Scott's Botanical Links--June 1997

Past links:

June 30, 1997 - Principles of Protein Structure

This award-winning site is an excellent example of a web course. Designed as a freshman course on the Internet, it is now mirrored by five sites in different countries. This originated with a course from Birkbeck College held through Brookhaven National Labs. This tutorial would be excellent for independent study or an upper division college class. Site by Department of Crystallography, Birkbeck College, UK. (****)

June 27, 1997 - Jason Project

This science education site is designed for a wide range of ages. The pages include many interesting areas, including the Expedition Journal, Student Explore-A-Zone, Teachers Guide, Global Network and Technology Center. Extremely attractively constructed, this is one of the better science education sites. Site by the Jason Foundation for Education. (****)

June 26, 1997 - Electronic Privacy Information Center

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) is a watchdog organization for Internet freedom that provides an excellent source of news on First Amendment infringement and the collection of data on Internet users. Anyone who depends on the Internet for information would benefit from visiting the site. Read about progress made toward electronic freedom and the defeat of the CDA (today). Also on site: how almost all of the 100 most-frequently visited Web sites monitor your activities. (****)

June 25, 1997 - Cytochemistry Web Page

Gwen Child's information on cytochemistry and affinity probes provides an excellent resource on how these probes are used in research. Well-constructed pages, these explain the mechanisms used to label the proteins and carbohydrate-based chemicals that contribute to life processes in plants and animals. Site by G.V. Childs, Ph.D., University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX. (***1/2)

June 24, 1997 - Search Engine Watch

Search Engine Watch explains how Web search engines work and the characteristics of the most famous ones. The site is a great gateway to the technology and wealth of information about Internet indexing. Knowing more about search engines will help you to find a resource easier or to target webpages for specific audiences. By Danny Sullivan, Calafia Consulting. (***1/2)

June 23, 1997 - SciCentral

This is a metadirectory site for science web guides (of which I am proud to say my "botanical links" site is among the newest members). This site covers the widest spectrum of science disciplines and picks only the best within each category. Also, look to this site for current science news! Site by SciLink, Inc. (****)

June 20, 1997 - Color Landform Atlas of the United States

Biogeography is an inescapable topic in plant speciation. This site provides excellent quality images of geographical features, state-by-state, that may be useful in understanding the concepts of island biogeography, relictual populations, and geographic barriers. Also, contains satellite images, county maps and useful links! Site by Ray Sterner. (****)

June 19, 1997 - GVU's 7th WWW User Survey

Periodically the Graphic, Visualization, & Usability Center of Georgia Tech prepares a survey of WWW use. This, the seventh survey covers General Demographics, Web and Internet Usage, Electronic Privacy, Spamming, etc., Politics, Security of Transactions, Information Gathering Behavior, Purchasing Behavior, Opinions of Vendors, Internet Banking, Webmastering, HTML Authoring, Java, etc., and Web/Internet Service Providers. This provides a lot of information about the growth of the Web (as of the May survey 1,000,000 servers strong!) and attitudes about privacy, electronic freedom, access fees, and issues that will affect the future of the medium. Site by GVU at Georgia Tech. Next survey in October. (****)

June 18, 1997 - HMS Beagle

HMS Beagle is a webzine for biological and medical researchers, with a daily digest of the highest-quality Web resources, headlines of biomedical interest, and published material. Using their search engine, it is possible to examine their site and external biomedical databases for recent developments. Most of the journal article links allow prints to be made directly, if you have the appropriate clearance and Adobe Acrobat reader. (Abstracts are usually free.) Note: this site is free but requires registration for full access. HMS Beagle is a publication of BioMedNet. (****)

June 17, 1997 - WWW-VL: Electronic Journals

The nature of library research is changing dramatically with the introduction of electronic versions of many of the refereed scientific journals. This site gives the location of these sites. An emerging crisis is how the e-journals will be delivered and who will pay the price. At present, most sites are just being introduced and are free. Temporarily, the information may be available to all who connect to the Internet, but as fee structures emerge, the demand to pay for an electronic version and a dwindling printed subscription base may actually expand the gap between the information "haves" and "have-nots." This by Edoc.Com provides the location for most journals. (****)

June 16, 1997 - Botanical Society of America

The Botanical Society of America is the largest general plant biology organization in the U.S. This site provides the usual information about the organization, with pages concerning the upcoming annual meeting, careers, botany in the next millennium and some links. This site, by me, is courtesy of International Thomson Publishing. I like it a lot, but I don't rate my own sites :-) I'm proud to announce that this will be a featured HMS Beagle site soon!

June 13, 1997 - The Nature Conservancy

The Nature Conservancy is a conservation organization that uses economic leverage to save endangered species through political action and acquiring land to prevent its development. This site includes much information about conservation, also how to join and what to do to help. This is also home to an online version of the current Species Report Card: the State of U.S. Plants and Animals, sponsored by the Nature Conservancy. Site by the Nature Conservancy. (***1/2)

June 12, 1997 - Cell Biology Topics

Part of a team-taught upper division cell biology course (CELL 6502), these are some excellent pages on specific topics of cell biology, which are provided along with self-quizzes. A bit of an eclectic collection, this corresponds with the teaching program of Dr. Gwen Childs.

