Here are the new URLs for our RSS feeds. We offer feeds for both ResourceShelf and DocuTicker. Make sure to check your aggregator to see if these are the URLs you’re using to receive the latest from both sites. Thanks!

• ResourceShelf: http://www.resourceshelf.com/feed/
• DocuTicker: http://www.docuticker.com/?feed=rss2

Bill Slawski and the others at Search Engine Land do a great job of covering newly awarded and/or recently published patents apps. It’s a must to monitor. Of course, we’ve been tracking patents and patent apps on RS for a long time and every now and then we still like to take a look at the USPTO dbase. In the past few weeks we’ve noticed a bunch of interesting Published Patent APPLICATIONS (not awarded patents) from Microsoft.

+ Advertising keyword cross-selling

+ Inferred relationships from user tagged content

+ Factoid-based searching

+ Power filter for online listing service

+ Context-based key phrase discovery and similarity measurement utilizing search engine query logs

+ Search By Document Type And Relevance

+ Search By Document Type

and on a Yahoo patent note…A month ago, Yahoo had a patent application published for tagging/Del.icio.us) technology.

As you’ll see, Del.icio.us founder, Joshua Schachter, is listed as a co-inventor.

Patent Title: Method and apparatus for tagging data
Inventors: Joshua Schachter (Mountain View, CA); Albert Wenger; (Scarsdale, NY)
The application was filed with the USPTO on October 25, 2006. Yahoo acquired Del.icio.us on December 9, 2005.

Worth noting that this application “is a continuation-in-part of U.S. applications” entitled “System And Method For Selecting Advertising” by J. Schachter, et al. filed Sep. 20, 2005.
Published March 22, 2007.

and

System And Method For Selecting Advertising In A Social Bookmarking System” by J. Schachter, et al. filed Nov. 14, 2005.
Published March 22, 2007

Source: USPTO

From the CLA Digest:

CLA Executive Council has approved some recommendations from the Open Access Task Force that move CLA towards providing virtually all of its intellectual property free of charge, in digital form,online and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. The revised policy has four parts:

* CLA will provide for full and immediate open access for all CLA publications, with the exception of Feliciter and monographs The embargo period for Feliciter is one issue, and the embargo policy itself will be reviewed after one year. Monographs will be considered for open accesspublishing on a case-by-case basis.
* CLA actively encourages its members to self-archive in institutional and/or disciplinary repositories and will investigate a partnership with E-LIS, the Open Archive for Library and Information Studies.
* CLA will generally provide for the author’s retention of copyright by employing Creative Commons licensing or publisher-author agreements that promote open access.
* CLA will continue its long-standing policy of accessibility to virtually all CLA information except for narrowly defined confidential matters (e.g. certain personnel or legal matters).

The full text of Open Access and CLA Publications is online.
23 pages; PDF.

Source: CLA Digest

Posted 29 June 2007 on DocuTicker:
+ World Wealth Report 2007 (Capgemini U.S.)
+ Annual Energy Review 2006 (Energy Information Administration)
+ Temperature, temperature extremes, and mortality: a study of acclimatisation and effect modification in 50 US cities (Occupational and Environmental Medicine)

Michael Hart, the founder of Project Gutenberg (some 36 years ago, who says book digitization is new) sends along a note that Project Gutenberg Canada will go live on Canada Day, this coming Sunday.

He writes:

The twin missions of Project Gutenberg Canada are to promote and make available, free of charge:

CANADIAN BOOKS
- Canadian literature (in both of Canada’s official languages)
- non-fiction books on Canadian history, politics, and culture

INTERNATIONAL BOOKS
- fiction and non-fiction (from all countries) which are in the Canadian public domain
- in any language, as is appropriate for a country with Canada’s multicultural makeup

He adds:

Gutenberg Canada’s inauguration will consist of not less than a dozen new ebooks, including

- novels
- children’s books
- autobiographies
- a chess treatise

But the site already includes around 200 titles by such famous

Canadian authors as Emily Carr, Frederick Philip Grove, Louis Hémon, Pauline Johnson, Stephen Leacock, Nellie McClung, and L. M. Montgomery of “Anne of Green Gables” fame.

For more info about Project Gutenberg Canada contact: Mark Akrigg

See Also: Second Annual World ebook Fair Begins Next Week
Nearly 750,000 full text books available for downloading at no charge. That’s right, free!

