tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9048319673034141826Fri, 01 Nov 2024 07:59:17 +0000ZoologyDatabaseImagingFunImmunologyMicrobiologyBiologyGenomics/ProteomicsBiochemistryBotanyMolecular biologyvideoAnimationBiostatisticsDrug DesignEvolutionGeneralMedicine/DiseasesNaturePlant BiologyProjectencyclopediaphilosophicCollection of Useful and Best web sites in Life Sciencehttp://biologysites.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.com (Unknown)Blogger69125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9048319673034141826.post-1302511579328791511Mon, 22 Nov 2010 15:06:00 +00002010-11-24T15:53:00.777-08:00For far too long, the chloroplast has been keeping the spotlight squarely on himself. Everybody knows what a chloroplast is, but many fail to realize that the chloroplast is just one type of the organelles known as plastids. Plprot, the plastid protein database, features three types of plastids in addition to the chloroplast: the proplastid (the precursor to all other plastids), the http://biologysites.blogspot.com/2010/11/plprot.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Unknown)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9048319673034141826.post-8980801662122573876Mon, 22 Nov 2010 15:06:00 +00002010-11-24T15:53:00.782-08:00Here’s a website that took a page from Hollywood when it comes to advertising its movies. Rather than touting “Academy Award winner So-and-So,” it boasts the “Nobel Prize-winning worm C. elegans.” The entire site is, in fact, dedicated to this small scientific celebrity, showcasing the little critter in a number of time-lapse videos. These videos have been made by members of the worldwide http://biologysites.blogspot.com/2010/11/celegans-movies.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Unknown)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9048319673034141826.post-7706607387998310301Mon, 22 Nov 2010 15:01:00 +00002010-11-22T07:02:23.496-08:00For as much as cancer has (sadly) become part of our existence, there are many people who do not understand just what it is. Enter Inside Cancer, a wonderful website for anybody who wants to learn about the basics of cancer, as well as a fantastic website for educators. Inside Cancer is a nicely designed multimedia website that is divided into four sections: hallmarks of cancer, causes and http://biologysites.blogspot.com/2010/11/inside-cancer.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Unknown)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9048319673034141826.post-7250314534953688838Mon, 22 Nov 2010 15:00:00 +00002010-11-22T07:01:15.158-08:00Do you find yourself on the PROWL for online protein analysis tools? (Hey, I have to take the easy puns where I can get them…) If so, then you need to scurry over to the website of the Chait laboratory at The Rockefeller University. This laboratory, dedicated to the development of “proteomic tools for dissecting cellular function, with a special emphasis on the mass spectrometry (MS) of http://biologysites.blogspot.com/2010/11/prowl.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Unknown)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9048319673034141826.post-2731720357919979186Mon, 22 Nov 2010 14:59:00 +00002010-11-22T07:00:01.432-08:00It is unlikely that an ambiguous title like “ArgusLab” drives too much traffic to this website, which s a shame. ArgusLab is, in fact, the name of a molecular modeling program authored by Mark Thompson (as opposed to the name of a laboratory, as would be the obvious suspect). It is free to download, although it is unfortunately only PC-compatible. Do not be deterred by the blank screen thathttp://biologysites.blogspot.com/2010/11/arguslab.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Unknown)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9048319673034141826.post-4466201527269007079Mon, 22 Nov 2010 14:58:00 +00002010-11-22T06:58:41.512-08:00It falls between the trial-by-fire period of graduate school and the (hopefully reachable) light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel dream job. Yes, that’s right—it’s the postdoctoral position. Fearing the dreaded possibility of being stuck in postdoc limbo, researchers at this stage of their career often don’t have access to (or don’t know where to go to find) resources related to career development.http://biologysites.blogspot.com/2010/11/national-postdoctoral-association.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Unknown)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9048319673034141826.post-3984818099565019854Fri, 13 Aug 2010 10:05:00 +00002010-08-13T03:05:30.973-07:00How exactly does one plant science, I wonder? I’ll have to think on that one… What I can speak to is plantingscience.org, a wonderful website on which students, teachers, and researchers can put down their roots. The idea behind this burgeoning online community is simple: connect research mentors, educators, and students so that young minds can grow into mature scientists. The website http://biologysites.blogspot.com/2010/08/plantingscienceorg.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Unknown)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9048319673034141826.post-8939070617308765360Fri, 13 Aug 2010 10:04:00 +00002010-08-13T03:04:44.562-07:00I can always appreciate a website with a clever logo—such as the Genetic Alliance’s DNA strand in which people substitute for the base pairs. And when the rest of the site delivers, well, that just makes my day. Genetic Alliance is a nonprofit health advocacy group that provides resources about health in general, but with a specific emphasis on genetic disorders. The disease info search http://biologysites.blogspot.com/2010/08/genetic-alliance.