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There are multiple themes for this month’s Around the Web selections. They include bacterial pathogens, cell signaling pathways and flora from down under.

Two bacterial pathogens that typically don’t get enough respect are Mycobacterium tuberculosis (causative agent of tuberculosis) and Helicobacter pylori (causative agent of peptic ulcers). To that end, there are two websites from the Pasteur Institute that provide lots of information about these two important pathogens—tuberculist web server and pylorigene webserver. Both sites can provide you with everything that you ever wanted to know about tuberculosis and peptic ulcers and then some!

The cell signaling theme can be found in the websites Alliance for Cellular Signaling and UCSD-Nature Signaling Gateway . According to Kevin, both sites have their style and content issues but still provide visitors with the signaling information that they may be seeking. 

The down under flora theme is found in the Australian Flora Resources  and the Tasmania Unique Flora websites. While I am not a big flora fan (not that there is anything wrong with that), both sites can be informative to visitors given the uniqueness and diversity of the flora that is typically found in Australia.

Two sites that are worth mentioning include the FDA Adverse Events Database, a must read for anybody involved in pharmacovigilance or adverse events reporting for marketed drugs and  What's New a “rather unusual database focused on prose, poetry, film, video, and art for teaching and research in the medical humanities.”   Medical humanities--go figure!

Until next time…

Good Luck and Good Web surfing!!!!!!!!!!!

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 This month’s selection of websites is an eclectic mix ranging from environmental science and chemistry to lipids and fats. Kevin reviewed two websites dedicated to lipids—Cyberlipid Center and AOCS: Your Home for Fats, Oils and Surfactants. Unfortunately, as is often the case with lipids —they never get their due in the biochemistry pecking order— neither site passed muster.

The National Environmental Methods Index provides visitors with a compendium of methods that can be used to monitor environmental parameters including water, air, sediment and even biological tissue samples. Another environmental site that was reviewed was the Silent Spring Institute website. This site covers the effects of pesticides on the environment and highlights the efforts of Rachel Carson, who in 1962 published Silent Spring, and was the first to alert the American public to the environmental consequences of the indiscriminate pesticide use. 

An interesting website for those of you involved in biomedical research is eTBlast Search which is touted as a “unique search engine for searching biomedical literature.” I will leave it up to you to determine whether or not it is unique and useful for biomedical literature searches.

Finally, my favorite selection this month is Chemical Education Research Group Simulations a website maintained by Dr. Thomas Greenbowe at Iowa State University that allows users to download interactive animations that showcase basic inorganic chemistry principles including stoichiometry, redox titrations, acid-base equilibria etc. Inorganic chemistry was never my strong suit and this website would have come in handy when took chemistry in high school and college. Ah, the wonders of modern technology!

Until next time….

Good Luck and Good Web Surfing!!!!!!!

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 Dental health and oral biology dominated Kevin’s selections this month. As he put it “I am not sure which month is National Dental Health month but the first three selections here will make it seem like it now.” His first selection was the Human Oral Microbiome Database (www.homd.org) website which is hosted by Forsyth Institute and offers visitors (as its name suggests) information about genomes of common oral biology microorganisms. The Oralgen Databases (www.oralgen.lanl.gov) website offers similar information to that of Microbiome’s but  places more emphasis on the genomes and biochemistry of oral bacterial pathogens. The third selection of the dental trilogy websites was BROP (www.brop.org) also hosted b y Forsyth, which is almost identical to Microbiome which prompted Kevin to suggest that BROP was probably a predecessor of Microbiome that was overlooked and not removed from the web.

Continuing with the genomics theme, Kevin reviewed the CMR Home Page (http://cmr.tigr.org) which is the latest rendition of the Institute of Genomic Research (TIGR) website. Shifting gears the National marrow donor program (www.nmdp.org) and the Moffitt Cancer Center’s angiogenesis and cancer control websites were also reviewed.

My favorite: was the Oralgen site mostly because I spent more than 30 years of my life studying bacterial pathogenesis.

Until next time…

Good Luck and Good Web Surfing!!!!!!

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Kevin’s selection of websites this month are almost exclusively devoted to RNA—not one of my favorite molecules (Kevin must have been thinking transcriptionally rather than translationally when he compiled the list). Because I’m not an RNA enthusiast (call me crazy) I will list t the sites in no order of preference: 1) Patrocles - The Database of Polymorphic miRNA-Target Interactions 2) RNA Editing Website and 3) The RNA Modification Database.

Kevin also reviewed a website on devoted to ichthyology and another that focuses on taxonomy. My favorite selection this month is theBrown Recluse Spider Bite Site a must read for all of you arachnid neophytes out there. Who knew that spider bites could be result in the loss of arms or legs?

Kudos to Kevin!

Until next time….

Good Luck and Good Websurfing (try Stumble Upon and post biojobblog as one of your favs)

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This month Kevin has reviewed an eclectic bunch of websites. Continuing with his “down under” theme from last month, Kevin offers the Australian National Herbarium and the Darwin Correspondience Project websites (okay so Darwin was English but he did visit Australia!). The Darwin site complements an interesting site called the Origin of Life Prize (check it out).  

Another Australian website called the Sea Snake Homepage covers everything you ever wanted to know about sea snakes (and then some) but as Kevin put it may not be for everyone. There is a technical site called Microscope-Microscope.org which has some terse but valuable information on well—microscopes.

My personal favorite is the Biomedia Associates Educational Biology site. Although it is a commercial site, it is an education website and offers some valuable resources for biology teachers and students.

Until next time…

Good Luck and Good Surfing!!!!!!!!

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Kevin’s selections this month contains a wide variety of sites ranging from an Australian museum guide, to wildlife parks in Tasmania and online information-sharing and management capabilities.  If leeches are your thing check out this site and if you are a dragonfly aficionado this site will do the trick. An interesting site called the Fallacy Files provides insight into fallacies or so-called mistakes in reasoning.

As a sometimes medical writer, the site that piqued my interest was www.connotea.org— an online reference and information sharing-service.  The site provides you with easy and ready access to references, data and other information stored in your account on the site.  Kevin really likes this site and says “Connotea scores big time with this valuable tool for scientists.”  Check it out….

Until next time….

Good Luck and Good Web Surfing

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This is the first installment of Kevin Ahern’s Best of the Web at BioJobBlog. This month’s selection contains several technical sites that many practicing bioscientists will find useful. These include: Real Time PCR Primer Sets and RTPrimerDB. The selection that I found most interesting was Blogging the Biotechnology Revolution—although Kevin didn’t like the navigation features of this blog.

If you know of any websites, blogs, etc that you think are useful or interesting, please let me know.

Until next time…

Good Luck and Good Web Hunting!!!!!!!

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The web is filled with wonderful and interesting sites that are useful to many scientists.  Unfortunately, most of us don't have the time to surf around the web to find them!  Luckily, Kevin Ahern has the time (or more likely has found the time) to do what most of us can't. To that end, I created a new category on BioJobBlog called Around the Web to post the results of Kevin's hard and much appreciated work.

Each month, I will provide a link to Kevin's "Best of the Web" report that he creates for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News and provide my own commentary on the sites that he showcased that I found most useful or interesting.

Until next time....

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!!!!!

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