Science Library Pad

videos of research both improbable and probable, on TVO

TVO's Big Ideas is one of my favourite shows, a venue for interesting lecturers.  Today's was

Marc Abrahams, editor of The Annals of Improbable Research and one of the organizers of the annual Ig-Nobel Prize ceremonies at Harvard University, discusses the work of scientists and academics that, "first makes you laugh, and then makes you think". Highlights of the lecture include discussions of a study that proves that Kansas is flatter than a pancake and a paper investigating The Forces Required to Drag Sheep Over Various Surfaces.

The second lecture in this episode of Big Ideas is by University of Toronto Zoology researcher Susannah Varmuza who discusses the evolving field of Epigenetics and what research into such things as mouse coat colour is telling scientists about the age-old "nature versus nurture" debate.

Blog for OECD Participative Web goes live

The blog supporting the OECD Participative Web Forum has gone live.  RSS feed, comments, the usual.

I welcome your feedback; its primary purpose is as a channel for you to interact with the event and the participants there, as well as OECD policymakers, so the more comments or questions you post there the better.

Also feel free to promote it on any relevant web sites, blogs or listservs; I know you all collectively know far more venues and people who might be interested in it than I can possibly imagine.  (Plus which I refuse to use listservs :)

Kieren McCarthy and I will be liveblogging the event in Ottawa this Wednesday, October 3, 2007, starting at 9 AM or thereabouts, and finishing around 6 PM (or whenever our fingers give out).  It will also be webcast live so you may catch a glimpse of me (probably with my hair sticking out at some odd angle, if past experience is any guide).

The tag is oecdwebforum2007, but Technorati doesn't seem to be picking up the blog yet (also as usual).

It's a bit of an experiment for the OECD, opening up in this way, so as I said in the blog itself, please be gentle.

Previously:
September 13, 2007  provide your input to OECD participative web conference

ban smoking for healthier... accordions?

There is anecdotal evidence that the interiors of accordions played regularly in smoke filled environments are dirtied as a result of the trapping of contaminant particles circulating in the air as it filters through the instrument. We conducted a telephone survey of all workers involved in the cleaning, repair, maintenance, and renovation of accordions in the Republic of Ireland.

Confessions of an accordion cleaner
John F Garvey, Paul McElwaine, Thomas S Monaghan, Walter T McNicholas
BMJ  2007;335:630 (29 September), doi:10.1136/bmj.39346.507778.3A

via Globe and Mail (Agence France-Presse) - Ireland's cleaner accordions - September 29, 2007

DUBLIN -- Ireland's smoking ban has not just improved the air quality in its famous pubs, but has also boosted the quality of music sessions for drinkers, doctors reported yesterday.

Specifically, it has helped musicians clean up their traditional instruments, clogged up with years of dirt in smoke-filled pubs, so they can produce clearer sounds

Wired on open data

There are some islands of innovation.  Since 2002, the Journal of Negative Results in Biomedicine has offered a peer-reviewed home to results that go negative or against the grain.  Earlier this year, the journal Nature started Nature Precedings, a Web-based forum for prepublication research and unpublished manuscripts in biomedicine, chemistry, and the earth sciences.  At Drexel University, chemist Jean-Claude Bradley practices "open notebook" science--chronicling his lab's work and sharing data via blog and wiki.  And PLoS is planning an open repository for research and data that is otherwise abandoned.

Wired - 15.10 - Mind the Gaps - by Thomas Goetz - October 2007 - pp 31-32 - not yet online UPDATE 2007-09-25: Now available.  ENDUPDATE

The article gives a good overview of the issues related to open data and the current "dark data" situation, with a particular focus on the aspect that (for the most part) only positive results and successful experiments make it into the research literature.

E-Science and libraries

As I said over a year and a half ago

A lot of science today is very computation and data intense.  I think there is a big role for academic libraries as custodians of data and research output.

Science Library Pad - the role of the academic library and librarian - January 13, 2006

Fortunately, there are lots of people thinking about the role of the library in relation to cyberinfrastructure, as well as e-research and publishing.

