an often-overlooked class of biomolecules whose catabolic anomalies have very detrimental effects on human health. Related to the amino alcohol sphingosine, sphingolipids are important neuromembrane components and include the sphingomyelins, cerebrosides, and gangliosides. The most abundant of these, the sphingomyelins, represent 85% of all human sphingolipids and are prominently found in the myelin sheath of nerve cells. At SphinGOMAP, visitors can get in on the ‘sphingo lingo’ and find everything from broad-based sphingolipid analyses (sphingolipidomics) to an impressive, systematic map of all things sphingoid in nature (mostly mammals). The site, which is organized by Alfred Merrill's group at the Georgia Institute of Technology, wows both for its coverage and for making visitors aware of the complexity and extent of sphin-golipids in metabolism.
[www.sphingomap.org]
On the sesquicentennial of the publication of “On the Origin of Species,” it is appropriate once again for the genius of Charles Darwin to be recognized. Whether you believe Darwin or his colleague, Alfred Wallace, was the originator of the concept of natural selection, the former was clearly a naturalist whose contributions to evolutionary theory were enormous. Doing justice to a scientific giant is no small task, but the Darwin Online site is up to it, as demonstrated by over 81,000 pages of searchable text and almost 200,000 images. Some of the contents of the books reproduced on the site alone are worth over $100,000. The site hasn't gone unnoticed, either, with a jaw-dropping 90 million+ hits in the past three years. Besides the public controversy over evolution, there are many reasons to visit Darwin Online. They include all of his writings, private papers, his wife's diaries, and images of his handwritten work.
[www.darwin-online.org.uk]
Self-described as a “provider of an innovative platform that enables life science researchers to search, discover, and share knowledge locked within public and proprietary data,” NextBio is probably best described as a rich nerd's Google. Like the more famous search engine, NextBio offers a simple, easy-to-use interface, but the focus here is strictly on the sciences. NextBio's multi-level arrangement divvies info up to suit a user's tastes. According to the site, over one million scientists use the free NextBio basic site, which requires registration for full access. Returned results include tightly organized papers, clinical trials (where relevant), users, groups, authors, organizations, and clinical trial sponsors.
[www.nextbio.com/b/nextbio.nb]
If you're looking for all news, all the time, and your beat is science, Lab Spaces may be the place to read or write about the subject. With news articles appearing on a minute-by-minute basis, the web site impresses not only for its rapidity and breadth of coverage, but also for illustrating the scope of scientific investigation. Formatted somewhat like a newspaper, Lab Spaces covers subjects as diverse as the effects of artificial gravity on muscle loss and nanoscale mass spectrometers. News is ‘herded’ into general frame works of biological, physical, environmental, and space sciences. The writing is sophisticated and the up-to-the minute coverage is probably its most impressive feature—a great online resource for science news.
[www.labspaces.net]
For those interested in the subject of evolutionary history, don't miss the Paleobiology Database, which offers in one place a treasure trove of fossil data. It's a site that will put a smile on the face of even the most disapproving paleobiologist. Organized mostly around search engines loaded with taxonomic and referential information, the Paleobiology Database aims ultimately to bring the entire fossil record of plants and animals to the desktop. That's no small order! Currently housed on the site are over 90,000 collections, 150,000 taxa, and 30,000 references, and the datasets look poised to grow. John Alroy at University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) deserves kudos for his efforts in bringing this important database online.
[http://paleodb.org]
