Science Websites

[Coffee]

Virtual Biology lab located here. http://bio.rutgers.edu/~gb101/virtuallabs_101.html

[The Pigeons' Rule]

Einstein's Archives:

http://www.alberteinstein.info/

A lot of scanned manuscripts by the man.

[RMgX]

I am going to list some of the databases I believe people should know about and probably have access to if they are at a university. + some other stuff.

Chemistry. Free stuff.

http://www.webelements.com/ Element information CAS-Registry numbers, NMR properties etc. I used it mainly for the NMR properties (left hand column)

http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/technical-service-home/product-catalog.html Lots of data and for common and not so common chemicals.

http://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ Sort of a free (but not as good) Registry database.

Chemistry. Someone has to pay a small fortune for these, but if you have access to a university computer or library chances are they have. If you are masters student or going for a PhD, learn how to use these, they will increase your productivity by a significant amount compared to Google Scholar (which is still a great and free complement due to the ability to search in full text sometimes) and they are a great way to find out what research groups are doing interesting stuff. There is a reason your library is paying for these databases. The same applies to the commercial general ones.

https://scifinder.cas.org/ The best database for chemistry articles and patents (more new compounds are indexed from patents than from articles, no reason to limit yourself), great refinement options etc, reaction searching, structure searching, you name it. It is also the largest chemical compound database in the world. You probably have to create an account for this and most likely your university only has a very limited amount of simultaneous users. Uses controlled terminology

https://www.reaxys.com Contains Beilstein and I believe Gmelin. And have been supplemented with various patents and quick synthesis descriptions (these are great), great resource for chemical properties. Very good tools for making schemes of multi step reactions. Not so good for text searching as they do not use controlled terminology.

http://www.hbcpnetbase.com/ CRC handbook. You probably have one lying around in the lab.

General .
http://www.harzing.com/pop.htm interface for google scholar making certain searches a lot easier.

http://www.scirus.com Elseviers free database.

http://www.espacenet.com/index.en.htm A free and very good resource for patents. Do realize that most people want to hide their patents. If they get away with it, the document will be named: A new device. Learn to use IPC NCL and ECLA codes if you want to be really efficient. You can manage going through uni without being able to search patents but why not get that extra edge. There is also often the option of finding English language equivalents for patents in other languages.
General but commercial. If you have access to a university library or a university ip-adress chances are good you can access these. If you have access to these databases learn to use them instead of google scholar especially if you are in natural sciences or medicine. Getting 900 hits sorting them by numbers of citations, then picking only the review articles from the last 5 years in a language you can read is superior to wading through the hits in Google scholar.

http://apps.isiknowledge.com/ Web of science. If you have access to it use it instead of google scholar The sorting options and refinement options are so worth it, Chances are you can also access myendnoteweb, to upload all your references directly

http://www.scopus.com The commercial Elsevier competitor of web of science. Web of science is better for older stuff but Scopus contains a large portion of Compendex which is one of the best engineering databases out there and also more non English journals. Use the add categories option to be able to sort between keywords, document types etc.

[m4d4sb34ns]

Here's a set of the science-realted stuff I've bookmarked over the last year. I've used most of the chemistry stuff myself, the others are mostly video lectures that looked like they could be fairly interesting.

Molinspiration - chemical editing program built into the browser, with the capability to produce some basic descriptors
NMR Basics - some notes on the theory behind NMR. People in need of a real textbook on this subject should look for "Spin Dynamics" by Levitt
Zeolite Structure Database - could be useful to anyone working in solid-state chemistry
Skylaris Lectures - lectures on QM and computational chemistry from my old uni
Design of Experiments - again from my old uni, some notes about applying statistical techniques to experiment planning
Maths Lectures - haven't tried these yet, but the short lectures could be good for picking up a partigular topic
Stanford ChemEng Lectures - I've watched the first one of these and was impressed by the lecturing
ComSci and Programming Video Lectures - another one I hope to try soon

[joy]

Economics is not a hard science, but if anyone would like a lighter approach to the dismal science check out:

http://www.economnomnomics.com

[Sleipner]

Biology (and epigenetics, but that wasn't covered too long):
http://www.weinersmith.com/

I'll admit, its mostly a blog, but the blogger (who is incidentally married to my second-favorite webcomic artist) is herself a biologist based in California.

