New Reference Book:

Encyclopedia of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology
Hari Singh Nalwa, ed
Stevenson Ranch, Calif. : American Scientific Publishers, 2004.
10 Volumes
Call# Ref QC176.8 .N35 E53 2004

From American Scientific Publishers:

“Encyclopedia of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology® is the World’s first encyclopedia ever published in the field of nanotechnology. The 10-volume Encyclopedia is an unprecedented single reference source that provides ideal introduction and overview of most recent advances and emerging new aspects of nanotechnology spanning from science to engineering to medicine. Although there are many books/handbook and journals focused on nanotechnology, no encyclopedic reference work has been published covering all aspects of nanoscale science and technology dealing with materials synthesis, processing, fabrication, probes, spectroscopy, physical properties, electronics, optics, mechanics, biotechnology, devices, etc. The Encyclopedia fills this gap to provide basic information on all fundamental and applied aspects of nanotechnology by drawing on two decades of pioneering research. It is the only scientific work of its kind since the beginning of the field of nanotechnology bringing together core knowledge and the very latest advances. It is written for all levels audience that allows non-scientists to understand the nanotechnology while providing up-to-date latest information to active scientists to experts in the field. This outstanding encyclopedia is an indispensable source for research professionals, technology investors and developers seeking the most up-to-date information on the nanotechnology among a wide range of disciplines from science to engineering to medicine.”

Scifinder Scholar is our premier chemical database. It offers electronic access to Chemical Abstracts, as well as a comprehensive database of chemical literature. Scifinder Scholar is a program that must be installed on the computer before it can be used. It is available on the reference computers in Middleton Library, the computer labs in Middelton, Coates, and Williams, and is also available for download onto faculty computers through PAWS.

The Biochemical Journal from Portland Press will be automatically deposited in PubMed Central and NIH’s free archive after 6 months.

See the newsletter announcement here

Having trouble finding reliable information on the internet? The Librarians’ Index to the Internet is a collection of websites on numerous topics including many in the sciences that have been analyzed and reviewed by librarians as verifiable and authoritative. The index includes many excellent sites. Check it out!

Lesser Harms: the morality of risk in medical research
Sydney A. Halpern
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004.
Call# R853 .H8 H357 2004

From the University of Chicago Press:

“Research physicians face intractable dilemmas when they consider introducing new medical procedures. Innovations carry the promise of preventing or curing life-threatening diseases, but they can also lead to injury or even death. How have clinical scientists made high-stakes decisions about undertaking human tests of new medical treatments? In Lesser Harms, Sydney Halpern explores this issue as she examines vaccine trials in America during the early and mid-twentieth century.

Today’s scientists follow federal guidelines for research on human subjects developed during the 1960s and 1970s. But long before these government regulations, medical investigators observed informal rules when conducting human research. They insisted that the dangers of natural disease should outweigh the risks of a medical intervention, and they struggled to accurately assess the relative hazards. Halpern explores this logic of risk in immunization controversies extending as far back as the eighteenth century. Then, focusing on the period between 1930 and 1960, she shows how research physicians and their sponsors debated the moral quandaries involved in moving vaccine use from the laboratory to the clinic.

This probing work vividly describes the efforts of clinical investigators to balance the benefits and dangers of untested vaccines, to respond to popular sentiment about medical hazards, and to strategically present risk laden research to sponsors and the public.”

Beyond the Reproductive Body: the politics of women’s health and work in early Victorian England
Marjorie Levine-Clark
Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2004.
Call# RA564.85 .L485 2004

From Ohio State University Press:

“Appealing to audiences interested in the histories of medicine, women, gender, labor, and social policy, Beyond the Reproductive Body examines women’s health in relation to work in early Victorian England. Government officials and reformers investigating the laboring population became convinced that the female body would be ruined by gainful employment, making women incapable of reproducing a healthy labor force. Women’s work was thus framed as a public health “problem.” Poor women were caught between the contradictory expectations of the reproductive body, which supposedly precluded any but domestic labor, and the able body, which dictated that all poor but healthy people must work to stay independent of state assistance. Medical case narratives of female patients show that while official pronouncements emphasized the physical limitations of the female reproductive body, poor women adopted an able-bodied norm.

