The 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to two researchers to honor their work studying a family of receptors in the body now known as G protein-coupled receptors. The research of Robert Lefkowitz and Brian Kobilka not only helped confirm the existence of these important receptors but also shed light on their structure and function. Increased knowledge of how G protein-coupled receptors work allows drug therapies to become more targeted and, thus, more effective.

Millions of tons of increasingly scarce small pelagic fish that could be directly consumed as inexpensive high-quality protein have been diverted to rendering plants for fish oil and fishmeal to sustain the aquaculture of expensive fish in more prosperous countries. Critics argue that this imperils the food security of the poor people in developing countries off whose coasts the fish are often caught. However, others assert that the actual demand for these small fish for the dinner table is slight and that plant or by-product-based pellets are increasingly substituting for all or part of the fish feed. The latter trend may allow for closely monitored catches of small pelagics during the transition to sustain continuing growth and high levels of employment in aquaculture.

The life and work of Ralph Steinman (1943–2011), one of the winners of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology, is outlined. Particularly featured are his extraordinary role in elucidating the function of dendritic cells in adaptive immunity, his devotion to sustaining the prestige of the Journal of Experimental Medicine, and the over 70,000 citations to his work made by his colleagues worldwide over the course of his career.

“Don't ever try to be a scientist or engineer!” Had John Bennett Fenn listened to this advice given by his ninth-grade teacher, he might not have gone on to pursue a career in analytical chemistry that would culminate in the attainment of the Nobel Prize in 2002. Gathered from interviews, publication analyses, glowing tributes, and his reminiscences, this article outlines the academic and professional life of John Bennett Fenn from childhood through the end of his career in 2010.

Competency in science information literacy is an objective of most undergraduate biology programs and increasingly important in freshman introductory courses. We implemented a controlled study to test the efficacy of a single, information literacy lesson at the beginning of the semester in an introductory biology laboratory course with embedded writing components. We examined effects of this pedagogical manipulation by comparing laboratory sections that received the lesson with those that did not. We found that skills related to the identification of primary or secondary sources and use of proper citation format were higher in those sections that received a single literacy lesson in the semester-long course. Additionally, one year after the course, students who completed the course showed better mastery of information literacy skills compared to students who did not take the laboratory course. We used results from this controlled study to inform curriculum content decisions in our introductory biology course sequence.

An online tutorial for SciFinder, the premier database for searching the chemical literature, was created by a team consisting of the science librarian, the systems librarian, and a chemistry professor at Rider University using Adobe Captivate 4 software. It was then used by two sections of an Organic Chemistry class during the spring 2010 semester. Traditionally, the science librarian has demonstrated this resource in a single, twenty- to thirty-minute session during class time. However, time constraints pose numerous obstacles for direct library instruction, allowing no time for hands-on practice afterward. The online tutorial for SciFinder was designed to teach students how to search for relevant, scholarly articles, and how to retrieve these articles from the university library or those of neighboring institutions, obviating the need for the customary classroom instruction that taught those skills. To encourage the students to follow the tutorial and develop their SciFinder skills, they were further required to write a research report on a named chemical reaction. Based on the results of review questions assessing student search skills and feedback from students, the first generation of the tutorial was demonstrably successful, and is currently undergoing modifications for future application in a multitude of advanced chemistry courses.

When text messaging and blogging meet, sci‐tech libraries win. Micro‐blogs are social networks for broadcasting news that have a very short character limit in the vein of text messaging. Increasing...

SUMMARY The purpose of this paper is to prepare the reader conceptually and technically to be able to critically read literature that refers to statistically developed results. This article is not intended as a tutorial on how to perform statistical tests but rather an overview of basic definitions and concepts in the context of the research process and library decision making.

The computer science department of the Baskin School of Engineering at the University of California, Santa Cruz developed a new Computer Game Design degree program, and asked the Science & Engineering (S&E) Library to create a collection of video games and a video game lab within the library to support it. Creating partnerships within the campus community and supporting undergraduate curriculum is a vital component of the S&E Library mission. In addition, this was a further opportunity to continue making the library relevant to faculty, administration, and students in this ever increasingly digitized and online world. Working with faculty in the computer science department was a unique opportunity to create a special collection, which only a few academic libraries and museums have currently undertaken. A pilot project culminated in the creation of a video game lab and a core collection of 15 games. A follow-up project was then undertaken to determine whether or not the library could accommodate 1,600–2,400 copies of Sony Playstation games, which resulted in a proposal submitted to Sony Corporation to sponsor the acquisition.