[Solifuge]

One of my professors shared this place: http://www.becominghuman.org/

It charts the proposed course of human evolution, with links to relevant essays, fossil evidence, genetics research, etc. The news blog also charts new archaeological finds related to human development, evolution, and culture too. Pretty neat stuff!

[garak1a]

I recently bought an iPod, and have fallen in love with listening to podcasts.

Does anyone know of any good, still-running podcasts on science? Ideally biology, but general science is good too?

I'm in a job where my biology undergrad degree is essential, but not actually used very often, so I'd love to keep my scientific knowledge sharp via listening to weekly or monthly podcasts while on the go.

I already subscribe to Quirks and Quarks (general science), White Coat, Black Art (medicine and medical practise), and Spark (tech), all from CBC Radio, but iTunes store wasn't too helpful trying to find still-running biology podcasts. So if anyone knows of a good one, I'd appreciate it!

[topquark]

www.physicsforums.com is proving invaluable to me during my phd. It's full of wonderful wonderful people who will explain concepts to you.

[Coffee]

Here's a free marine biology online journal.
http://www.hindawi.com/journals/jmb/

[aoeu]

A collection of stuff: https://sites.google.com/site/scienceandmathguide/, alternate address http://www.sciguide.tk/

[theboss]

www.parascientifica.com and www.parascientifica.com/forums
Its a nice small news site with some science discussion.

[timbot]

I recently bought an iPod, and have fallen in love with listening to podcasts.

Does anyone know of any good, still-running podcasts on science? Ideally biology, but general science is good too?

Not a biology specific podcast but I really love the (Australian) ABC Science show.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/

[Crabik]

Solar Physicist Leif Svalgaard
http://www.leif.org/research/

Solarham - All of your solar and aurora needs in one place
http://www.solarham.com/

Luboš Motl - theoretical physicist (blog about physics, global warming and politics)
http://motls.blogspot.com/

[Radium]

I'd also suggest adding Academic Earth (http://academicearth.org/subjects/) to the General section of the list. ^_^

[Angua]

http://www.copewithcytokines.de/cope.cgi

Cytokines and cells pathfinder encyclopedia. It has references for them, well organised, and pretty detailed.

[Mighty Flaming Frying Pan]

www.ptable.com

Another periodic table website. Made out of HTML5, it has a wealth of information about each element; properties, orbitals, melting/boiling points, and a lot more. Good for chemistry/physics/anywhere you use elements.

[Samsoneffect]

Didn't see it listed anywhere, but Sixty Symbols is a nice little repository of videos on physics topics, brought to you by University of Nottingham.

[Tabasco]

http://www.nasa.gov/ -- National Aeronautics and Space Administration

FTFY.

Geology
http://www.usgs.gov/ - tons of great resources (maps, earthquakes, volcanoes, info) ... and related:
http://astrogeology.usgs.gov/ - geology of celestial bodies

[theboss]

www.trulyscience.com, something that I've set up this summer. It is a general science site, explaining science
It's still young, but I hope that it will become much larger soon.

[tomandlu]

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evohome.html

Looks like a good evolution resource for teachers.

[mittfh]

Brady Haran (who films Periodic Videos) also has a number of other YouTube channels in collaboration with other departments at Nottingham:

Sixty Symbols (physics)
Numberphile (mathematics)
Deep Sky Videos (astronomy / deep space)
Psy File (Psychology - University of Manchester)
Words of the World (languages / etymologies)
Bibledex (theology / books of the Bible)
Foodskey (food science)
Nottingham Science (behind the scenes - aka Test Tube)
Backstage Science (back stage at UK science facilities)

Phew!

Assorted science channels by others:

Minute Physics (Henry Reich, short animated videos about physics)
Minute Earth (Henry again, his new channel)
Minute Mandolin (Not science, but Henry's mandolin improvisations)
Vi Hart (self-described "Mathemusician")
Veritasium (Science vlog - "An element of truth")
Smarter Every Day (Another science vlog - the ad revenue goes into his children's college fund)
The Slow Mo Guys (Slow motion photography)
C G P Grey (not strictly science, explanation videos on a variety of subjects, most of the others follow him)
Vsauce (facts, often science-y)
Brusspup (optical illusions)

[NucleoSynth]

Some science video dedicated sites
videosci[dot]com
sciencehack[dot]com
openculture[dot]com/science_videos