• Key
• Strong Points
• Weak Points
• Ratings
• Excellent
• Very Good
• Good

• Organization
• Limited species in some databases
• Rating

• ImMunoGeneTics Database
• www.ebi.ac.uk/imgt
• I know a number of people who curse their immune systems whenever they get sick, yet I wonder how many of them appreciate the fact that without an immune system, they wouldn’t last long at all. Our immune systems are truly amazing, and this fact is made quite clear when exploring the offerings of the ImMunoGeneTics project. This site offers a collection of databases of T-cell receptors, immunoglobulins, and the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) of vertebrate species. There are sequence alignments tools for immunoglobulin and T-cell receptor sequences, though only for a few species such as human, mouse, cow, and sheep. The human MHC (referred to as HLA) database includes an allele ethnicity tool, which allows one to access the reported ethnicity of the individuals whose allele sequences are included in the database. There are many tools on this site, which is well organized and easy to maneuver. So, take advantage…and don’t forget to thank your immune system every once in a while!

• Good links, interesting information
• Nothing significant
• Rating

• PombeNet
• www-rcf.usc.edu/~forsburg/index.html
• This site would attract more visitors—or at least a different audience—if its title was translated from its Swahili roots. In that case it would read as “BeerNet.” In actuality, this site is about the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe, which was originally isolated from millet beer in Africa. The PombeNet, hosted by the Forsburg Lab at the University of Southern California, offers a great “Pombe FAQ” page that includes general information about the yeast, protocols, links for sequence analysis, and a list of other pombe websites. There are also lists of pombe conferences and researchers who work with pombe. However, one has to appreciate the inclusion of answers to the really important questions: Can you make beer with S. pombe? What about bread? (Answers: There were disappointing results for the beer endeavor, and the bread was good, but it didn’t rise as well as when made with traditional yeast.)

• Organization, types of documents available
• Limited number of sources, some documents not translated to English
• Rating

• Scitopia.org
• www.scitopia.org/scitopia/search.html
• For research scientists, PubMed is as essential as oxygen—a necessary portal to the publications of others. Yet, probably fewer people are aware of the search portal Scitopia.org, which, similar in some respects to PubMed, offers unique advantages and resources of its own. Queries are searched against 24 sources, 18 scientific society sources and 6 government information sources. Abstracts from society documents are free to read, but the article itself must be purchased unless one is a member of that particular society (much like the system employed by PubMed and its various journals). Particularly useful on this site are the other two types of search results: patents and government documents. Complete patents from the U.S., European, and Japanese patent offices are downloadable, although a warning—the Japanese patents are only written in Japanese. The “government documents” category seems only inclusive of the U.S., but perhaps that will change in the future. Across all categories, results can be clustered by subtopic or author. The site is nicely organized, easy to maneuver, and contains pertinent information from a variety of sources.

• Reader-friendly, good organization
• None
• Rating

• SpectroscopyNOW.com
• www.SpectroscopyNOW.com

• Perhaps you’ve been meaning to read about the latest advances in the field of spectroscopy, but you’ve been dragging your feet. Well, there’s no time like the present, so you might as well take a look at this site NOW. SpectroscopyNOW.com is an excellent site, covering the entire spectrum of spectroscopy. From Atomic to X-ray, information is organized according to technique and divided into four categories: News, Education, Links, and the site’s own Ezine. The information presented on this site is timely and useful for ardent spectroscopists, as well as anyone looking to brush-up on their NMR or Raman (no, not what you ate while in college). In addition to the technique-specific information, there are also general resources, including job postings, podcasts, and a conference schedule. Some of the material on the site requires you to log in, but registration is free and painless.

• Useful information
• Hopefully more incidents will be reported
• Rating

• UK Chemical Reaction Hazards Forum
• www.crhf.org.uk/index.html
• Thank goodness for science ditties to help us remember our lab safety protocols. Perhaps you’ve found yourself preparing to add water to concentrated acid, yet you suddenly worry that you have it backwards. Calmly, you think to yourself, “Do as you oughta, add acid to water.” Phew—you avoided disaster there. While there aren’t chemistry jingles for every lab hazard, tales of the ensuing lab disasters have been compiled by a group of safety professionals from the UK chemical and pharmaceutical industry for our benefit. This site regales readers with recounts of unstable epoxide polymerizations, mechanical failures, and malfunctions in the laboratory with the purpose of hopefully avoiding similar mishaps in the future. The website also provides links to other lab safety and accident investigation resources, as well as software to calculate heats of reactions. All in all, the currently reported 152 incidents comprise a useful “how-not-to-do” lab manual for scientists.

• Large collection of photos, description
• Written descriptions not yet linked to the photos
• Rating

• What’s This Caterpillar?
• www.whatsthiscaterpillar.co.uk
• Here’s a site with a title fit for a television game show. (Watch out, Jeopardy!) The title also succinctly describes the services offered by the website: written descriptions and photos to help the curious observer identify caterpillars that have been seen. This page specifically hosts species in Britain and Europe (over 800 of them), but there is also a link to the sister site, “What’s This North American Caterpillar?” For both sites, one can browse through photo galleries based on generic descriptions like “hairy/spiny”, or one can peruse the descriptions of species within each scientific family. There is, unfortunately, a disconnect between the photos and the written descriptions, but the little camera icon on the right-hand side of the page tells me that connecting the two is a work in progress. In addition to the caterpillar identification tools, there is also a “glossary and structure of caterpillars” page and a caterpillar identity forum.

*The opinions expressed are solely those of the author(s) and should not be construed as reflecting the viewpoints of the publisher, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., the publishing house, or employees and affiliates thereof.