This month's D-Lib has a number of relevant articles and opinion pieces, including

Library Support for "Networked Science"
by Bonita Wilson
doi:10.1045/september2007-editorial

Cyberinfrastructure, Data, and Libraries, Part 1: A Cyberinfrastructure Primer for Librarians
Anna Gold, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
doi:10.1045/september2007-gold-pt1

Cyberinfrastructure, Data, and Libraries, Part 2: Libraries and the Data Challenge:  Roles and Actions for Libraries
Anna Gold, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
doi:10.1045/september2007-gold-pt2

The editorial by Bonita Wilson points to "The Dawn of Networked Science" in The Chronicle for Higher Education (which is not open to read, so no link for them).

I also recommend the August 2007 CTWatch Quarterly, which was on the topic "The Coming Revolution in Scholarly Communications & Cyberinfrastructure".

A reminder that there will be an E-Science track in the upcoming OECD meeting on October 3, 2007.

For more information on this topic, you can see my E-Science category.

D-Lib report on IATUL 2007

Global Access to Science- Scientific Publishing for the Future: A Report of IATUL 2007 Conference Held at KTH, the Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden, June 11 - 14, 2007
Maitrayee Ghosh, Indian Institute of Technology; and Manik Mandal, National Institute of Technology, Durgapur, India
doi:10.1045/september2007-ghosh

IATUL 2007 stressed the importance of global collaboration in exchanging ideas and project experiences through various channels of communication, in areas ranging from information literacy, open access to information, scholarly communication, institutional repositories, outreach services, faculty and library collaboration in various research programs, pricing issues with publishers and – last but not least – the crucial information needs of users within the participants' institutions.

5th Science Centre World Congress - June 2008, Toronto

The 5th Science Centre World Congress will be held at the Ontario Science Centre in Toronto, June 15-20, 2008.

One of the things you will have seen on our website is that we are working for a Green Congress. This is impacting all of our planning. As you will already have seen, our communication with you is virtually all electronic (with the exception of our initial brochure). But there are many other aspects to hosting a green Congress. For example, all of the hotels we have selected have strong environmental policies and aggressive waste and energy reduction strategies. There will also be a carbon offset charge added to all conference registrations. We will be minimizing the use of coaches and anticipate that most of the "travel" once you arrive in Toronto will be by foot or on our public transit system.

The three sub-themes for the conference are:

• Planet Earth – Living On it, Changing It, Sustaining It: The Role of Science Centres
• Citizen Engagement – Increasing Engagement with Science and World Issues … Social Responsibility
• Role of Science Centres in the Future (Human Capital Building; Personal Well-being, Lifelong Learning)

Based on the URL, probably 5scwc would be a reasonable tag for the event.

redesign the library web site as a set of network services

The last three weeks I’ve been thinking a great deal about the role of my department in fulfilling the Libraries mission and where the department needs to go in the next 3 years. Part of getting where we want to go has been this whole site redesign process. But not in the way most of the library thinks.

...

Long term I’d like a site which has a series of web services that can be exploited by my developers but also my the university web developers and who knows who else.

...

For faculty and grad students who want to do known item searching in our catalog, maybe something like LibX is the way to go. Or maybe allowing users to create their own search interface to a set of particular resources that they can embed in their browsers search bar or on their desktop as a search widget.

Ultimately, I feel like it is these kinds of services that will make of break a library’s virtual presence not the library website.

Library Web Chic - The future of Web Services isn’t the Library website - September 16, 2007

Err, ditto.

Previously:
July 16, 2007  Library Journal netConnect - Web Services and the Social Catalogue

I don't understand Blogshares

But this press release I ran across from June amused me anyway.

Science Library Pad was the subject of much speculation when analysts at several firms were heard to be very positive about its recent performance. Its share price rose from B$176.83 to B$245.80. Much of the hype was said to originate from M Melville whose AACR2 (artefact) was said to be involved.

M Melville declined to comment on the recent speculation.

M Melville: http://blogshares.com/user.php?id=46440

PRID# 1960033 / Posted: 16:22 24 Jun 2007

Science Library Pad on Blogshares: http://blogshares.com/blogs.php?checkid=2296416

Nature says dinosaur killer came from main belt collision

Globe and Mail - Far-flung asteroid crash doomed the dinosaurs - September 6, 2007

An asteroid that is believed to have wiped out dinosaurs and other life forms after smacking into Earth 65 million years ago may have been part of a much larger asteroid involved in a massive collision about 160 million years ago.

