Thursday 23 June 2011

Science Week 2011 Theme: The Chemistry of Life

The theme for Science Week Ireland 2011 is ‘The Chemistry of Life’, demonstrating the importance of chemistry to our everyday lives—from the atoms that are the building blocks of nature to the chemistry that creates lasting bonds between people.http://www.scienceweek.ie/theme_2011.asp

Friday 17 June 2011

UM Brain Implant Could Turn Thoughts Into Movement

A brain implant developed at the University of Michigan uses the body's skin like a conductor to wirelessly transmit the brain's neural signals to control a computer, and may eventually be used to reactivate paralyzed limbs.http://www.topix.com/science/electrical-engineering/2011/06/um-brain-implant-could-turn-thoughts-into-movement

Astronomers Discover Giant Black Holes at Edge of Universe

Astronomers have been peering farther and farther into space, and back in time, using the world’s most powerful telescopes to detect galaxies billions of light years away that existed when the universe was just a fraction of its current age. But detecting the giant black holes thought to lurk at the centers of those galaxies has proven much more difficult.http://opac.yale.edu/science-engineering

Record Food Prices Linked to Biofuels

Reports from the WTO and USDA show that corn supplies are influenced by biofuel subsidies and mandates.

http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/37848/?ref=rss


Wednesday 15 June 2011

EndNote Web enhancements and resetting your roaming access



Thomson Reuters
Now available – new EndNote Web enhancements

  • Firefox® 4.0 - Web interface and plug-in now work seamlessly.
  • Safari 5.0 - Web interface is optimized.
  • Web of Knowledge users: To restore access to styles, filters and online connections, log into Web of Knowledge (on campus or via proxy) and select "My EndNote Web" on the top menu to access your account. This resets your roaming access for one year (see the roaming access help topic for more details). You may need to do this from a computer on campus for this to be effective.
  • Track your roaming access on the new Account Information page on the Options tab.

Monday 13 June 2011

Oxford Reference Online Premium - Whats New May 2011

 This update further extends Oxford Reference Online's wide ranging academic content, with extensive new titles on marketing, with A Dictionary of Marketing, and media and communications studies, with A Dictionary of Media and Communications. In addition, literature content has been enhanced with Oxford titles dedicated to Charles Dickens, with The Oxford Reader's Companion to Dickens, and the Brontës, with The Oxford Companion to the Brontës. Look out for more author Companions later in the year! In addition to the new titles, there are also new editions of The Oxford Companion to Music (an online-only edition commissioned especially for Oxford Reference Online), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, and A Dictionary of Saints.

http://www.oxfordreference.com/pages/whatsnew_may2011

Thursday 9 June 2011

Elements added to periodic table

Two new elements have been added to the periodic table, years after they were first discovered.
Elements known as 114 and 116  were officially recognised by a working group from the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), after the experiments where they were seen were successfully repeated.
The elements are formed by bombarding one element such as plutonium with another, like calcium, and hoping that they will fuse to form a new element. These new atoms only exist for a brief moment before decaying, making their difficult to prove.
IUPAC has only now decided there is enough evidence to put the existence of the elements beyond reasonable doubt, despite element 114 being first observed in 1999.
The elements are temporarily named ununquadium (IUPAC code for one-one-four-ium) and ununhexium (one-one-six-ium) while the scientists who discovered them propose formal names.
The Russian scientists are reported to be considering Russia “flerovium” for 114, after the scientist Georgy Flyorov, and “moscovium” for 116 after Russia’s capital.
Naming new elements after famous scientists is an established practice, with several heavy elements bearing names such as Polonium, Americium and Einsteinium. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2011/0609/breaking26.


Friday 3 June 2011

Update your Author Profile data with the new SciVerseScopus Author Feedback Wizard

Author profiles can be updated quickly and accurately using the new SciVerse Scopus Author Feedback Wizard: Authors are presented with a series of options that they may either select or deselect in order to inform Elsevier of the changes they would like to make. Author profiles can be merged and documents removed if they are incorrectly assigned. To check your author profile and what articles are acredited to you search on the Scopus database available through your Libary.

Thursday 2 June 2011

IARC CLASSIFIES RADIOFREQUENCY ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELDS AS POSSIBLY CARCINOGENIC TO HUMANS

Over the last few years, there has been mounting concern about the possibility of adverse health effects resulting from exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields, such as those emitted by wireless communication devices. The number of mobile phone subscriptions is estimated at 5 billion globally. Full Story at http://www.who.int/en/

Wednesday 1 June 2011

"Border collie comprehends object names as verbal referents"

 Four experiments investigated the ability of a border collie (Chaser) to acquire receptive language skills. Experiment 1 demonstrated that Chaser learned and retained, over a 3-year period of intensive training, the proper-noun names of 1022 objects. See the Full Text Article at Science Direct.

"Border collie comprehends object names as verbal referents"
 John W. Pilley, Alliston K. Reid, 
 Behavioural Processes, 
Volume 86, 
Issue 2, 
February 2011

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