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A History of the Forest Survey in the United States: 1830-2004, June 2007

A History of the Forest Survey in the United States: 1830-2004, June 2007
United States Forest Service
Call # GovDocs A 13.2:H 62/10

From The United States Forest Service:

"This publication presents a history of the Forest Survey (now known as Forest Inventory and Analysis) program in the United States as it evolved within the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service over a period of more than 100 years. It draws on the writings of several authors who have published on various aspects of the Forest Survey program. A review is presented of nine ground plot designs used in the Forest Survey and Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) programs since 1931. This publication also highlights the major events contributing to the current FIA program, beginning as far back as 1830.
It is impressive to look at the many contributions of various people working with the Nation’s Forest Survey program, as well as the various methodologies that have contributed to understanding and updating the national forest survey statistics.
It is especially timely that this historical report should occur at the time the Forest Service just celebrated the anniversary of its 100 years of service to the American people."

The immortalists : Charles Lindbergh, Dr. Alexis Carrel, and their daring quest to live forever

The immortalists : Charles Lindbergh, Dr. Alexis Carrel, and their daring quest to live forever
by David M. Friedman
New York : Ecco, 2007.
Call #R855.3 .F75 2007

From Ecco Press:

"He was one of the most famous men of the twentieth century, the subject of best–selling biographies and a hit movie, as well as the inspiration for a dance step – the Lindy Hop – he himself was too shy to try. But for all the attention lavished on Charles Lindbergh, one story has remained untold until now: his macabre scientific collaboration with Dr. Alexis Carrel. Together this oddest of couples – one a brilliant surgeon turned social engineer, the other a failed dirt farmer turned hero of the skies – embarked on a secret quest to achieve immortality.

Their endeavor began on November 28, 1930, in Carrel's laboratory at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New York, a haven created by the world's richest man, John D. Rockefeller, so that medical investigators could pursue their wildest dreams, freed from the demands of clinical practice. For Carrel, who won the Nobel Prize in 1912 for pioneering organ transplants, that dream was conquering death. But not for everyone – only a special few.

In one of his more ghoulish experiments, Carrel removed the heart from a chick embryo and placed it in a glass jar, where, with special cleansing and feeding, he kept it alive, with no signs of aging, far beyond the species' natural life span. That result, Carrel believed, suggested that natural death wasn't inevitable.

But to attempt such a test with humans, Carrel needed a mechanical genius to create a device in which severed human organs could live and function indefinitely. Might that genius be the handsome pilot who astonished the world in May 1927 by flying alone across the Atlantic – a feat even most pilots had thought impossible – in a single–engine airplane he designed himself?

Part Frankenstein, part The Professor and the Mad–man, and all true, The Immortalists is the remarkable story of how two men of prodigious achievement, and equally large character flaws, challenged nature's oldest rule, with consequences – personal, professional, and political – neither man anticipated."

Look me in the eye : my life with Asperger's

Look me in the eye : my life with Asperger's
by John Elder Robinson
New York : Crown Publishers, 2007.
Call #RC553 .A88 R635 2007

From the Crown Publishing Group:

"Ever since he was small, John Robison had longed to connect with other people, but by the time he was a teenager, his odd habits—an inclination to blurt out non sequiturs, avoid eye contact, dismantle radios, and dig five-foot holes (and stick his younger brother in them)—had earned him the label “social deviant.” No guidance came from his mother, who conversed with light fixtures, or his father, who spent evenings pickling himself in sherry. It was no wonder he gravitated to machines, which could, at least, be counted on.

After fleeing his parents and dropping out of high school, his savant-like ability to visualize electronic circuits landed him a gig with KISS, for whom he created their legendary fire-breathing guitars. Later, he drifted into a “real” job, as an engineer for a major toy company. But the higher Robison rose in the company, the more he had to pretend to be “normal” and do what he simply couldn’t: communicate. It wasn’t worth the paycheck.
It was not until he was forty that an insightful therapist told him he had the form of autism called Asperger’s syndrome. That understanding transformed the way Robison saw himself—and the world.

Look Me in the Eye is the moving, darkly funny story of growing up with Asperger’s at a time when the diagnosis simply didn’t exist. A born storyteller, Robison takes you inside the head of a boy whom teachers and other adults regarded as “defective,” who could not avail himself of KISS’s endless supply of groupies, and who still has a peculiar aversion to using people’s given names (he calls his wife “Unit Two”). He also provides a fascinating reverse angle on the younger brother he left at the mercy of their nutty parents—the boy who would later change his name to Augusten Burroughs and write the bestselling memoir Running with Scissors.

Ultimately, this is the story of Robison’s journey from his world into ours, and his new life as a husband, father, and successful small business owner—repairing his beloved high-end automobiles. It’s a strange, sly, indelible account—sometimes alien, yet always deeply human."

IEEE Xplore downtime for update

On Saturday, 10 November, IEEE will implement an upgrade to the IEEE Xplore digital library.

As a result, users will experience approximately 2-4 hours of downtime on that date, between 9:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. EST. A message will be posted to the IEEE Xplore home page to alert your users to the planned downtime. Please encourage your users to take this into account when they plan their research.

This update includes the following features:
*Tabbed search results, including a beta test of Application Notes, practical content for working engineers
*Citation (Known Item) search, RefWorks/BibTeX citation download, and improved author search
*Subscriptions to IEEE Expert Now educational courses available through the IEEE Xplore platform

BioMed Central Launches Biology Image Library

BioMed Central Launches Biology Image Library Online Resource for Biological Images will aid in Research and Education

BioMed Central today announced the launch of Biology Image Library, an online resource that provides access to over 11,000 carefully selected biology-related images. This is the latest service from BioMed Central, part of the Science Navigation Group of companies which was also responsible for the creation of images.MD, a popular medical image resource.