In a paper published today in the influential science journal Nature, William Bottke and colleagues argue that a chunk of asteroid that broke off from a collision in the innermost region of the asteroid belt encountered a gravitational pull that drew it toward Earth over a period of tens of millions of years, eventually smashing into the Yucatan Peninsula, forming the Chicxulub crater and likely causing the extinction of the dinosaurs.

"It shows that events that happen far away from the Earth can still have a significant influence on essentially the biological evolution, and, to some degree, the geological evolution of the planet," said Prof. Bottke, assistant director of space studies at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo.

Although not a contributor to the paper, the Globe also spoke to Dr. M.J. Duncan, a leading Canadian researcher in the field.

Martin Duncan, a Queen's University astrophysicist, said the discovery satisfies the curiosity in humans.

"We like to know more about our past," he said. "We'd like to know more about the major events that influenced life on Earth. We'd like to know more about the current hazards and kind of the future probability of events like this."

Interesting historical sidebar: Dr. Duncan was my grad supervisor for my (unfinished) studies in asteroid orbital dynamics at Queen's.  Also the only person I know who has an asteroid named after them (although there were probably a few at SciFoo).

Martinduncan 6115 1984 SR₂ MPC 27461

Discovered 1984 September 25 by B. A. Skiff at Anderson Mesa

The journal article is

Nature 449, 48-53 (6 September 2007) | doi:10.1038/nature06070 ; Received 11 April 2007; Accepted 22 June 2007

An asteroid breakup 160 Myr ago as the probable source of the K/T impactor
William F. Bottke, David Vokrouhlický & David Nesvorný

Different lines of evidence, however, suggest that the impact flux from kilometre-sized bodies increased by at least a factor of two over the long-term average during the past approx 100 Myr. Here we argue that this apparent surge was triggered by the catastrophic disruption of the parent body of the asteroid Baptistina, which we infer was a approx 170-km-diameter body (carbonaceous-chondrite-like) that broke up 160 (+30/-20) Myr ago in the inner main asteroid belt.

Personally, I think the asteroids are much more interesting objects to study than the moon.  For one thing, the moon is unlikely to smash into the earth anytime soon.  That's why I wish that Google had taken inspiration from one of the sessions presented at SciFoo 2007, and proposed a prize for sending a robotic explorer to a near-earth asteroid, rather than the moon.  Actually, I think it would be even better to split the competition into launch vehicles and rovers.  Very few people in the world can put together a launch vehicle (at least one that doesn't explode shortly after liftoff).  But lots of teams around the world could work on hardware and software for rovers.  Are you listening, Sergey?

Lancet says eat less meat, save the world

The Lancet doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(07)61256-2

Series, Energy and Health

Food, livestock production, energy, climate change, and health
Prof Anthony J McMichael PhD, John W Powles PhD, Colin D Butler PhD and Prof Ricardo Uauy PhD

Because rapid reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions per unit of livestock production would be technically and culturally difficult in the short term, the prime objective must be to reduce consumption of animal products in high-income countries, and thus lower the ceiling consumption level to which low-income and middle-income countries would then converge.

The headline the Lancet put on the news item was "World meat consumption should be reduced by 10%: less meat means less heat".

The bloody Lancet has an elaborate registration process whereby you name your medical subspecialty and probably at some point your blood type, if you prefer to bypass such things, you can try BugMeNot.

The above article is part of a Lancet Web Focus Series on Energy and Health.

There is also accompanying audio from the 15 September 2007 issue (MP3) as well as from the press conference (MP3, not great quality) that launched the new Web Focus.

The Globe (from Agence France-Presse) reported the story as "Limits on meat eating could keep global warming at bay" on September 13, 2007.

schmappy travels

Schmap has an interesting approach to getting photos for their online travel guides: they have a nice online permissions system where they send you a message along the lines of "we'd like to use your photo with permission" and you go and click yes or no.  It's something that wouldn't have been possible without the current wealth of online content.  They've used three of my photos (with permission):

http://www.schmap.com/newyork/sights_brooklyn/#p=38513&i=38513_1.jpg

http://www.schmap.com/copenhagen/tours_tour3/#p=58898&i=58898.jpg

http://www.schmap.com/toronto/tours_tour1/#p=19510&i=19510_3.jpg

provide your input to OECD participative web conference

There will be an event "OECD-Canada Technology Foresight Forum on the Participative Web: Strategies and Policies for the Future" on October 3, 2007 in Ottawa, Canada, so in slightly under three weeks from now.  You still have time to submit your comments as well as to suggest blog links and feeds

---> Participate online <---

There will be 2 official event bloggers who will blog about the event during the meeting. One will be a representative from civil society (ICANN) and one will be from Canada.

