The Flying Turtle Science and Technology Exploration Site - The FT Exploring site is packed to the brim with essays on a range of topics - such a range, in fact, that it's hard to pin down exactly what the main theme is. The authors (a distinctly wacky father and son team from Idaho) have worked hard to produce hand-illustrated sections on plants and photosynthesis, energy (or 'the Mysterious Everything' as they like to call it) and the mechanics of insects amongst other things, all written in an idiosyncratic, chatty style aimed at younger visitors. The information is largely very interesting and well-done, though areas of the site do zoom off on tangents: the "not-necessarily-scientific" section where Turtle Boy has a lengthy discussion with cartoon aliens about whether or not basketball players know much about batteries... would be an example. All in all - aside from the occasional clutter and inconsistent navigation - a good introduction to some big science subjects, if you don't mind being educated by reptiles. Rating: 6 out of 10 (31 January 2003) RJN
http://www.ftexploring.com/
Scirus.com - Scirus claims to be the most comprehensive science-specific search engine available on the Internet. It was created by New Scientist parent company Elsevier Science and enables scientists, students and anyone searching for scientific information to chart and pinpoint data, locate university sites and find reports and articles quickly and easily. A "Basic Search" on my own name, brings up my website as the first entry, so I am pleased with its approach so far. A basic search on the phrase "polyaromatic hydrocarbons" too brings up some pertinent results, Found: 4,126 total | 1,899 journal results | 2,227 Web results. A search on the same phrase on Google, however, generated 7680. It is difficult to tell how many of those would be relevant to a particular subject search. Scouring even the first couple of hundred would take quite some time. SoŠ Šan advanced search on polyaromatic hydrocarbons using Scirus various options comes in particularly handy allowing one to narrow the search to just journals (only Elsevier's repertoire mind) or web sources, which might include the ChemWeb chemistry preprint server (another Elsevier product). Subject area can be narrowed as can time range from 1973 to the present. Scirus as part of a wider search of the literature without having to resort to proprietary abstract and literature databases should therefore offer a useful starting point. Users must from the off realise that the range of journals searched is limited to a single, albeit large, publisher. Rating: 7 out of 10 (10 November 2002) DB
http://www.scirus.com/
Select Science - selectscience.net describes itself as an independent resource (a Bath based company SelectScience Ltd) offering "a wealth of information for laboratory professionals from all disciplines". Here, you can find the usual kinds of product and trade information, features on lab techniques and applications. For instance, solving the problems of evaporation in the pharmaceutical lab and uniform Microarray hybridisation. There is an events page to keep you up to date with the latest conferences and a visitors' section where you can leave your opinions of lab products and read those of others. Moreover, one of the site's primary aims seems to be to "improve the exchange of information and experience to help you make informed decisions when purchasing a product." The navigation is straightforward but is a bit mix and match with some top menu bar items dropping down a small sub-menu while others simply take you to the next page. The jobs section provides a listing of (at the moment) academic positions, but there are several other jobs servers that provide a whole lot more so this is not perhaps the most attractive feature. Indeed, there were just three chemistry jobs in the salary range £20-30k. Rating: 7 out of 10 (4 November 2002) DB
http://www.selectscience.net/
IWS - The information warfare site - The Information Warfare Site is designed as a clearinghouse for information warfare knowledge. While a occasionally out of date, it does its job admirably. The authors, mostly graduates of the Department of War Studies, King's College London, put together an ambitious, good-looking site, which appears to have never gotten completely off the ground. But a great deal of fascinating background material is available on topics from psychological warfare to espionage to legal issues. In addition, there are several good news feeds in the INFOCON news watch section, sorted by subject, drawing from news sources all over the net, major and minor, from all points of view. Overall, a good place to learn about this increasingly important subject. Rating: 6 out of 10 (24 October 2002) AS
http://www.iwar.org.uk/