The Library is a new subscription-based service offering access to an annotated selection of high-quality biological images, movies, illustrations and animations. Subscribers may make royalty-free use of images in the collection for research and educational purposes, while commercial usage rights will be available for an additional fee.

"Biology Image Library will be an invaluable resource for biological researchers and educators" said Matthew Cockerill, Publisher, BioMed Central. "Researchers often maintain their own collections of useful images, but until now there has been no easy way for others to find them. By annotating the best images, making them searchable and accessible, and licensing them to allow convenient reuse, Biology Image Library will help academics and other biologists to illustrate their work and to create eye-catching presentations and course material."

Biology Image Library gives researchers, teachers and students an easy way to find and download high-quality visual material. All content comes from sources that are peer-reviewed by academic editors prior to publication online, so researchers can be sure that the images are scientifically reliable. Subjects covered include developmental biology, histology & pathology, immunology, microbiology & parasitology, molecular & cellular biology, neuroscience and plant biology.

The Biology Image Library is continuously working to expand its collection of images. Potential contributors should email:
info@biologyimagelibrary.com or see
http://www.biologyimagelibrary.com/contribute for more information.

To view Biology Image Library and register for a free trial, visit http://www.biologyimagelibrary.com.

New Open Access Journal

Open access publisher BioMed Central, US, has announced the launch of a new open access journal, Journal of Biological Engineering (JBE). Dr Mark Riley, Associate Professor at the University of Arizona’s Department of Agricultural & Biosystems Engineering, will serve as the journal’s Editor-in-Chief. He will be supported by an expert Editorial Board.

The official publication of the Institute of Biological Engineering, the Journal of Biological Engineering will cover all aspects of biological engineering. The journal seeks to provide a forum for topics that address the basic questions that unify all applications of biological engineering.

Articles in JBE are listed in PubMed and archived at PubMed Central. JBE manuscripts will integrate engineering with life sciences to generate new quantitative methods, models, and information. The journal invites manuscript submissions that address theoretical and applied approaches to design, optimise, and use biological systems ranging in scale from molecules, cells, organisms, to ecosystems.

WRS -- National Chemistry Week Blog

The National Chemistry Week Blog is live. Check it out for lots of chemistry-related information.

New Journal Announcement

Biofuels, Bioproducts and Biorefining is a new journal from Wiley. Biofuels, Bioproducts and Biorefining is a vital source of information on sustainable products, fuels and energy. Examining the spectrum of international scientific research and industrial development along the entire supply chain, The journal publishes a balanced mixture of peer-reviewed critical reviews, commentary, business news highlights, policy updates and patent intelligence. Biofuels, Bioproducts and Biorefining is dedicated to fostering growth in the biorenewables sector and serving its growing interdisciplinary community by providing a unique, systems-based insight into technologies in these fields as well as their industrial development.

Complementary content will be presented at our sister web portal, www.biofpr.com. The portal is under construction, but users may register their interest in receiving email updates when the site goes live later in 2007. Visit www.biofpr.com now to register and enter a free prize draw! Biofpr.com will supplement the journal by providing immediate news, features and patent coverage, as well as interactive discussions and debate.

Product Information

Open Access to first issue

WRS: WorldWideScience.org

From GCN:

"A new portal that crosses both international and database boundaries was launched recently for people interested in scientific sources that are unavailable through commercial search engines such as Google.

WorldWideScience.org was developed by the Energy Department and the British Library, along with science and technology organizations in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Japan and the Netherlands. It employs federated search technology — a search method that simultaneously executes a query against an array of databases, then aggregates and ranks the results — and gives users a single entry point for searching far-flung science portals in parallel with only one query.

“Scientific research results are archived globally in a plethora of sources, many unknown and unreachable through [the] usual search engines,” said Raymond Orbach, Energy’s undersecretary for science. “This international partnership will open up this vast reservoir of knowledge in a rapid and convenient manner, something that will add great value to our existing knowledge.”

WorldWideScience.org follows the model of Science.gov, the searchable portal for science databases of federal science agencies. WorldWideScience.org was developed and is maintained by Energy’s Office of Scientific and Technical Information, which also played a central role in the development of Science.gov. The participating countries contributed databases that can be searched through the portal."

University of California Press to publish The Auk

http://www.ucpressjournals.com/journal.asp?j=auk

"University of California Press Journals + Digital Publishing is proud to commence publishing The Auk for the American Ornithologists' Union beginning in January 2008 with Volume 125, Issue 1.

For more than 100 years, The Auk has published original reports on the biology of birds. As one of the foremost journals in ornithology, The Auk publishes innovative empirical and theoretical findings. Topics of articles appearing in The Auk include the documentation, analysis, and interpretation of laboratory and field studies, theoretical or methodological developments, and reviews of information or ideas. Authors are encouraged to consider the relevance of their conclusions to general concepts and theories and to taxa in addition to birds.

Along with research articles, The Auk also includes Perspectives that are invited by the Editor, Commentaries, Letters to The Auk and reviews of recently released books that are of significance to ornithologists selected by the Book Review Editor.
Members of the American Ornithologists' Union will continue to receive The Auk as a benefit of membership. Please contact the AOU for details on how to become a member and begin receiving The Auk."