Err, the latter would be me.  I think the blogging will be on an official OECD site rather than here.

UPDATE 2007-09-30: The blog has gone live. ENDUPDATE

The event will be webcast live as well as archived with transcripts.

There are already some videos submitted by participants, rather confusingly listed under "podcasts", which they are not.

There is an E-Science session in the programme (PDF)

Session 2 STREAM B
Research 2.0: e-Science and new ways of interaction in the science community
Chair: Walter Stewart, Walter Stewart & Associates Inc.
- Andrew Herbert, Managing Director, Microsoft Research, Cambridge, UK
- Bill St. Arnaud, Senior Director Advanced Networks, CANARIE Inc.
- Daniel Atkins, Director, Office of Cyberinfrastructure, National Science Foundation
- Ulf Dahlsten, Director for "Emerging Technologies and Infrastructures", Information Society and Media Directorate-General, European Commission

Check out

http://www.oecd.org/futureinternet/participativeweb

for more information.

I also created an Upcoming event and Google calendar entry and am suggesting the tag oecdwebforum2007

Bill St. Arnaud also provided a pointer a while back to the OECD report on this topic

OECD, 12-April-2007, Working Party on the Information Economy - PARTICIPATIVE WEB: USER-CREATED CONTENT (PDF, 888KB)

UPDATE 2007-09-14: I have made a Google Earth KMZ for the conference venue and hotels where the organisers have arranged room availability.  You can also view it in Google Maps.  I have indicated the location of Canada's Parliament as well.  It may be the only Parliament in the world where you can sometimes see people playing frisbee on the front lawn.  Note: Don't confuse the Government Conference Centre venue (the old Ottawa Union Station) with the Ottawa Congress Centre, located a block away.  Also note in some cases Google is not showing proper street names for downtown Ottawa at the moment.

Download OECD-ParticipativeWebForum.kmz

View Larger Map

search hits are the lowest form of humour

Sorry to whomever was searching, but I can't resist sharing this item from my web hits

*.iii.com (Innovative Interfaces Inc)
California, Oakland, United States, 0 returning visits

Date    Time    WebPage
10th September 2007    21:12:40    www.google.com/search?q=opac is dead

my top blogs as measured by Bloglines saved items

I was reading the "top three" discussion, I'm not sure how I would pick mine, but I saw this comment

6. Emily C Says:
   September 7th, 2007 at 2:28 pm

   So I picked the three library blogs that had the most saved entries in my aggregator right now. Seemed like a good criteria.

I'm not sure exactly what this measures, since it depends on how long the blog has been in my aggregator, how often they post, and many other factors, but for what it's worth, in no particular order, here are my 5

panlibus (69)
Stephen's Lighthouse (62)
LibrarianInBlack (92)
The Ten Thousand Year Blog (51)
Open Access News (154)

old men are saving your life

Well, the Globe puts it rather more dramatically...

Viva dirty old men

Most members of the animal kingdom, male and female, die at the end of their fertile years - "the wall of death," Prof. Gurven and his colleagues call it in a study published in the journal PLoS ONE. Humans somehow tore down this wall long ago. ...  "Even a tiny fraction of men having babies in their later years has a strong effect on delaying mortality," said Cedric Puleston

Err, well it's not exactly the men having the babies, but you get the idea.

Globe and Mail - Social Studies

Tuljapurkar SD, Puleston CO, Gurven MD (2007) Why Men Matter: Mating Patterns Drive Evolution of Human Lifespan. PLoS ONE 2(8): e785. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0000785

schoolteacher's balloon photographs edge of the earth

While surfing the net two years ago, the 41-year-old Albertan came across some visually stunning photographs of the Earth from way, way up that a man from California had captured in the 1990s, all with a big balloon and a "regular old" camera.

Mr. Rafaat's imagination soared.

...