Now Available from GPOAccess: George W. Bush Public Papers - 2003 Book II
Book 1 contained material from January 1 to June 30, 2003. You can browse all George W. Bush papers from 2001-2003 here.

You can also keyword search all papers from 1991-2003 using this interface. Browsing is also available.

Learn More About the Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States
From the document:

The Public Papers of the Presidents, which is compiled and published by the Office of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records Administration, began in 1957 in response to a recommendation of the National Historical Publications Commission. Noting the lack of uniform compilations of messages and papers of the Presidents before this time, the Commission recommended the establishment of an official series in which Presidential writings, addresses, and remarks of a public nature could be made available.

Each Public Papers volume contains the papers and speeches of the President of the United States that were issued by the Office of the Press Secretary during the specified time period. The material is presented in chronological order, and the dates shown in the headings are the dates of the documents or events. In instances when the release date differs from the date of the document itself, that fact is shown in the textnote.

Source: GPO

+ Britannica Launches Global Reference Center Web Site
Direct to site at http://global.eb.com.

+ MIT Libraries Launches New Virtual Reference Collection (Beta)

+ Multimedia Search: eZanga and Pixsy Announce Deal

+ In the Past Month Two Pages from LC’s Manuscript Division Reading Room Web Site Have Been Updated
++ Manuscript Division Finding Aids Online
++ Guide to Using the Collections

+ Real-Time and Predictive Traffic Info Comes to Telmap via Inrix
See Also: Learn More About Telmap and Inrix

Congressional Panel Favors Access to Publicly Funded Research
From the news release:

Public access to NIH-funded research took a major step forward this week with Senate Appropriations Committee agreement to direct the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to require that its funded research be made publicly available on the Internet.

This milestone was immediately praised by the Alliance for Taxpayer Access (ATA), a coalition of patient groups, researchers, consumers, and libraries that has long called for such a step.

“The momentum is real and Congress understands the public’s interest,” said Heather Joseph, Executive Director of SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, an ATA founding member).

Source: ATA

AOL Introduces New Mail and Instant Messaging Products
From the news release:

AOL announced today that it has released the first free, Web-based e-mail service with full AIM integration into beta, http://beta.aol.com/webmail, which lets users simultaneously e-mail and IM from the same application using the most popular instant messaging service in the U.S. AOL has also launched the new AIM WIMZI Widget (http://wimzi.aim.com), allowing bloggers, website owners and consumers with social networking profiles to instant message easily and privately with site visitors.

+ Government Docs: New Members Named To Depository Library Council (via GPO)

+ Is Endeca the Next Google (via News.com)
Note: If you are going to include Endeca you have to also include Siderean. Bottom Line? Those of you who have been looking at our blog since the early days know that we are big fans of faceted “searching/browsing.”
See Also: Siderean is being used at LII.org, TheGateway.org, and Environmental Health News
See Also: Endeca is being used at North Carolina State University as their library catalog.

+ Walt Mossberg of the Wall St. Journal Reviews Ask.com* (via WSJ)
*Gary is Director of Online Resources at Ask and wrote a detailed overview of Ask 3D (what Mossberg writes about) the day it launched. He also added a few comments (about Ask, Exalead, and Clusty) in this post (first item) about web search brands.

It’s quite likely that many of you are familiar with NOAA Weather Radio from the National Weather Service. For those of you who aren’t, NOAA offers weather forecasts, hourly temperature info, watches/warnings any other weather related info for cities/metro areas around the country.

Now, many of these local stations are streaming their content on the Internet. All you need is RealPlayer. If you have a mobile device/phone with streaming capabilities (MP3), these reports can also be delivered on mobile devices. Many of these streams are made available by third parties like universities and Weather Underground.

Those of you outside of the U.S. who have an interest in meteorology can also listen in.

Here’s a list of stations (organized by state) where streaming audio is available. More stations can be found here.

Remember, not every station is streaming live on the web. Here’s a map that offers info about all NOAA Weather Radio stations.

Also, via RSS, you can be notified of new/updated content for some stations. This is an experimental service. Event-driven products such as watches and warnings are not included at the present time.

See Also: Learn about the automated voices that are used on these stations.