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Unknown)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9048319673034141826.post-8664680402469271260Fri, 13 Aug 2010 10:02:00 +00002010-08-13T03:03:11.840-07:00The warm summer weather invites us to go outdoors where one can spend hours admiring blooming flowers and trees in the park. But, if allergies keep you homebound, you can spend your time perusing the pollen-free plants of the New York Botanical Garden’s C.V. Starr Virtual Herbarium. Geared toward researchers, as opposed to people who simply enjoy looking at photos of pretty plants, the http://biologysites.blogspot.com/2010/08/cvstarr-virtual-herbarium.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Unknown)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9048319673034141826.post-4476000523735013417Fri, 13 Aug 2010 10:01:00 +00002010-08-13T03:02:01.152-07:00Kudos to the people behind AntWeb for setting their sights high: “Over time, this site will grow to describe every species of ant known.” Yes, AntWeb may be quite a way off from total ant characterization, but the current collection is more than enough to ensnare me. Working with a current inventory of 206,261 specimens, AntWeb provides wonderful, up-close images of ant species from around http://biologysites.blogspot.com/2010/08/antweb.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Unknown)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9048319673034141826.post-2740431442190155828Fri, 13 Aug 2010 10:00:00 +00002010-08-13T03:01:06.368-07:00Remember when life was simple—when a mouse was just a mouse? There were none of these knock-out or conditional knock-out complications. Well, we’ve learned a lot from each modified musculus strain individually, but sometimes it’s nice to take a step back and observe on a broader scale. That’s exactly what the Europhenome Mouse Phenotyping Resource provides: a wide scope of phenotypes acrosshttp://biologysites.blogspot.com/2010/08/europhenome-mouse-phenotyping-resource.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Unknown)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9048319673034141826.post-6583422738460678072Fri, 13 Aug 2010 09:59:00 +00002010-08-13T03:00:20.784-07:00Scientists have a knack for creating self-explanatory names for things, and the defensins are no exception. It doesn’t take an immunologist to guess that this family of peptides does something to protect us, and indeed they do. Defensins are antimicrobial peptides that are found in a wide variety of organ-isms (including us), and now, thanks to the collaborative efforts of the http://biologysites.blogspot.com/2010/08/defensins-knowledgebase.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Unknown)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9048319673034141826.post-7264930360657670372Wed, 12 May 2010 14:32:00 +00002010-07-02T07:39:03.938-07:00It was a happy accident that I came across SlideWorld, a wonderful website with a less-than-descriptive name. (For all I knew, it could have been the website for a water park!) SlideWorld is a search engine for medical PowerPoint presentations. Boasting 7,650,583 presentations, SlideWorld allows one to enter the site as either an “empowered patient” or a “medical professional,” and http://biologysites.blogspot.com/2010/05/slideworld.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Unknown)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9048319673034141826.post-7303802478690563028Wed, 12 May 2010 14:31:00 +00002010-07-02T07:39:03.941-07:00Who knew that the trees were at war? (At least, that’s the first image that came to mind when I read that the Gymnosperm Database is “the web’s premier source of information on conifers and their ‘allies.’” It was an entertaining thought…) In all seriousness, though, the Gymnosperm Database is a wonderful botany website, and it is strongly infused with the candor of its creator, Christopherhttp://biologysites.blogspot.com/2010/05/gymnosperm-database.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Unknown)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9048319673034141826.post-817356471387609958Wed, 12 May 2010 14:31:00 +00002010-07-02T07:39:03.944-07:00Aren’t mosquito bites just the worst? No, I correct myself—contracting malaria from mosquito bites is the worst! Well, hey—don’t blame the mosquito. We should be focused on the parasite, Mr. Plasmodium falciparum. Many scientists are, in fact, entirely focused on Plasmodium falciparum, and the WHO/TDR Malaria Database is a wonderful online resource for malaria researchers. The site includeshttp://biologysites.blogspot.com/2010/05/whotdr-malaria-database.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Unknown)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9048319673034141826.post-4221025947576474230Wed, 12 May 2010 14:30:00 +00002010-05-17T15:24:06.691-07:00For all of the acronyms, made-up names, and nomenclature I have encountered in science, I can’t remember the last time I came across a name so visually succinct as BioTapestry. The many (many, MANY) genetic interactions within organisms are very much akin to threads that are elegantly woven to form intricate tapestries. And thus, there seems to be no name more befitting an interactive tool http://biologysites.blogspot.com/2010/05/bio-tapestry.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Unknown)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9048319673034141826.post-7581678181920811393Wed, 12 May 2010 14:30:00 +00002010-05-17T15:24:06.698-07:00Far from having a stern librarian to “shush!” you and your friends, the Macaulay Library is, in fact, the noisiest library around! Housed at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the Macaulay Library’s online archive is the world’s largest archive of animal sounds and video. Rather than simply being limited to bird sounds (as one might expect from an ornithology laboratory), the Macaulay Library http://biologysites.blogspot.com/2010/05/macaulay-library.