Using a Kaysam weather balloon (bought as part of six-pack from New Jersey), a used Nikon Coolpix P2 digital camera purchased off eBay, and a global positioning system tracking device, Mr. Rafaat and two of his balloon-enthusiast friends, Barry Sloan and James Ewen, released SABLE-3 (Southern Alberta Balloon Launch Experiment) at 9:31 a.m. on Aug. 11. The camera - set to take photos at one-minute intervals - and the GPS were put into a Styrofoam box. That payload, built by Mr. Rafaat's Grade 7 science class, was affixed to a parachute, the parachute to the helium-filled balloon.

Globe and Mail - A view from the stratosphere - September 5, 2007

SABLE-3 (Note: site is slow)

For electronics they're using a Byonics Micro-Trak 300 transmitter (it's not a data logger).  Presumably attached to one of the Byonics GPS modules.  UPDATE 2007-11-10: In the comments they indicate the GPS is from SparkFun.

Craig Venter's complete genome sequenced

It's not often that a science story makes the front page of the paper, let alone above the fold and over half of the page.  So it was interesting to see the Globe today

researchers from Canada, the United States and Spain have decoded all 46 of the chromosomes belonging to J. Craig Venter, the 60-year-old upstart American biologist whose company, Celera Genomics, compiled the private version of the human genome seven years ago. And the results indicate that those first celebrated DNA maps seriously underestimated the genetic diversity of humans - by a factor of at least five.

The new work suggests that the genetic code in the chromosomes we carry can vary widely, not only between any two strangers waiting at a bus stop, but between brothers and sisters.

"The biggest single surprise is how much we missed the boat with the human genome seven years ago, and how different we really are," Dr. Venter said in an interview. "The overwhelming message back then was that we are all like identical clones of each other. ... It's comforting to know we are more unique than that."

The findings, released today in PLoS Biology, a free, online scientific journal, give researchers a trove of new targets when hunting for genetic traits that contribute to disease. They also fuel hopes that people could one day learn from their codes which drugs best suit them, or what ills might befall them and take steps to prevent them.

This human's life, decoded

As it says, it's published in PLoS Bio, so anyone can read it.

Levy S, Sutton G, Ng PC, Feuk L, Halpern AL, et al. (2007) The Diploid Genome Sequence of an Individual Human. PLoS Biol 5(10): e254 doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0050254

Presented here is a genome sequence of an individual human. It was produced from ∼32 million random DNA fragments, sequenced by Sanger dideoxy technology and assembled into 4,528 scaffolds, comprising 2,810 million bases (Mb) of contiguous sequence with approximately 7.5-fold coverage for any given region.

discussion of open science - SciFoo Lives On - 20070904

I did an informal presentation as part of this week's SciFoo Lives On in Second Life, about definitions of open science.  Here's a snapshot followed by a transcript of what I said (my avatar is Rakerman Yellowjacket)

