Bone and Joint Knowledge Hub

The British Editorial Society of Bone and Joint Surgery has launched a major initiative for the orthopaedic community – Bone & Joint. This new online knowledge hub, developed in partnership with HighWire Press, will offer orthopaedic surgeons and researchers access to a range of specialist tools, services and content, designed to support their education and career progression.

The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery has established a world-class reputation through its work with some of the greatest names in the field. By creating the new Bone & Joint portal, the journal is building on its 60-year legacy to provide the orthopaedic community with a host of new tools and services designed to reflect the evolving needs of its authors and readers, and to help them excel in their research and clinical practice.
The portal will make it easier to find relevant research, news and educational resources.
The portal also gives open access to the Journal Bone & Joint Research (JBJR). This facility could be beneficial to aspects of sport science.

Evidence-based study tips

With exams coming up, there is some evidence that going for a brisk walk before studying can improve your recollection, and that chewing gum might increase alertness.  There are more evidence-based study tips in this post from the British Psychological Society.  What other study tips would you share?

Track Santa with NORAD

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) will be using their radar technology to track Santa’s route tomorrow evening.  You can follow along online or by downloading the NORAD Tracks Santa app.

Unfortunately NORAD’s technology doesn’t enable them to predict the arrival time of Santa at individual houses:

“NORAD tracks Santa, but only Santa knows his route, which means we cannot predict where and when he will arrive at your house. We do, however, know from history that it appears he arrives only when children are asleep! “  [http://www.noradsanta.org/en/faq.html#f3]

History of NORAD’s Santa tracking.

More information about NORAD.

Online periodic table

The Royal Society of Chemistry have launched a free online periodic table where you can easily locate:

• atomic number and mass
• key isotopes
• electron configuration
• density
• first ionisation energy

On the RSC table you can also click on each element to get more detailed information about bonding, isotopes, usage, etc., along with a link to a podcast about the element.  Other features include a slide bar to show the state of each element at specific temperatures, and information about which elements were known about in given year.

Christmas holiday closure

Please note that all UWS libraries will close from 12.30 on 22nd December and remain closed until 4th January.  Access to computer labs will be available at both Hamilton and Paisley campuses.  Full information is available from the library website.

Sir Isaac Newton’s papers go online

Cambridge University Library holds the largest and most important collection of the scientific works of Isaac Newton (1642-1727), and they are being made available online for the first time.

More than 4,000 pages, held by Cambridge University Library, have been scanned, including his annotated copy of Principia Mathematica, containing Newton’s laws of motion and gravity.
The site also contains links to an overview and history of the papers.

UK Life Sciences start-ups

Transition : UK Life Science Start-up Report 2011 has just been published.  This report looks at commercial laboratories involved in the life sciences “in order to gain some insight into what is happening with early stage companies in the sector. Where are they coming from? What fields are they in? What investment are they raising?”

This is the second annual report, and covers companies that were set up between 2006 and 2010.

Living Books About Life

Living Books About Life is a new series of open access online books covering science material from a humanities perspective.  Titles include:

• Ubiquitous Surveillance edited by David Parry (University of Texas at Dallas)
• Nerves of Perception : Motor and Sensory Experience in Neuroscience edited by Anna Munster (University of New South Wales)
• Bioethics™ : Life, Politics, Economics edited by Joanna Zylinska (Goldsmiths, University of London)

Living Books About Life is a collaboration between Open Humanities Press and Coventry University; Goldsmiths, University of London; and the University of Kent.  These books are funded by JISC.  They state “[a]ll the books in the series are themselves ‘living’, in the sense that they are open to ongoing collaborative processes of writing, editing, updating, remixing and commenting by readers”.  It is also possible to download a static version of each book.

Thinking about teaching physics?

The Institute of Physics website has lots of information about training to be a physics teacher.  You don’t need to have a physics degree (you can take a Subject Knowledge Enhancement course) and scholarships may be available.

Encyclopedia of Life

The Encyclopedia of Life aims to create a web page for every known species.  So far they have gathered information about 40% of the 1.9 million named species, creating pages which cover species description, distribution, molecular biology, conservation status, etc.   If they continue to add data at the current rate, they will have information on every known species of plant and animal by 2017.