The review paper [Croxall, J. P., Butchart S. H. M., Lascelles, B., Stattersfield A. J., Sullivan B., Symes, A. and Taylor, P. (2012) Seabird conservation status, threats and priority actions: a global assessment. Bird Conserv. Int. 22: 1–34.] is the lead article in a special seabird edition of Bird Conservation International.

This paper discusses the threat to 346 species of seabirds and their status is deteriorating.  Pollution and overfishing are just a couple of contributing factors examined in this article.  To access the article:

http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FBCI%2FBCI22_01%2FS0959270912000020a.pdf&code=218fcec52d83ba525e74d9e8bd98cb77

WHEN a college textbook, “Principles of Biology,” comes out from the Nature Publishing Group in January, one place it won’t be is on the shelves of school bookstores.

An interactive graphic in “Principles of Biology,” an electronic textbook from Nature Publishing, teaches students about the symptoms of a stroke.

An interactive graphic from Wolfram Research lets readers change the display parameters of an oil spill.

That’s because the book was designed to be digital-only. Students will pay not for a printed edition at a bookstore, but for permanent access on the Internet ($49).

Check out more interactive digital textbooks…http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/18/business/online-textbooks-aim-to-make-science-leap-from-the-page.html?scp=1&sq=nature%20textbook&st=Search

From the US Environmental Protection Agency, ToxCastDB provides public access to data gathered by the ToxCast project that screens chemicals for potential human toxicity using more than 500 high-throughput screening bioassays from nine bioassay vendors. ToxCast is part of the EPA’s National Center for Computational Toxicology. As the Basic Info link states, ToxCast links “biological, metabolic and cellular pathway data to gene and in vitro assay data for the chemicals screened.”

Check it out: http://actor.epa.gov/actor/faces/ToxCastDB/Home.jsp

Responding to an alarming trend of the loss of trees in Pennsylvania’s metropolitan areas, TreeVitalize is a public-private partnership to help restore tree cover, educate citizens about planting trees as an act of caring for our environment, and build capacity among local governments to understand, protect and restore their urban trees.

Launched in 2004 in southeastern Pennsylvania, TreeVitalize already has achieved its goal of planting 20,000 trees in that five-county region.  In spring 2008, TreeVitalize expanded to the Pittsburgh region; by the end of 2009, it was launched in metropolitan areas statewide.

What is the tree coverage in your area?  Check out some maps: http://www.treevitalize.net/Maps.aspx

The American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) has created The Cell.   This library is a public and easily accessible resource database of images, videos, and animations of cells, capturing a wide diversity of organisms, cell types, and cellular processes. The purpose of this database is to advance research on cellular activity, with the ultimate goal of improving human health.  This Image Library is a repository for images and movies of cells from a variety of organisms. It demonstrates cellular architecture and functions with high quality images, videos, and animations.

This site would be particularly useful for students as they learn about the structure and formation of cells.

Check it out:  http://cellimagelibrary.org/

Cambridge Scientific Abstracts recently announced that they have supplemented the database, Biological Sciences, with deep indexing.  What does this mean?  “Deep indexing” categorizes data, variables and other content represented in tables, maps, photographs and other figures. It allows you to search and retrieve information from these resources typically embedded within the article and not usually retrievable until now.   Article results are enhanced with thumbnails showing the tables and figures contained with that article without having to actually open up the article.  Makes for discovery and recovering information more efficiently.

Check out Biological Sciences and our other biology databases at:  http://www.library.drexel.edu/databases/biological-sciences

I know it has been awhile.  Had some problems with the migration from one system to another.  But I am back now with a recent discovery.

I was recently directed to the journal Biogeosciences.

Biogeosciences (BG) is an international scientific journal dedicated to the publication and discussion of research articles, short communications and review papers on all aspects of the interactions between the biological, chemical and physical processes in terrestrial or extraterrestrial life with the geosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere. The objective of the journal is to cut across the boundaries of established sciences and achieve an interdisciplinary view of these interactions. Experimental, conceptual and modelling approaches are welcome.

Biogeosciences has an innovative two-stage publication process which involves a scientific discussion forum and exploits the full potential of the Internet to:

• foster scientific discussion;
• enhance the effectiveness and transparency of scientific quality assurance;
• enable rapid publication;
• make scientific publications freely accessible.

In the first stage, papers that pass a rapid access-review by one of the editors are immediately published on the Biogeosciences Discussions (BGD) website. They are then subject to Interactive Public Discussion, during which the referees’ comments (anonymous or attributed), additional short comments by other members of the scientific community (attributed) and the authors’ replies are also published in BGD. In the second stage, the peer-review process is completed and, if accepted, the final revised papers are published in BG. To ensure publication precedence for authors, and to provide a lasting record of scientific discussion, BGD and BG are both ISSN-registered, permanently archived and fully citable.

Thanks, Dr Alan Bandy for letting us know about this open access journal and its inventive approach to scholarly communication!

I was just alerted to a new open access journal, AoB Plants.  AoB PLANTS is an online, internationally peer reviewed open-access journal publishing high quality papers on all aspects of plant biology.  It is now part of our online journal collection.

Please take a look at:  http://aobpla.oxfordjournals.org/