Source: NOAA

See Also: Weather Underground List of Weather Radio Stations on the Web

From the article:

LB Westminster is to replace its traditional parking meters and cash pay-and-display machines with a pay-by-phone scheme

It will begin the changeover from autumn, with all 3,700 meters across the borough to be axed by December 2008.

Motorists can sign up to the scheme by providing the council with their name, credit card details and vehicle registration number. Once signed up, they can either call up or send a text message with the length of time they want to stay and the parking bay reference number.

Source: Kable’s Government Computing

See Also: This reminds us of a trial Qantas was running in Australia a couple of years ago. A bar code would be downloaded from the mobile web to your mobile device and used as your boarding pass.

+ Twitter, digg, and More Widgets Now Ready for Mobio
If your phone of mobile device can handle Mobio widgets (now Blackberry friendly), Mobio has just released new widgets for:
+ Twitter
+ digg
+ RSS Aggregator
+ Kaboodle

ResourceShelf Webcam Collection: Directory of Weathercams in the U.S. and Several Other Countries
A really impressive collection. Browse by U.S. State and Country (40 countries). Each cam includes:
+ Near Real-Time Static Image
+ Monthly Overview of Images
+ Last Time Image was Updated
+ Camera Type
+ Time Lapse Video (24 hours of images). Example.

Source: Weather Underground

Lists & Rankings: FSB 100: America’s fastest-growing small companies, 2007

America’s 100 fastest-growing small public companies. See the full results, plus top 25 companies by revenue growth, stock performance, and more

Lists for 2005 and 2006 are also available.

Slide Show about Top 25

See Also: 25 Richest Executives on the List
Data from Equilar

Source: Fortune Small Business

Statistics: Lists & Rankings: Census Bureau Announces Most Populous Cities

From the news release:

Phoenix has become the nation’s fifth most populous city, according to U.S. Census Bureau population estimates released today. As of July 1, 2006, this desert metropolis had a population of 1.5 million.

New York continued to be the nation’s most populous city, with 8.2 million residents. This was more than twice the population of Los Angeles, which ranked second at 3.8 million.

The estimates reveal that Phoenix moved into fifth place ahead of Philadelphia, the latest evidence of a decades-long population shift. Nearly a century ago, in 1910, each of the 10 most populous cities was within roughly 500 miles of the Canadian border. The 2006 estimates show that seven of the top 10 — and three of the top five — are in states that border Mexico.

Only three of the top 10 from 1910 remained on the list in 2006: New York, Chicago and Philadelphia. Conversely, three of the current top 10 cities (Phoenix; San Jose, Calif.; and San Diego) were not even among the 100 most populous in 1910, while three more (Dallas, Houston and San Antonio) had populations of less than 100,000.

The estimates also reveal that many of the nation’s fastest-growing cities are suburbs. North Las Vegas, Nev., a suburb of Las Vegas, had the nation’s fastest growth rate among large cities (100,000 or more population) between July 1, 2005, and July 1, 2006. North Las Vegas’ population increased 11.9 percent during the period, to 197,567. It was joined on the list of the 10 fastest-growing cities by three in the Dallas metro area: McKinney (ranking second), Grand Prairie (sixth) and Denton (ninth). In the same vicinity, Fort Worth just missed the list, ranking 11th.

See Also: Table: Population Estimates for the 25 Largest U.S. Cities based on July 1, 2006 Population Estimates: April 1, 2000 to July 1, 2006 (PDF)
XLS format.

See Also: Table: Population Estimates for the 25 Fastest Growing U.S. Cities with Populations over 100,000 in 2006: July 1, 2005 to July 1, 2006 (PDF)
XLS format.

See Also: Table: Population Estimates for the 25 U.S. Cities with the Largest Numerical Increase from July 1, 2005 to July 1, 2006 (PDF)
XLS format.

See Also: Table: Population Estimates of the 25 Fastest Losing Cities: July 1, 2005 to July 1, 2006 (PDF)
XLS format
.
See Also: Fast Facts on Subcounty Population Estimates (PDF)

See Also: Detailed Tables

See Also: Methodology

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Posted 28 June 2007 on DocuTicker:
+ American Time Use Survey 2006 (Bureau of Labor Statistics)
+ State Teacher Policy Yearbook 2007 (National Council on Teacher Quality)
+ Who Captures Value in a Global Innovation System? The case of Apple’s iPod (Personal Computing Industry Center, University of California-Irvine)

Resource of the Week: Sky and Telescope Interactive Observing Tools
By Shirl Kennedy, Senior Editor

While hard core astronomy geeks may already be aware of this site, it was new to us and we figured that a lot of you may not have seen it yet. Since most of us are at least somewhat interested in “what’s up there,” we thought we’d let you know about some of the cool stuff available on the Sky and Telescope magazine website. If you click the “more info” button to the right of the sun- and moonrise data, the window expands to provide “detailed information about the Sun, Moon, and five naked-eye planets.” Clicking “less info” returns it to the original, smaller size.

