Thomson Reuters has released its latest figures for Canadian Science last week – http://sciencewatch.com/dr/sci/09/may31-09_2/

Between 2004 and 2008, Thomson Reuters indexed 226,232 papers that listed at least one author address in Canada. Of those papers, the highest percentage appeared in journals classified under the heading of environment/ecology, followed by psychiatry/psychology and geosciences. As the right-hand column shows, the citations-per-paper average for environment/ecology papers from Canada-based authors was 24% above the world average in the field (5.49 cites per paper for Canada versus 4.43 cites for the world). In fact, in all the fields shown here, the impact of Canadian research exceeded the world average, with particularly strong performance in space science (44% above the world average), physics (43% above), and agricultural sciences (+29%).

It is great to see that we are producing a decent share of world’s research. But it seems that Engineering is one of weak points!

** Photo by tripleman

There is an excellent article about the attempt to drill down into the Earth’s crust – and even through the crust, using the equipment aboard Chikyu – Japanese research ship.

It is a relly interesting read – “Ocean monster shows hidden depths”

You can see the relevant research for this area in Web of Science and Meteorological & Geoastrophysical Abstracts (MGA) databases that UBC Library subscribes to…

** photo by kayakaya

Thomson Reuters’ owned ScienceWatch.com has recently released the figures for “Top 20 Countries in Engineering“.

…is a listing of the top 20 countries which, as of the latest bimonthly update of Essential Science Indicators^SM, attracted the highest total citations to their papers published in Thomson Reuters-indexed journals of Engineering over an 11-year period, (1998-December 31, 2008). These countries are of a pool of 96 countries comprising the top 50% ranked by total citation count in this field.

It is great to see Canada as #7 with 4.39 citations per paper!

** Photo by tim_d

In celebration of the International Year of Astronomy in 2009, New Scientist takes you on an armchair tour of some of the most important telescopes ever built – http://www.newscientist.com/gallery/dn16663-important-telescopes

UBC Library owns dozens of books on telescopes. See some of them here- Telescopes.

** Photo by Space Ritual

Books 24×7 can now be accessed by UBCcard Barcode and PIN. Find the title in the catalogue, click on the “Online Access” under the title and sign in.

“OK, it’s easier,” you say. “But I’ve used Books 24×7 before. Where’s my saved ebooks?” Ay, there’s the rub. In testing, saved ebooks came across under the new log-in. In reality, they didn’t.

However, you can still access them through your old account. After you find a title in the Library catalogue, click on the “Alternate Online Access” at the BOTTOM of the page – OR – go to our Books 24×7 Info Page and log in through “old account” using your old Username and Password.

You can see all nearly 7,500 online books we buy from Books24x7 in our catalogue here, or search for Books24x7 EBook Collection as an author in our catalogue…

*NOTE: We are only allowed nine (9) users at one time. Therefore, the resource times-out after 15 minutes of inactivity.

** Photo by gaspi

Maclean’s has featured an article last week on geoengineering – http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/04/22/plan-b-for-global-warming/

The article focused on work of David Keith from UofC. His main article on geoengineering – “Geoengineering the climate: History and prospect” can be found here (in full text PDF for UBC folks)
A quick search in Web of Science database shows that every year there are twice as many article on this topic than a previous year…

Here are some folks in UBC Applied Sciences that work in this area

** Photo by freedryk

A recent BBC article mentions research showing that some of the developing world’s largest rivers are drying up because of climate change, threatening water supplies in some of the most populous places on Earth, say scientists.

Researchers from the US-based National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) analysed data combined with computer models to assess flow in 925 rivers — nearly three quarters of the world’s running water supply — between 1948 and 2004.

A third of these had registered a change in flow and most of them — including the Niger in West Africa, the Ganges in South Asia and the Yellow River in China — were dryer.

Rivers are losing water for a variety of possible reasons, say the researchers, including the installation of dams and the use of water for agriculture. But in many cases the decrease in flow is because of climate change, which is altering rainfall patterns and increasing evaporation because of higher temperatures.

The research will be published in the American Meteorological Society’s Journal of Climate next month (15 May) – available for the UBC community in electronic full text.

** Photo by suburbanbloke

Since early April 2009, the access to INIS database has been opened to all Internet users around the world. Free, open and unrestricted access is available from the INIS Homepage, or directly from the following link: INIS Database.

This initiative provides easy access to reliable nuclear information on the peaceful uses of nuclear science and technology, including nonconventional literature, and makes nuclear knowledge readily available worldwide.

Established in 1970, INIS represents the world’s largest database of scientific and technical literature on a wide range of subjects from nuclear engineering, safeguards and non-proliferation to applications in agriculture, health and industry.

Currently, the INIS Database contains over 3 million bibliographic records and almost 200,000 full-text nonconventional documents, consisting of scientific and technical reports and other non copyrighted information.

** photo by clark

New York Times was running an interesting article – “Concrete Is Remixed With Environment in Mind” last week which is certainly an interesting read.

The article discussed various ways to make environment friendly concrete.

A quick search in Web of Science database for (concrete or cement) AND environment* finds almost 9,000 articles on the topic.

A quick search in Compendex, a primary engineering database finds 12,000 articles, the last one published on April 4, 2009.

** Photo by Thomas Hawk

Educause has released its new report – “7 Things You Should Know About Location-Aware Applications“.

Location-aware applications deliver online content to users based on their physical location. Various technologies employ GPS, cell phone infrastructure, or wireless access points to identify where electronic devices such as mobile phones or laptops are, and users can choose to share that information with location-aware applications. As mobile devices offer greater amounts of data about the environment through which we move, location-aware systems will become increasingly effective at predicting what users would like to know about in the geographical space around them, offering a layer of knowledge superimposed on the physical world that can be accessed for information and convenience.

You can research this topic in many of our online databases, however,  IEEE digital Library would be your first source.  Try this search in IEEE database – http://tinyurl.com/d6y5aj

** Photo by fotoopa