[9:17]  Horace Moody: Richard, would you like to say a few words before Bill?
[9:17]  Rakerman Yellowjacket: sure
[9:17]  Rakerman Yellowjacket: let me run some ideas up the virtual flagpole, as it were
[9:17]  Vidal Loon: I personally think that these tools and much more can be weaved together to make a real "office" type of setup for the scientist to keep tabs on the info and have it available for other.
[9:17]  Rakerman Yellowjacket: my perspective comes from software engineering and enterprise architecture
[9:17]  Rakerman Yellowjacket: both of which have big aspects of technology planning based on requirements gathering
[9:18]  Vidal Loon: there are just so many tools available to juggle data nowadays. it's a question of knitting them all together.
[9:18]  CW Underwood: VL: as long as each module stands alone and doesn't lock anyone into anything, that's a great idea (don't like the idea of Office as model though...)
[9:18]  WhiteWizard Chemistry: Agrees with Rakerman
[9:18]  Rakerman Yellowjacket: so when I saw the discussions at SciFoo I thought it would be useful to apply that kind of thinking, to systematise the discussion
[9:19]  Rakerman Yellowjacket: I found a lot of things were getting mixed together - desire for speedy publication, desire for recognition for grants/tenure/post-doc, and issues with the current scholarly communication system
[9:19]  Rakerman Yellowjacket: so i think the key is to focus on what problem you're trying to solve
[9:19]  Rakerman Yellowjacket: To me, when I hear the core of the discussions about open science
[9:19]  Rakerman Yellowjacket: it's about making better *science* through collaboration and open sharing
[9:20]  CW Underwood: better science, yep
[9:20]  Rakerman Yellowjacket: that is quite different from some of the goals of open access, which address availability of science later on
[9:20]  Rakerman Yellowjacket: so I would suggest focusing around the aspect of making better science happen through open communication
[9:21]  Rakerman Yellowjacket: then that leads to a clearer discussion of the kinds of tools that would support that
[9:21]  Rakerman Yellowjacket: we have already seen a good discussion about using wikis
[9:21]  Rakerman Yellowjacket: from a library perspective, I think one of the most useful aspects is to preserve more of the scientific work from the get-go
[9:21]  Horace Moody: yes Richard is right - first and foremost get the science done then worry about technology
[9:22]  Rakerman Yellowjacket: often today data and failed experiments are lost from the record, even if they had some original ditgital format
[9:22]  Rakerman Yellowjacket: we don't want the current science work to be a digital dark age when seen from the future
[9:22]  WhiteWizard Chemistry: Scientists should worry about the science ... someone else should (working with the scientists) think about the technology that makes lives easier for scientists
[9:22]  Rakerman Yellowjacket: I see some positive developments in terms of science communication
[9:23]  Rakerman Yellowjacket: one example is eSciDoc, a project in Germany to develop end-to-end communication - from lab notebook to publication and beyond
[9:23]  Rakerman Yellowjacket: http://www.escidoc-project.de/homepage.html
[9:23]  Horace Moody: As long as authors retain copyright - they don't have to worry about re-formatting their work :)
[9:23]  Rakerman Yellowjacket: I also think Fedora Commons presents a lot of opportunities in this area
[9:23]  Rakerman Yellowjacket: http://www.fedora-commons.org/
[9:24]  Rakerman Yellowjacket: as a mostly-technology guy these days, I'm interseted in gathering the best requirements so that the tools support the real goals!
[9:24]  Horace Moody: have you looked at the escidoc richard?
[9:24]  Rakerman Yellowjacket: So I agree with WhiteWizard
[9:24]  Rakerman Yellowjacket: What I'm concerned about is if we're not careful, often we end up with closed systems - like Facebook, or even Blackboard and WebCT
[9:25]  Rakerman Yellowjacket: Horace I have seen the eSciDoc people present, I think they're doing great work
[9:25]  Horace Moody: I think redundancy is a way to safeguard getting locked in
[9:25]  Horace Moody: is their work open to anyone
[9:25]  Duriel Akula: I would not mind to have a company making a profit with such a system
[9:25]  Duriel Akula: as long as the data was open to anyone
[9:25]  WhiteWizard Chemistry: and examples like Aordpress/Automattic provide excellent examples for profitable open source platforms
[9:26]  Rakerman Yellowjacket: as far as I know, they plan to share the Scholarly Workbench once it is developed
[9:26]  WhiteWizard Chemistry: oope Wordpress
[9:26]  Horace Moody: the company interface is interesting - for example ChemSpider
[9:26]  CW Underwood: I don't mind who makes what money, but I'd like to see the software on SourceForge...
[9:26]  Horace Moody: is a company but giving out database for free
[9:27]  Rakerman Yellowjacket: I think there are lots of different models, the main goal is that the information should be open to improve science collaboration and preservation
[9:27]  WhiteWizard Chemistry: There are models oand made available to other developers to build on top of
[9:27]  Rakerman Yellowjacket: Horace, do you want to move to Bill's presentation now?
[9:28]  Horace Moody: sure

Berci also liveblogged the session.

Does anyone know exactly what the availability of the eSciDoc Scholarly Workbench will be?  I'll have to contact them.

Previously:
August 27, 2007  Medicine 2.0
September 22, 2006  ECDL 2006 - DLSci06 - eSciDoc
September 27, 2005  Info Grid 2005 - Tuesday 27th, 09:45 - Rebuilding Information Services for the Digital Age

CIHR Policy on Access to Research Outputs approved

The CIHR Policy on Access to Research Outputs was recently approved by the CIHR Governing Council.  As a publicly-funded agency, CIHR has a fundamental interest in ensuring that research results are available to the widest possible audience and at the earliest possible opportunity in order to maximize the utility and impact of the research it funds.  This policy aims to increase the diffusion of research publications supported by CIHR, while respecting the freedom of researchers to publish where they deem their research will have its greatest impact. 