Beyond the Reproductive Body demonstrates the centrality of gender and the body in the formation of Victorian policies concerning employment, public health, and welfare. Focusing on poor women, it challenges historians’ customary presentations of Victorian women’s delicate health. The medical case narratives give voices to poor women, who have left very few written records of their own.”

The mold in Dr. Florey’s coat : the story of the penicillin miracle
Eric Lax
New York : Henry Holt, 2005.
Call# RM666 .P35 L39 2005

From Henry Holt & Co.:

” The discovery of penicillin in 1928 ushered in a new age in medicine. But it took a team of Oxford scientists headed by Howard Florey and Ernst Chain four more years to develop it as the first antibiotic, and the most important family of drugs in the twentieth century. At once the world was transformed—major bacterial scourges such as blood poisoning and pneumonia, scarlet fever and diphtheria, gonorrhea and syphilis were defeated as penicillin helped to foster not only a medical revolution but a sexual one as well. In his wonderfully engaging book, acclaimed author Eric Lax tells the real story behind the discovery and why it took so long to develop the drug. He reveals the reasons why credit for penicillin was misplaced, and why this astonishing achievement garnered a Nobel Prize but no financial rewards for Alexander Fleming, Florey, and his team.

The Mold in Dr. Florey’s Coat is the compelling story of the passage of medicine from one era to the next and of the eccentric individuals whose participation in this extraordinary accomplishment has, until now, remained largely unknown.”

Chemical consequences : environmental mutagens, scientist activism, and the rise of genetic toxicology
Scott Frickel
New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2004
Call# RA1224.3 .F75 2004

From Rutgers University Press:

“Here is the first historical and sociological account of the formation of an interdisciplinary science known as genetic toxicology, and of the scientists’ social movement that created it.

After research geneticists discovered that synthetic chemicals were capable of changing the genetic structure of living organisms, scientists began to explore how these chemicals affected gene structure and function. In the late 1960s, a small group of biologists became concerned that chemical mutagens represented a serious and possibly global environmental threat.

Genetic toxicology is nurtured as much by public culture as by professional practices, reflecting the interplay of genetics research and environmental politics. Drawing on a wealth of resources, Scott Frickel examines the creation of this field through the lens of social movement theory. He reveals how a committed group of scientist-activists transformed chemical mutagens into environmental problems, mobilized existing research networks, recruited scientists and politicians, secured financial resources, and developed new ways of acquiring knowledge. The result is a book that vividly illustrates how science and activism were interwoven to create a discipline that remains a defining feature of environmental health science.”

Book Review from The Journal of Clinical Investigation

Biological Effects of Surfactants
Sergei Andreevich Ostroumov
Boca Raton : CRC/Taylor & Francis, 2006
Call# QH541.5 .W3 O82 2006

From CRC Press:

“Understanding the role of aquatic biota and the impact of pollution and chemical substances that enter aquatic ecosystems is crucial to the assessment, prevention, and remediation of damaged environments. Biological Effects of Surfactants synthesizes the most important findings from hundreds of articles and the author’s current experiments on the biological effects of synthetic surfactants and detergents on individual organisms, populations, communities, and ecosystems. This book offers a new perspective of the hazards of pollution.

The book draws upon concepts in hydrobiology, biogeochemical cycling, and the assimilative capacity of water-beyond the self-purification capabilities of bacteria and nutrient cycling-to examine the effects of anionic, non-ionic, and cationic surfactants as well as detergent mixtures on a wide range of organisms including bacteria, cyanobacteria, flagellates, algae, higher plants, and invertebrates. The author, a distinguished member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, establishes new quantitative characteristics of the effects and presents study results reflecting newly discovered phenomena. While proposing and substantiating new priorities and approaches for testing, assessing, and characterizing the biological activities and hazards of substances, he illustrates how the data obtained can be used to develop effective environmental remediation and protection measures to improve water quality.

