Updates from September, 2011 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • nelas 10:00 on 2011/09/12 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , vertebrados   

    Turtles, embryos, and fossils 

    Tartaruga

    Never thought I would post a vertebrate on this website… but having shoulders inside the rib cage made me make an exception, poor guys. I wrote a text about the development and evolution of the turtle shell at The Node. It shows the beginning of shell formation in embryos and how this can help us understand the evolution of such unique body pattern. 3D animations and fossils are included:

    Turtles in a nutshell

    [photo by Algy3289]

     
  • nelas 16:46 on 2011/06/25 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: api, diversidade, django, mendeley, python, referências bibliográficas, taxonomia   

    Living bibliography 

    On a Saturday morning a few weeks ago I bumped into the Hack4Knowledge, a meeting to build apps, tools and remixes with existing databases to innovate and enrich the creation and dissemination of knowledge.

    I was already playing with Mendeley API and took the opportunity to put an idea into practice: aggregate bibliographic references related to a taxon. It is not a particularly new idea, and it also does not differ much from searching a taxon name on google or scopus, but since Mendeley database is based on its users’ collections, it is possible to extract some interesting information. For example, find out which articles are more popular ou create trending topics with popular taxa based on the number of readers and related publications.

    Living Bibliography Home Page

    Living Bibliography home page

    Regardless of the source, article data also allows to extract useful information such as the most active authors on a certain taxon, network of collaborators, annual variation in the number of related articles, popular research topics for each group, etc. Integrating the data and using visualization tools it would be possible to “see” holes in the knowledge or follow the history of one’s research.

    Imagine if every article was freely available with contained information (metadata) about the studied organisms with taxonomic classification, occurrence data, collection sites, dna sequences, citations with semantic markup, research topics, hypotheses to test, methods, raw data, etc. Anyone would be able to have a summary of the current knowledge about an organism. Specially interesting to set research quidelines and avoid spending money with the same mistakes; optimization of science. And do not forget about the possibility to attach observations, annotations, discussions, unsolved questions, and other collaborative activities.

    Well, after creating a prototype of the idea, I have just pust the basic functions of the aggregator to work. Nothing I wrote above is included, just a search interface where you can use a scientific or common name and a page for each taxon with a list of related references and some sorting options. If a taxon is not in the database, it searches in realtimes, therefore, it is necessary to wait a little and reload the page (at least until I automate this).

    Living Bibliography Taxon Page

    Living Bibliography taxon page

    If you are interested you can test the Living Bibliography at livingbib.organelas.com. Just remember it is completely experimental, I do not garantee that your favorite articles will appear or that the information will be accurate (there are many duplicated articles, wrong author names, badly formatted titles, swapped journal names, and so on at Mendeley). I don’t know how much I’ll be able to work on it, but the source code is open and I would love to hear ideas and suggestions :)

     
  • nelas 22:13 on 2011/04/22 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: confocal, , thenode   

    Embrião de lula 

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    Media_httpthenodebiol_gqryb

    Imagem fabulosa de um embrião de lula! Os núcleos da células estão em azul, sistema nervoso em rosa e cílios de células epiteliais em verde. O globo do lado esquerdo é o saco de vitelo e o cifão já está formadinho.

    A imagem foi tirada durante o curso de embriologia de Woods Hole e é uma das candidatas para a capa da revista científica Development. A votação está aberta para quem quiser (clique no link acima).

     
  • nelas 1:45 on 2011/02/24 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , ,   

    Plankton Chronicles 

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    Vídeos bem bacanas mostrando seres planctônicos, embriões e larvas marinhas na série Plankton Chronicles (crônicas do plâncton) feita pelo pessoal da Tara Expéditions:

    (More …)

     
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