Site by Dr. Gwen Childs, Webmistress, Graduate Program in Cell Biology, The University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston. (****)

June 11, 1997 - Hyperspace Tour

The hyperspace tour is a metric site about scales of measurement. The tour starts at the whole earth scale (100,000 km) and travels down to the atomic scale (1 Ångstrom) by powers of ten. The site also features a page on the metric system itself, a nice overview of microscopy featuring light and various types of electron microscopy. There is even a self-quiz with illustrated worksheets on estimating size, comparing objects of different size, and scales of metric measurement. Site by Thomas M. Terry, University of Connecticut - part of the Virtual Classroom. (***1/2) [lost sites removed 3/23/98]

June 10, 1997 - Saving the American Chestnut

This site is dedicated to a tree, the American Chestnut, that has become essentially extinct in its home range because of Chestnut Blight (Cryphonectria parasitica). Between 1904 and the 1950s, over a billion trees in the Eastern forest succumbed to the disease, destroying what used to be a dominant forest species; dead trees and marginally-surviving shrubs (the disease does not kill the roots) still stand in the region. This site gives a history, nice photos, information about methods being developed to save & restore the tree, a yearly chronology of research efforts with a request for volunteers to aid with the time-consuming crosses & grafting, a research bibliography, and links to other chestnut sites. Site by Darren Corrigan, Beltsville, MD. (***)

June 9, 1997 - Ohio State University Extension VegNet

VegNet is a crop production site that is centered mainly on the Ohio River Valley, but has lots of information on vegetable crops that is generally useful as well. The site includes a weekly newsletter, weather forecasts, topical information about diseases of tomatoes, potatoes, pumpkins, peppers, carrots and other crops, and lots of tips. The site is one of the first and best of a new age of virtual county agents. Site sponsored and maintained by The Ohio State University Extension. (***1/2)

June 6, 1997 - International Organization for Plant Information (IOPI)

IOPI manages a series of cooperative international projects that aim to create databases for plant taxonomic information. This organization is the host of the GlobalPlant Checklist Project (currently in prototype form), which will eventually include about 300,000 vascular plant species and over a million names! The Database of Plant Databases (DPD) provides a gateway to over 100 local, national and international plant databases on the Internet. Also on the site are pages on the organization, members, mission and links. IOPI is a Commission of the International Union of Biological Sciences (IUBS). Site by K.L. Wilson, hosted by Charles Sturt University, Australia. (***)

June 5, 1997 - Cyanosite

This site is to disseminate information in the research community about cyanobacteria, formerly known as bluegreen algae. Onsite are archives of experimental protocols, a directory of researchers, a 4,000 reference bibliography, a circular to an international meeting on photosynthetic prokaryotes, databases to known parts of the DNA sequence for Anabaena, CyanoNews, links to other cyanobacterial sites on the WWW, and plans for a multi-media phylogenetic tree, educational resources for college and secondary school teachers, and general information about cyanobacteria. A growing site by Dr. Mark A. Schneegurt, University of Notre Dame. (***)

June 4, 1997 - Metasearch Sites: Dogpile, Metafind, Metacrawler

Chances are that you are familiar with the premiere robot-driven search engines (e.g., AltaVista, HotBot, WebCrawler) and webguides (e.g., Yahoo, Lycos, Infoseek). These three metasearch sites combine results from all of the premiere search engines above (and more) in parallel. The combined results are displayed variously. At Metacrawler and Metafind's site, the results are combined into one mixed list but at Dogpile, finds are listed by search engine and there is flexibility to pursue searches at each search engine further. Parameters for searches using each of these metasearches differ, as do the results of searches, to some extent. Regardless of minor differences in interfaces, these parallel engines are an excellent method to search the Web and should be in almost everyone's bookmarks. (****)

June 3, 1997 - National Gardening Association

Most students taking beginning botany classes expect to learn practical information about growing plants. Although they may find little practical information about plants in a traditional botany class, that is not the case for this site. Over 3000 questions on gardening are answered in their archives, with additional links to their library, features page, kid's site, gardening links, buyer's guide, indoor gardening catalog, industry research, recipes, and membership information. Site by National Gardening Association. (***1/2)

June 2, 1997 - Virtual Galápagos - [no connect 6/3/98]

Virtual Galápagos features information about the islands, their biogeography, wildlife, history and expeditions to the islands. Although plants are not a major topic, look under wildlife and you will find an interesting and well-illustrated illustrated page on some endemic species. Also, there are QTVR virtual reality images ... not for those with slow connections! (a QTVR reader is available at Apple's QuickTime site for free, which will connect itself to your browser as a self-launching application; images are 500K to 800K.) Site by Terraquest, a producer of travel content on the Web. (***1/2)

Special Announcement

It is with some regret that I announce that I am going on Sabbatical this next year from July 1, 1997 through June 30, 1998. I have enjoyed constructing this site during the last year and a quarter, but now it is one of the time-consuming responsibilities that I must give up for awhile. If you are interested in reviewing, coding and adding new links in my absence, I would be delighted to hear from you. (Fame and fortune will undoubtedly be yours!) While I am gone, the site will remain online, links will be checked monthly to see that they are working, but I will not add any. If you want to help, contact me (srussell@ou.edu). Thanks! -S

Past, past links (by date):

2006: January

2005: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

2003: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

2002: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

2001: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

2000: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

1999: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

1998: January*, February*, March*, April*, May*, June*, July, August, September, October, November, December (*Leigh's links)

1997: January, February, March, April, May, June, September*, October*, November*, December* (*Leigh's links)

1996: February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

Or search by: Subject Index

http://www.ou.edu/cas/botany-micro/bot-linx/jun97.shtml