The centerpiece, if you will, of this collection of javascript-powered astronomy apps is SkyandTelescope.com’s Almanac.

SkyandTelescope.com’s almanac presents basic astronomical data customized for your location, for any date from A.D. 1600 to 2400. The information available for display includes sunrise and sunset times, morning and evening twilight times, moonrise and moonset times, the Moon’s phase, a list of naked-eye planets visible in the evening and morning skies, rise and set times for each of these objects, and more.

The page provides detailed instructions for using this tool, including how to preset your geographic location. You may have to turn off your popup blocker because the almanac launches in a separate window, which is about a quarter of the size of a full window. (Note that you may also need to fiddle with text size or screen resolution to be able to see everything in the almanac window.) The almanac displays:

• a graphic representation of the Moon’s phase and then reports the Moon’s age (in days since the last new Moon)
• the Julian Day number (for “official” astronomical timekeeping)
• your location (country and nearest large city)
• the current date and time (in Universal Time, which is essentially the same as Greenwich Mean Time)
• your latitude and longitude, time zone, local date and time, and whether daylight-saving time is in effect

Note that the daylight saving time box may or may not be checked; you’ll need to do it manually if it’s not correct.)

A row of buttons underneath this information allows you to go backward or forward in time — by a week, a day or an hour. Below the buttons, you’ll see small text boxes showing when the sun and moon rise and set, and when twilight begins and ends. Directly below are boxes showing which planets are visible in the evening and morning. The large text area at the bottom — you might have to scroll to see everything — includes information about “any significant astronomical events that occur on the specified date, such as a meteor shower or a conjunction of the Moon and a bright planet or star.”

If you want to change the date or time, type the new info into the boxes at the top and click the “calc” button to update the display. Click “reset” to return the data for the current date and time.

Among the other tools here, we especially liked The Phase of the Moon, a utility that shows and tells the moon phase for any date, AD or BC. And there are a variety of other applications that astronomy buffs will enjoy:
+ The Minima of Algol (”The star Algol (β Persei) was the first eclipsing variable star ever discovered, and it’s still the most famous one.”)
+ Transit Times of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot (”Now you can calculate the dates and times (local and Universal Times) when the center of the Great Red Spot should cross Jupiter’s central meridian….”)
+ Chasing the Moons of Jupiter (”With help from our interactive JavaScript utility, you can always tell which of Jupiter’s four largest satellites is which.”)
+ Chasing the Moons of Jupiter
+ Seeking Saturn’s Moons (”With help from our interactive JavaScript utility, you can always tell which of Saturn’s brightest moons is which.”)
+ The Elusive Moons of Uranus (”Our handy JavaScript utility can help users of moderate to large telescopes find as many as five Uranus’s brightest satellites.”)
+ Mars: Which Side Is Visible? (”To compare what you see on Mars with a map, you need to know which side of the planet you’re looking at. Our handy Mars Profiler tells you that….”
+ The Martian Moons in 2007 and 2008 (”If you’ve never spied Mars’s two satellites, Phobos and Deimos, the end of the year is the best chance you’ll ever get.”)

As long as you’re on the magazine’s website, don’t leave without trying the Interactive Sky Chart, which allows you to build “a custom naked-eye map of the whole sky for any place on Earth, at any time of day or night, on any date from 1600 to 2400.” And there’s even a Mobile Sky Chart (hello, Gary); alas, it’s for Verizon subscribers only.

