Biology Library News

Breaking News: Discussions about impact of sequestration on US Science

Here a few links to check:

• NSF Announces Sequestration Plans (Science Careers)
• There Should Be Grandeur: Basic Science in the Shadow of the Sequester (Scientific American blog)
• Tweets tagged #sciquester

Managing your data; finding data

Online Data Management Planning Tool (DMPTool) Now Available! Washington University now has institutional access to a flexible online tool to help researchers generate data management plans. Developed by the California Digital Library and a group of major research institutions, the DMPTool is designed to help researchers:
* Create ready-to-use data management plans for specific funding agencies
* Meet requirements for data management plans
* Get step-by-step instructions and guidance for a data management plan
To access the DMPTool, visit: https://dmp.cdlib.org/institutional_login and select "Washington University in St. Louis" from the drop down menu. After signing in with your WUSTL Key, this tool will step you through the process of writing a data management plan. WUSTL's University Libraries and Office of Sponsored Research Services have partnered to provide support for data management. For more information about grant requirements, contact: Laura Langton, PhD, Research Development Manager, Office of Sponsored Research Services, langton@wustl.edu. For more information about data management and storage, contact: Cynthia Hudson, MALIS, Digital Data Outreach Librarian, WUSTL Libraries, chudson@wustl.edu. Library guide: Managing your Data

Another nice guide from the Libraries at University of Colorado Boulder: Writing a Data Management Plan

Comment in Nature about an NSF policy change; "...a scientist's worth is not dependent solely on publications. Data sets, software and other non-traditional research products will count too." Piwowar H. (2013). Altmetrics: Value all research products, Nature, 493 (7431) 159-159. DOI: 10.1038/493159aValue of all research products. [In order to include such products, they need to be citeable. The Libraries are working with others at the university to be able to provide DOI's [digital object identifiers] as needed by groups at the university. This NSF change contribute some urgency to that initiative.] I found this blog post about the Process behind a Nature Comment interesting also.

Data Portal(BETA), The Open Data Hub of the European Union, contains 5829 datasets (geographical data, statistics, meteorological data, data from publicly funded research projects, digitised books from libraries and more) that you can browse, search, learn about and download (along with applications when needed). I sometimes see students looking for datasets which they can download and analyze. This may be a fruitful source for that.

Improving Data Access at PLOS | Easier access to PLOS data

If you didn't see this article in Nature, check it out! Towards practical, high-capacity, low-maintenance information storage in synthesized DNA Nature (2013) doi:10.1038/nature11875. Thanks for WU Chemistry/Engineering Librarian Rob McFarland for tipping me off about this.

Nucleic Acids Research Database issue

The Advance Access for the annual NAR database issue is available now: http://nar.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/by/section#content-block. Expect official publication with the January [2012] issue.

NCBI Discovery Workshops at WU Medical Campus, July 26-27

NCBI will be on campus for Discovery Workshops at WU Medical Campus (Holden Auditorium), July 26-27. Hands-on sessions about using NCBI resources will be offered in addition to individual consultation sessions. Attendees will need to bring their own laptop to use during the sessions. Pre-registration required. | More information.

Videos in March, 2011, Fungal Biology Reviews

The dynamic fungal cell [Steinberg G, Schuster M. Fungal Biology Reviews 25(1):14-37.] includes 76 videos which might be interesting to many folks in cell biology. "Here we provide an extensive visual impression of the organisation and motility of cellular structures in hyphae and yeast-like cells of the corn pathogen Ustilago maydis. We show 3D animation of major cytoskeletal elements and organelles in yeast-like and hyphal cells and provide insight into their dynamic behaviour. Using laser-based epi-fluorescence, we also include some more specialised processes, such as the dynamics of microtubules in mitosis, F-actin patches turn-over during endocytic uptake, nuclear import in interphase and in late mitosis and diffusion within the endoplasmic reticulum and the plasma membrane. This collection of 76 previously unpublished movie clips should provide a useful source for teaching fungal cell biology, but also intends to inspire researchers in different areas of fungal science."

More journals implement data archiving policy

I blogged about the mandatory data archiving policy for Evolution last month, but failed to mention (because I wasn't aware of it) that the Joint Data Archiving Policy is also going into effect for authors in several other journals in January, 2011:
  * The American Naturalist (American Society of Naturalists)
  * The Biological Journal of the Linnean Society (Linnean Society of London)
  * Evolution (Society for the Study of Evolution)
  * Evolutionary Applications
  * Heredity (The Genetics Society)
  * Journal of Evolutionary Biology (European Society for Evolutionary Biology)
  * Molecular Biology and Evolution (Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution)
  * Molecular Ecology
  * Molecular Ecology Resources
  * Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution
  * Paleobiology (The Paleontological Society)
  * Systematic Biology (Society for Systematic Biology)
A few other journals have expressed interest in developing such a policy, see http://www.datadryad.org/partners. More info from the Dryad blog: Journals implement data archiving policy.
  Update Jan. 26: If you are interested in this, check out this recent opinion piece in February 2011 TREE - Michael C. Whitlock (2011) Data archiving in ecology and evolution: best practices, Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 26 (2): 61-65. doi:10.1016/j.tree.2010.11.006.

Jan. 20th talk at Becker Library: Small Computers in Biomedical Research

Jerome R. Cox, Jr., senior professor of computer science, will speak on “Small Computers in Biomedical Research: The Developers and their Machines, Ancestors and Progeny” at 4:30 pm, Jan. 20 at the King Center, 7th floor, Becker Medical Library. More information.

Tidbits from around the web

• Top 10 innovations of 2010: Innovative products that have the life science community buzzing (from The Scientist)
  
• Sources for Free Kindle books: a guide
  
• Top Ten Science Stories of 2010 (by editors of Scientific American) | Readers' Choice: Top 10 Scientific American [web] stories of 2010
  
• The Advent of Mandatory Data Archiving, for articles published in Evolution, Jan. 2011+

Bioinformatics Workshops at Becker Medical Library, noon, Mondays

Bioinformatics Workshops, Mondays, Feb. 1-April 19, noon- 1pm, Becker Library room 601B. No preregistration required; seats will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. More info.

Nucleic Acids Research Database Issue 2010

Now freely available: Nucleic Acids Research 2010 Database Issue and Database Collection includes descriptions of 58 new and 73 updated data resources. The accompanying online Database Collection lists 1230 carefully selected databases covering various aspects of molecular and cell biology.