Rowland Institute Library Blog

Jorge Hirsch from UCSD has come up with a factor called the h-index,
which takes into account the number of papers published by a scientist
and the number of citations for each paper.   Thus, a
scientist with an h-index of 10 would have published 10 papers that
have been cited at least ten times.  Hirsch says this is a more
accurate way of considering the output of individual scientists. 

Rowland’s Complex Fluids group, which uses cells such as viruses and
bacterial flagella to study physics, has published a paper on the
behavior of a rod-like virus, fd, in solution. 

In the outer solar system, astronomers have detected a planet bigger than Pluto.  See also an article from Sky and Telescope.

Evidently, August 12, at around 2 AM is the best time for viewing the meteor shower, with Mars thrown in. 

A Boston Globe article reports on the apparent success of PLOS Biology,
an open access journal which had the highest impact factor among
general biology journals.  (source; Open Access News)

PhysicsWeb reports on Harvard’s Whitesides group’s observations of
bacteria and how they swim counter-clockwise next to a solid
surface.  The article mentions Rowland’s Howard Berg and his
experiments observing counter-clockwise motion of bacteria in the
1970s. 

In a paper published in Nature, titled “Escherichia coli swim on the right side.” (Harvard readers follow this link)

Harvard readers follow this link. 

The Rowland Institute announced the hiring of two new Junior Fellows,
Andrew Speck and Ozgur Sahin.  They will start setting up their
labs this fall.  Junior Fellows are appointed by the Institute for
five years, time enough to start up a lab and do some
experiments.   Fellows also can hire a postdoc and a
technician.  The Institute hires an average of two fellows a
year. 

An article in PLOS Biology includes a table guiding one through
negotiating scientific collaborations, including questions of
publication and data access.