A few more cartoons about mass spectrometry and related topics (via).
Category Archives: Web Resources
Rays of Positive Electricity, Second Edition
I blogged a while back about Thomson’s 1913 Rays of Positive Electricity, which is available on-line in various formats. I recently found that the 1921 Rays of Positive Electricity Second Edition is also available. Thomson notes in the preface that The hope expressed in the first edition that the method of Positive Rays would be …
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ICP Mass Spectrometry Blog
There is a new blog on ICP MS run by a Florida State University chemistry alum.
Peer Reviewing Wikipedia
One of the most often heard responses to complaints about incorrect information in Wikipedia is “Stop complaining and fix it.” But many of those who would be willing to fix it are turned off because Wikipedia can be anti-expert with Byzantine rules of conduct that favor the rude and determined. Fixing Wikipedia doesn’t work if …
Open Access: ACS and ASMS
BioCurious Blog comments on American Chemical Society President E. Ann Nalley’s recent letter arguing against open access to journal articles that report on research funded by the NIH. Nalley objects to the “available after six months” policy, arguing that it will lead to lost revenues. It’s still too early to guage the effect on journal …
Volatiles in Tequila by GC
The Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry reports on volatiles and ionic species in Tequila, Mezcal, Sotol, and Bacanora using ion chromatography and GC (via). GCMS and IRMS have also been used for Tequila analysis.
MALDI Beats Electrospray
In a MALDI vs. electrospray GoogleBattle anyway (via).
Wikipedia: Mass-to-Charge Ratio
There is an interesting mass-to-charge ratio discussion on Wikipedia that illustrates a point I brought up in my ACS presentation last month (see also the Nature/Wikipedia/Britanica imbroglio). Wikipedia is open to editing by anyone and is peer reviewed only if ones peers choose to review and edit it. It will be interesting to see whether …
MetaBlogging
I didn’t know that Chemical and Engineering News was blogging the 2006 Atlanta ACS meeting until I got a rare trackback citing my presentation from last week. Nature Publishing was there as well with Nature Newsblog and the scepticalchymist.
Mapping Mass Spectrometry Research Groups
Platial.com is a combination (mashup) of Google Maps and shared tagging. I made a map for mass spectrometry groups and put in a few entries. Feel free to put in your own group and location (you will need to sign up, but it’s free).
Blogs for Analytical Chemists
Here’s my presentation “Blogs for Analytical Chemists” from the spring 2006 American Chemical Society meeting in Atlanta (presented March 29th).
METLIN Metabolite Database
METLIN is a database system for metabolite identification by mass spectrometry. An article on the technique, XCMS: Processing Mass Spectrometry Data for Metabolite Profiling Using Nonlinear Peak Alignment, Matching, and Identification, just came out in the Analytical Chemistry. Software binaries are available for Windows and Mac OS X.
Britannica Responds to Nature on Wikipedia Comparison
Encyclopaedia Britannica has published a response (PDF article) to Nature regarding their comparison of the accuracy of the online Encyclopaedia Britannica with Wikipedia (via > via). Interested readers can conduct their own comparison of the “Mass Spectrometry” entries on Britanica (registration required) and Wikipedia.
Standard Definitions of Terms Relating to Mass Spectrometry – Second Draft
Second Draft (PDF) of the IUPAC Standard Definitions of Terms Relating to Mass Spectrometry is now available. You can leave comments on the Mass Spectrometry Terms Forum. Note that the PDF document contains the latest terms and definitions and discussion should be based on those entries. Some Wiki entries still need updating.
Mass Spectrometry or Poetry? Why not Both?
An article in the Arizona Republic (signin required) has a report on Glendale Community College organic chemistry students writing poetry to help them deal with complex topics such as mass spectrometry and photochemical oxidation. How about haiku? It’s short and perhaps easier to write than a sonnet or epic poem about mass spectrometry. For example, …
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New Waters Proteomics Software
Waters introduced their ProteinLynx Global Server (PLGS) 2.2.5 software at the ABRF meeting this week (via).
Scientific American Podcast
Scientific American Magazine joins a host of others and adds a science podcast to their site.
InSilicoSpectro Perl Library for Proteomics
InSilicoSpectro is an open source Perl library for protomics mass spectrometry. The Perl scripts can be integrated into other software, for example, the commercial program Phenyx. The J. Prot. Res. article (subscription required) has links to related software, but they are not clickable.
Science Netwatch
It’s not quite the same as being slashdotted, but it’s good to get a plug from Science in their January 13th Netwatch.
Mass Spectrometry Tag Cloud
I found the Royal Society for Chemistry tag cloud on the RSC journal RSS page and made one for mass spectrometry. It uses RSS feeds for mass spectrometry journals and blogs.