...

This policy applies to all grants awarded January 1, 2008 and onward, which have received funding in whole or in part from CIHR. While not required, researchers holding grants that were awarded prior to January 1, 2008 are encouraged to adhere to the requirements of this policy.

...

For now, CIHR has decided to limit this policy to peer-reviewed journal publications and publication-related biomedical research data, which is typically deposited into public databases as a condition of publication. CIHR is committed to improving access to research outputs and will explore broadening the policy to include research materials and other research data in the future.

...

• Grant recipients are now required to make every effort to ensure that their peer-reviewed publications are freely accessible through the Publisher's website (Option #1) or an online repository as soon as possible and in any event within six months of publication (Option #2).

• Under the second option, grant recipients must archive the final peer-reviewed full-text manuscripts immediately upon publication in a digital archive, such as PubMed Central or the grantees institutional repository. Publications must be freely accessible within six months of publication, where allowable and in accordance with publisher policies. Grant recipients may use the SHERPA/RoMEO database to locate summaries of publisher copyright policies. The SHERPA/RoMEO database will help grant recipients determine which journals allow authors to retain copyright and/or allow authors to archive journal publications in accordance with funding agency policies. However, CIHR recommends confirming with editorial staff whether archiving the postprint immediately, and making it freely accessible within six months, is permissible.

• Grant recipients may also wish to submit their manuscripts to a journal that provides immediate open access to published articles (if a suitable journal exists). CIHR considers the cost of publishing in open access journals to be an eligible expense under the Use of Grant Funds.

Access to Research Outputs - Modified: 2007-09-04 - Accessed: 2007-09-04
Policy on Access to Research Outputs - September 2007

Disclosure: CISTI is far from a disinterested observer in this development, but as always, if you want any kind of statement about anything CISTI is doing, please contact CISTI Communications, not me.

Previously:
July 21, 2007  Globe and Mail on Open Access
November 29, 2006  CARL and SPARC respond positively to CIHR draft research access policy
October 13, 2006  Institutional Repositories - David Moorman SSHRC

Also see other postings in my Open Access category.

Charles Simonyi in Technology Review

I must admit that even though there were a remarkable number of famous and extremely accomplished people at SciFoo, I had the benefit of not knowing who most of them were.  You might think this is a rather odd perspective, not least of which because I'm usually the last person to laud the benefits of being ill-informed, but it made it much easier to sit across from Eva Vertes and have a conversation without knowing in advance that she's a super-genius cancer researcher.

Anyhoo, I found this profile of Charles Simonyi in Technology Review interesting, I didn't know about his foundational involvement with Microsoft Office, and his new project to create a new type of programming environment, intentional software.  It might have been interesting to hear a question like "how was it like going back to Russia to train for your spaceflight after having left Hungary all those many years ago" rather than some the questions that were asked (e.g. "how does it smell in space").

bulk buy of Globalsat DG-100 in Canada

B. Mann's GPS purchasing plan continues, so if you're a Canadian wanting to get a GPS logger, you might want to check it out.

Good news! I've been in touch with Corey Leach of Expansys / Mobile Planet, and he's agreed to help out with both a bulk buy and with getting a loaner unit out to the Chief Babelhead for the open source GPS Babel project

...

Corey Leach has suggested that the easiest way to make sure we get the discount applied is for everyone who is interested in purchasing to email him directly. We'll wait a couple of days to see if you get above 10 buyers, and then apply the discount and it will get shipped to everyone directly.

bmann's blog - Bulk buy of Globalsat DG100-GPS through Expansys - August 31, 2007

See GPS loggers and Macs: why can't we all get along? and dg-100 gps logger review and comparison for background information.

Alvin Toffler interviewed by Allen Gregg

ALVIN TOFFLER
Future Shock. The Third Wave. Two classics that revolutionized the way we think about our rapidly changing world. They established Alvin Toffler as one of the world's most influential futurists. In his new book, Toffler once again takes us back to the future. It's called Revolutionary Wealth: How it will be Created and How it will Change our Lives.

Web Exclusive Preview: Allan Gregg in Conversation with Alvin Toffler

Allen Gregg in Conversation (on TVO) - August 31, 2007

Note: a lot of the links on the TVO site won't work if you have cookies turned off.

Previously:
October 1, 2006  Alvin Toffler on Big Ideas