Database of Native Plants from UT-Austin Friday, 28 September 2007 3:19 pm
Posted by Dongmei in Internet Resources, biology, botany, databases.add a comment
The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, at the University of Texas at Austin, has a database of native plants (http://www.wildflower.org/plants/) with some really nice searching options.
You can do the basic searching by name or family (the search function suggests names as you type), there’s also a great search that allows you to search by state, light requirements, soil moisture, duration, bloom characteristics, and color. Results are presented in a table that includes the scientific and common name of the plants as well as images of the plants.
You may also want to check out the other links from the front page of the Native Plants Database, like the collection of how-to articles, the glossary of botanical terms, and the slide show of popular regional wildflowers. I’m sure that you’ll find this database is quite useful.
via ResearchBuzz
Authoritative version of Wikipedia for biology: Encyclopedia of Life Friday, 13 July 2007 4:13 pm
Posted by Dongmei in Internet Resources, biology, open access, wikis.add a comment
If the $50 million biodiversity effort launched May 9 goes as hoped, the Encyclopedia of Life could eventually be an authoritative version of Wikipedia for biology fans.
Potential applications range from planning natural conservation in suburban subdivisions, to mapping coral reefs in the Pacific, to identifying that odd butterfly perched by your window. Led in part by Chicago philanthropists and researchers, the project aims to create a free internet resource to catalog and describe every one of the planet’s 1.8 million species.
After a few years, as a head of a reference works publisher pointed out: “when the site gains enough content mass, there won’t be much need for libraries to purchase traditional animal life encyclopedias.” He also pointed out that “the trend toward free, scholarly Internt reference sources–the kind not as easily dismissed from a validity standpoint as Wikipedia–will continue”.
Neuroscience Gateway Friday, 13 July 2007 4:13 pm
Posted by Dongmei in Internet Resources, biology, genomics, health sciences, neuroscience.add a comment
The Neuroscience Gateway is a free, online resource that reviews the latest research and techniques in neuroscience and genomics. Updated weekly, the Neuroscience Gateway helps you and your students keep up-to-date with the latest primary research with easy-to-digest summaries and links to current news and events.
Sign up today for weekly email updates from the Neuroscience Gateway, brought to you by Nature and the Allen Institute for Brain Science, makers of the Allen Brain Atlas. You can also add their feed (http://www.brainatlas.org/aba/rss.rdf) to your RSS reader.
PubMed as a search engine Thursday, 7 June 2007 1:50 pm
Posted by Dongmei in biology, health sciences, search engines.add a comment
PubMed is now available as a search engine add-on on the search bar in the upper-right corner of Firefox 2.0 and Internet Explorer 7.0. From a PubMed Web page (say, PubMed Home Page), click the search box drop down arrow next to the default search engine Google, and then select Add PubMed search.
(from PubMed New and Noteworthy)
