The 262 new submissions received between Wednesday 1 Oct and Thursday 2 Oct, announced Friday 3 Oct 2008, brought the total number of articles on arXiv past 500,000 — all openly accessible.

There are also more than 200,000 old versions of articles which record all public revisions since 1997. If the linear increase in submission rate continues, arXiv will pass the one million article mark in 2015.

See press release for more details.

Submitted by Kevin Lindstrom Liaison Librarian for Physics and Astronomy

The International Year of Astronomy 2009 is a global effort initiated by the International Astronomical Union and UNESCO to help the citizens of the world rediscover their place in the Universe through the day- and night-time sky, and thereby engage a personal sense of wonder and discovery.

Check out the IYA2009 website for information about the initiative as well as additional resources and information on global IYA-sponsored projects.

Interested in Physics and Astronomy research here at UBC? Have a look at the Department of Physics Astronomy and Astrophysics website. Here you will find a full list of faculty and their areas of research.

Submitted by Kevin Lindstrom Liaison Librarian for Physics and Astronomy.

Thought that chemical engineers dealt only with oil refineries and fluidized beds?

Dr. Savvas Hatzikiriakos has published a number of articles looking at the rheology of mozzarella cheese.

Rolling of mozzarella cheese: Experiments and simulations Journal of Food Engineering, In Press, Accepted Manuscript, Available online 12 September 2008. Evan Mitsoulis, Savvas G. Hatzikiriakos

Rheology of mozzarella cheese: Extrusion and rolling International Dairy Journal, Volume 18, Issue 6, June 2008, Pages 615-623. Edward B. Muliawan, Savvas G. Hatzikiriakos

Rheology of mozzarella cheese International Dairy Journal, Volume 17, Issue 9, September 2007, Pages 1063-1072. Edward B. Muliawan, Savvas G. Hatzikiriakos

Rheology is the science of the deformation and flow of matter. It is concerned with the response of materials to applied stress. That response may be irreversible viscous flow, reversible elastic deformation, or a combination of the two. Control of rheology is essential for the manufacture and handling of numerous materials and products, eg, foods, cosmetics, rubber, plastics, paints, inks, and drilling muds. Before control can be achieved, there must be an understanding of rheology and an ability to measure rheological properties. (Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology).

Dr. Savvas Hatzikiriakos’ other research involves the study of the rheological behavior of polymers.

Thermorheological properties of LLDPE/LDPE blends: Effects of production technology of LLDPE Journal of Polymer Science Part B: Polymer Physics. volume 46 issue 16 pages 1669-1683 2008. Delgadillo-Velázquez, O.; Hatzikiriakos, S.G.; Sentmanat, M.

Submitted by Kevin Lindstrom Liaison Librarian for Chemical and Biological Engineering and Materials Engineering

Over the last year, our national broadcaster – CBC came with a series of podcasts called “how to think about science”

Listen to all of them here – they are more than 20 episodes – http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/features/science/index.html

** Photo by estherase

We’ve got ebooks on almost any topic under the sun and pdf’s are a lot lighter to carry than paper.

You want books on how to write code in Python or how to fix your new laptop running Microsoft Vista? Have a look at the Books 24X7 IT Collection.

Trying find some good stuff on biodiesel? Heres’ a hot title
Biodiesel – A Realistic Fuel Alternative for Diesel Engines

Need some physical property data like the viscosity of Cl2 gas? A search of Knovel.com will link you to the Chemical Properties Handbook and Yaws’ Handbook of Thermodynamic and Physical Properties of Chemical Compounds

Need some good information on climate change? Here’s a good starting point Assessing Climate Change.

Circuit diagrams for operational amplifiers? Check out the Electrical Engineering Handbook.

All in all, you have access to more than five thousand science and engineering ebooks.

For a complete list (not including Books24X7 titles) go to the Science & Engineering Ebook site. There you can find A-Z titles lists of ebooks as well as the search interfaces for the ebook collections you have access to. Make sure you look at the Springer Ebooks as well. Springer is a major science and engineering publisher.

Remember that these resources are not freely available on internet, so if you are connecting from off campus, go to UBC’s VPN site for instructions.

Posted by Kevin Lindstrom Liaison Librarian for Earth and Ocean Sciences, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Materials Engineering, and Physics.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14699

The article discusses the experiments, provides a video and the images from the Collider that started to operate TODAY!

** Photo by µµ

Brought to you by the University of Nottingham the Periodic Table of Videos includes 118 videos about each element.

**Image courtesy of NSDL. Reusable NASA images.

Nothing like a juicy headline to catch your attention! From this week’s edition of Science

“The doom mongers do have one thing right: The LHC just might create black holes. According to Einstein’s theory of general relativity, energy warps space and time. So by smashing protons together with unprecedented vigor, the LHC might cram enough energy into a small enough volume to create pinholes in the universe–miniature black holes. If space has three dimensions, even the energies reached by the LHC will be about a million billion times too low. However, string theory–which assumes that every fundamental particle is in fact an infinitesimal vibrating string–predicts that space has more dimensions curled into tiny loops. If some of them are curled loosely enough, then the energy threshold may tumble to within the LHC’s reach, some theorists have argued.”

Also have a look at

LARGE HADRON COLLIDER: The Overture Begins
Science 321 (5894), 1287. [DOI: 10.1126/science.321.5894.1287]

LARGE HADRON COLLIDER: Researchers, Place Your Bets!
Science 321 (5894), 1288. [DOI: 10.1126/science.321.5894.1288]

LARGE HADRON COLLIDER: Bracing for a Maelstrom of Data, CERN Puts Its Faith in the Grid
Science 321 (5894), 1289. [DOI: 10.1126/science.321.5894.1289]

Submitted by Kevin Lindstrom@ubc.ca Physics Liaison Librarian

Today’s news article from BBC reports that:…”ice shelves in Canada’s High Arctic have lost a colossal area this year”

Also from the article:

Loss of ice in the Arctic, and in particular the extensive sea-ice, has global implications. The “white parasol” at the top of the planet reflects energy from the Sun straight back out into space, helping to cool the Earth. Further loss of Arctic ice will see radiation absorbed by darker seawater and snow-free land, potentially warming the Earth’s climate at an even faster rate than current observational data indicates.

To explore this topic more , take a look on the subject guide we have compiled for Atmospheric Sciences – http://toby.library.ubc.ca/subjects/subjpage1.cfm?id=969

** Photo by Yukon White Light

PRO/UAW, the union that tried and failed in 2006 to organize the postdocs on the 10 University of California (UC) campuses, has received official notification that it succeeded on its second try. On 19 August, the California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) faxed a letter to the organizers stating that the union, known formally as Postdoctoral Researchers Organize/International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, had submitted valid signatures from a majority of the approximately 5000 UC postdocs eligible to petition for union representation. Under state law, unionization is therefore automatic. The move brings an estimated 10% of U.S. postdocs into UAW, an AFL-CIO-affiliated national union that represents more than a million other members, including UC academic employees, such as graders, teaching assistants, and lecturers.

Read the full article at here

Submitted by kevin lindstrom Science and Engineering Liaison Librarian