Biological Effects of Surfactants lays an excellent foundation for scientists to explore how hazardous wastes are absorbed in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, determine what is required for remediation and restoring water quality, and design the best approach to counteract the toxic effects of manmade surfactants using biological methods, including phytoremediation.”

Handbook of the Biology of Aging, 6th ed.
Edward J. Masoro
Amsterdam: Elsevier Academic Press, 2006
Call# QP86 .H35 2006

From Elsevier:

“Audience:
Gerontological researchers, developmental psychologists, sociologists, practioners dealing with aging populations, biologists involved in aging research, & medical researchers.

Contents
Section I: Conceptual and Technical Issues
Chapter 1 Reliability Theory of Aging and Longevity Leonid A. Gavrilov and Natalia S. Gavrilova
Chapter 2 - Are Age-Associated Diseases an Integral Part of Aging? Edward J. Masoro Chapter 3 - Dietary Restriction, Hormesis and Small Molecule Mimetics David A. Sinclair and Konrad T. Howitz
Chapter 4 - Hematopoietic Stem Cells, Aging, and Cancer Deborah Bell and Gary Van Zant
Chapter 5 - Mitochondria: A Critical Role in Aging Tamara Golden, Karl Morten, Felicity Johnson, Enrique Samper, and Simon Melov
Chapter 6 - P53 and Mouse Aging Models Cathy Gatza, George Hinkal, Lynette Moore, Melissa Dumble, and Lawrence A. Donehower
Chapter 7 - Complex Genetic Architecture of Drosophila Longevity Trudy Mackay, Natalia V. Roshina, Jeff W. Leips, and Elena G. Pasyukova
Chapter 8 - Evolutionary Biology of Aging: Future Directions Daniel Promislow, Ken Fedorka, and Joep Burger
Chapter 9 - Senescence in Wild Populations of Mammals and Birds Anja Brunet-Rossini and Steven N. Austad
Chapter 10 - Biodemography of Aging and Age-Specific Mortality in Drosophila melanogaster James Curtsinger, Natalia S. Gavrilova, and Leonid A. Gavrilov
Chapter 11 - Microarray Analysis of Gene Expression Changes in Aging F. Noel Hudson, Matt Kaeberlein, Nancy Linford, David Pritchard, Richard Beyer, and Peter S. Rabinovitch
Chapter 12 - Computer Modeling in the Study of Aging Thomas Kirkwood, Richard Boys, Colin Gillespie, Carole Procter, Daryl Shanley, and Darren Wilkenson
Section II: Non-Mammalian Models
Chapter 13 - Dissecting the Processes of Aging Using the Nematode Caenorhabditis elegans Thomas E. Johnson, Samuel T. Henderson, Shane Rea
Chapter 14 - Genetic Manipulation of Life span in Drosophila. Melanogaster Daniel Ford and John Tower
Chapter 15 - Juvenile and Steroid Hormones in Drosophila melanogaster Longevity Meng-Ping Tu, Thomas Flatt,, Marc Tatar
Chapter 16 - A Critical Evaluation of Nonmammalian Models for Aging Research Steven N. Austad, Andrej Podlutsky
Section III: Mammalian Models
Chapter 17 - Differential Aging Among Skeletal Muscles Roger J. M. McCarter
Chapter 18 - Aging, Body Fat, and Carbohydrate Metabolism Marielisa Rincon, Radhika Muzumdar, and Nir Barzilai
Chapter 19 - Growth and Aging: Why do Big Dogs Die young? Richard Miller and Steven N. Austad
Chapter 20 - Growth Hormone, Insulin-Like Growth Factor-1 and the Biology of Aging Christy S. Carter and William E. Sonntag
Chapter 21 - Aging of the Female Reproductive System Phyllis Wise”

Review from Human Biology