Periodic Table of Videos Friday, 12 September 2008 11:48 am
Posted by Dongmei in Internet Resources, Web 2.0, chemistry, videos.Tags: chemistry, elements, periodic_table, videos, YouTube
1 comment so far
I have this email sitting in my “attention” folder (a folder for important emails that I don’t have time to go to right away) for quite some time, yesterday I finally have some time to go to check it out.
It’s about a video series made by a team in Univ of Nottingham, UK and directed by BBC video journalist Brady Haran. They are quite cool. They are small video clips illustrating each of the 118 elements. Besides the usual fact about each element (such as atomic number), each video has interesting stories behind each element and experiments to showcase its physical and chemical properties.
If you haven’t checked out these, maybe you should. It would be helpful for an introductory chemistry course.
The videos are available at this web site:http://www.periodicvideos.com/, also available on YouTube (www.youtube.com/periodicvideos).
How to make your reaction search more effective in SciFinder Scholar Tuesday, 4 December 2007 4:26 pm
Posted by Dongmei in chemistry, database features, databases, search tips.add a comment
SciFinder provides access to the largest reaction database in the world (CASREACT) with coverage from 1840 to the present. It contains more than 14 million single- and multi-step reactions, about 950 added weekly from patents and journals.
This tip sheet from CAS shows you how to search reactions effectively using some unique tools provided by SciFinder, to be more specific: Functional Groups and Filters. If use effectively, these tools will increase the precision of your queries.
Ghoulish Science Fun Wednesday, 31 October 2007 5:31 pm
Posted by Dongmei in Halloween, science.add a comment
A quick quiz for you? Since which century has candy corn been around?
Inventors love Halloween, too. Visit the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s “The Little Shop of Halloween Patent & Trademark Horrors” to find out actual inventions with a Halloween theme that have been invented over the years.
For those sky watchers/amateur astronomers, you probably want to print out your October sky map to spot the spooky Ghost Head Nebula.
For those environment conscious folks (we should all be), celebrate a green Halloween instead of a traditional orange one! The Environmental Defense Fund reminds us annually of tips for celebrating an eco-friendly Halloween.
Read more ghoulish science fun from the Sci-Tech Library Newsletter.
Database of Native Plants from UT-Austin Friday, 28 September 2007 3:19 pm
Posted by Dongmei in Internet Resources, biology, botany, databases.2 comments
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