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Unknown)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9048319673034141826.post-8514682216324753057Wed, 12 May 2010 14:29:00 +00002010-05-17T15:24:06.707-07:00If you want to explore the complex landscape of gene interactions, Cytoscape makes for an excellent compass. Developed by a consortium funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) of the NIH and the NSF, Cytoscape is an open-source software platform to visualize and analyze complex networks such as biological pathways and molecular interactions. A unique feature of http://biologysites.blogspot.com/2010/05/cytoscape.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Unknown)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9048319673034141826.post-3845713046376155540Sun, 11 Apr 2010 06:50:00 +00002010-05-12T04:42:32.182-07:00ImagingIsn’t it frustrating to be putting together a document or presentation, only to realize that it could really use some good images and alas, you can’t find any? Thankfully, there’s ImageBank, hosted by The Higher Education Academy at the UK Centre for Bioscience. This collection of images offers the perfect remedy to that graphically challenged scientific talk or bland lecture. One can browsehttp://biologysites.blogspot.com/2010/04/imagebank.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Unknown)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9048319673034141826.post-443802054914087061Sun, 11 Apr 2010 06:49:00 +00002010-05-12T04:42:32.187-07:00AnimationvideoI am a firm believer that one can never watch too many scientific animations, and for that reason I find the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s BioInteractive website to be an online gold mine. The information is generally divided into 13 topics (neuroscience, infectious diseases, stem cells, evolution, obesity, cancer, genomics and chemical genetics, sex determination, biological clocks, http://biologysites.blogspot.com/2010/04/hhmis-biointeractive.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Unknown)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9048319673034141826.post-4938832082344975950Sun, 11 Apr 2010 06:46:00 +00002010-04-10T23:48:12.348-07:00FunvideoHow to describe this site? Well I think the opening page says it all: “Think of us as one of your labmates—except, we don’t fall asleep in group meetings…” (Yes, we’ve all been there.) Benchfly is a multifaceted resource for scientists, although the primary component of the site consists of video tutorials. Whether you want to know how to pack a capillary column, clean a rotovap, or smear http://biologysites.blogspot.com/2010/04/benchfly.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Unknown)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9048319673034141826.post-2021972061947519520Sun, 11 Apr 2010 06:44:00 +00002010-04-20T14:29:59.291-07:00BotanyI know what you’re thinking—cycad? What in the world is a cycad? Well, although you may not know the name of this group of plants, you’ve probably seen them before. Often mistaken for palms or ferns, these plants have short trunks and are crowned with a cluster of leaves that look like, well, palm or fern leaves. More than half of the cycad species also happen to be threatened or endangered.http://biologysites.blogspot.com/2010/04/cycad-society.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Unknown)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9048319673034141826.post-1646291426826303869Sun, 11 Apr 2010 06:40:00 +00002010-04-20T14:29:59.352-07:00ImmunologyThis website holds a certain “innate” appeal for immunology researchers as it is an excellent database for gene interactions and pathways related to innate immunity. A collaboration between groups at Simon Fraser University, the University of British Columbia, and the Teagasc Animal Bioscience Centre in Ireland, Innate DB provides users with many ways to explore the information contained http://biologysites.blogspot.com/2010/04/innate-db.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Unknown)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9048319673034141826.post-5691828649343583243Sun, 11 Apr 2010 06:39:00 +00002010-04-10T23:40:09.634-07:00ProjectThe rise of biotechnology has clearly changed the research landscape. Accordingly, science education must be willing to adapt to the constantly evolving technologies and techniques. The BioTech Project at the University of Arizona provides resources for teachers to introduce concepts of biotechnology in the laboratory to students of various ages. The “Laboratory Activities” tab provides http://biologysites.blogspot.com/2010/04/biotech-project.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Unknown)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9048319673034141826.post-4485460780947777820Thu, 01 Apr 2010 11:09:00 +00002010-04-01T04:10:24.110-07:00BiochemistryBefore you explore this one, read the author’s preface entitled “Why Chemical Logic?” In it, he provides a rational explanation for his arrangement of topics in teaching biochemistry and explains why they differ from more modern presentations. The approach is interesting and radical, starting with lipid structure and then moving to protein structure, carbohydrate structure, DNA/genomics/http://biologysites.blogspot.com/2010/04/biochemistry-online.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Unknown)