Why Files - We originally reviewed the Why Files in 1996 but science and this site have moved on some since then. The front page is fairly simple and uncluttered but takes you to information on some fairly complex issues, such as the science behind hormone replacement therapy, predicting treatments for AIDS, and the biology of mosquito bites. The Why Files comes out of the graduate school of the University of Wisconsin so you can generally accept as fact the facts it touts. The "In depth" section looks deep into the murky waters of scientific issues, such as whether the twenty-first century is succumbing to the global warming predictions of the 1980s, or whether we will simply never know for sure. As the name would suggest the "In brief" section serves up a savoury snack in the world of scientific discovery, while, as I mentioned already, the "In the news" section gets behind the headlines. While the Why Files has obvious potential as extracurricular material for a science course, or they can be used to get a reasonably in-depth view of a news item, say, glimpsed only fleetingly on TV, a straightforward search of the archives will bring up everything from ice on Mars to shipwreck mysteries. Rating: 9 out of 10 (30 September 2002) DB
http://whyfiles.news.wisc.edu/
Science Year - Science year is about projects and events organised from September 2001 to October 2002 involving schools all over the UK and aimed primarily at the 10-19 year old group. Its purpose is basically to make science appealing to everybody, so it reaches out to cover all aspects, not just the most obvious, touching on fashion, music, forensics, communications etc. Science Year has the backing of the Dept. of Education and Skills, Dept. Trade and Industry, NESTA , ASA and BA plus many important sponsors. Right from the home-page the Science Year Web Site excels in science appeal. Teachers will find all the information on the project and a thousand ideas in the sci-teach section for all age groups. The younger age group will find loads of ideas for the summer holidays (a sneak at say 'undercover-science' will give inspiration and clever explanations to phenomena which will greatly boost any parent's profile). For the older group, I can strongly recommend the careers section - particularly the words of wisdom from experts working in the field. If still in doubt, just for fun try their "unscientific" career test - it worked! The site is a mine of information, updated every week and designed to use all the latest internet technology for pictures, animation video clips. etc whilst the site map, glossary and trouble-shooting make navigating smooth and enjoyable. It's easy to spend hours browsing, and that unmistakable British sense of humour sprinkled here and there make it very hard to exit. Rating: 10 out of 10 (23 August 2002) CCL
http://www.scienceyear.com/home.html
Game Theory.net - Calling itself a "resource for educators and students of game theory", this website is a collection of links to websites about game theory. But it stands out from the regular link collection by taking on the guise of a guide instead of merely listing the links. The author, Mike Shore of Vanderbilt University, has grouped the links into interesitng categories like "News" (not frequently updated) and "Lecture Notes", which links to an impressive selection of content around the web. Great for researchers. The star category is possibly "Game Theory in popular culture," which lists movies and books in which game theory is featured in one way or another. Here you will also find a couple of movie and audio clips. "Quizzes and Test" takes you to educational materials of a more entertaining character (although this is not for those looking for easy breainteasers!), while "Games" guides you toinformation on board games involving game theory. If this is not enough for you, the site also has a selection of links to game theory journals, socieities, web sites, and even consulting firms (John Nash did get his Nobel prize in economics, after all although most mortals believe game theory to be a purely mathematical field). The site design is clean, maybe a bit sterile, but very simple to navigate. Extra points for being fast and brief, and for being very well organized. Rating: 7 out of 10. (17 August 2002) TG
http://www.gametheory.net/
Discover Channel Canada - At this content-rich site, it can be difficult to decide what to check first. The many choices presented are tempting, the page is well laid out, easy to read (if you're using Explorer), and handsome to look upon, but the constantly shifting sidebar and flashing banner action can be distracting. Explorer users will be missing a critical navigation bar across the top, although this may be true only for Macs. From the relative peace of the site map, you can pick your destinations. In the Human Body section, you can find out if nailgrowing is affected by the seasons, and whether birds have navels. The His Brain, Her Brain feature has wonderful quizzes involving spatial perception and object displacement, and the reasons why men are better at some tests, while women excel at others. For Tolkien devotees, there is an exploration of Middle Earth. Much, much more, top notch. Rating: 9 out of 10. (15 July 2002) AD
http://www.exn.ca/