New from the GPO: Overview About the Creation of Brief Bibliographic Records
5 pages; PDF.
From the document:

In an effort to provide Federal depository libraries and the general public with more timely access to bibliographic records in the Catalog of U.S. Government Publications (CGP) (http://catalog.gpo.gov), Library Services and Content Management (LS&CM) recently began a Library Technical Information Services (LTIS) internal pilot project to develop standards for the creation of brief bibliographic records for monographs. The goals of the project are to:

• Test possible workflows that more fully utilize the functionality of the Integrated Library System (ILS),

• Test the separate record cataloging approach by creating bibliographic records for publications in formats that are distributed as well as those that are not distributed, and

• Evaluate user responses to the availability of brief cataloging for publications

Source: GPO

June 26, 2007 - - LiS ClassCast - - Working Abroad (ISLT 9410 International & Comparative Librarianship)
Host: Dr. Denice Adkins

Summary: Neeley Current described her internship experience in Salzburg, Germany.

Source: School of Information Science & Learning Technologies, University of Missouri

National Museum and Library Services Board Adopts Resolution on Library and Information Policy
Part of the resolution:

Recognizes that, as the Institute of Museum and Library Services’ authorizing legislation provides, “Democracy demands wisdom and vision in its citizens,” and an educated citizenry depends upon the constant provision of high quality library and information services which are accessible to people throughout their lifetimes.

Recognizes that free and open exchange of information is at the core of library and information policy in the United States;

Recognizes the need for a strong federal voice to address library and information policy issues and inform the government’s domestic and international policy decisions and believes that consolidating this role in the Institute of Museum and Library Services will best serve the American public;

Believes that library and information policy in the United States should be informed by solid research and thoughtful analysis in service to the people of the United States

The full text of the resolution is available here.

Source: IMLS

Legal Information Management in a Global and Digital Age: Revolution and Tradition

This article presents an overview of the public policy issues surrounding digital libraries, and describes some current trends, such as Web 2.0, the social network. It discusses the impact of globalization and the Internet on international and foreign law information, the free access to law movement and open access scholarship, and mass digitization projects, then turns to some concerns, focusing on preservation and long term access to born digital legal information and authentication of official digital legal information It finally discusses new roles for librarians, called upon to evaluate the quality of information; teach legal research methodology; and be advocates in information policy. Law librarians are encouraged to join professional associations and undergo continuous professional education. A recent development in the U.S.A., to add a legal research test on the bar exam, is of interest to the whole world, because it signifies the importance of a sound legal research training to the competent practice of law.

+ Full Paper (PDF; 172 KB)

Source: Cornell Law School Legal Studies Research Paper Series

This blog post offers an overview about what’s new at Feedster (yes, Feedster, a name we haven’t mentioned in some time) and specifically version 2.0. We’re going to spend some time using and comparing with other blog and feed search tools. More soon.

What to Look for:
+ Limit your search on the home page UI to:
++ All Feeds
++ Blogs
++ New Feeds
++ Podcasts

+ Completely New Design
+ Content Channels (aka Feed Buzz)

Each channel has been built from hand-selected feeds that match the general topic. The criteria for selection were as follows:
1) Frequent updates
2) Widely read
3) Largely and consistently confined to one topic
4) Valuable information

+ Feedster Widget
+ New semantic search technology. The blog post mentions that because of this Feedster can, “effectively limiting spam.” This is one thing we will be looking at in our testing.

+ Branding matters — even when searching (via Penn St. Live)
Even though a recent study shows that first page results vary from one engine to the next (much more than some would believe) a new study from Dr. Jim Jansen and co-author, Mimi Zhang shows that branding of the engine itself is key as much as the actual results.

We were sad to see that Ask.com*, Clusty, and Exalead were not included in the study. All offer features unavailable elsewhere that can also save the user time, effort, and aggravation. The challenge is to not only offer them but to also explain/demo/show how useful they can be especially when people tend to use what they already know. This study goes also shows that changing searcher behavior is quite a challenge.

Finally, where do specialty engines/verticals (both fee and free) fit in. We’re talking both about those available remotely from libraries, on company intranets, and on the web. How do they get convey their services for specific types of information and create a strong brand? In some cases, how do you get the point across that they are worth a fee? How can any of these tools save the time and effort of the searcher if they are unknown in the first place? Of course, one way is with some search or perhaps better said, online research training (think driver ed like) that librarians, educators and other info pros are fully capable of handling. It’s all about using the right tool at the right time. No one search tool is ideal in all situations. Thanks to PW for the news tip.
* Gary is Director of Online Info at Ask.com
Examples:
Clusty
++ Clusty
Note the dynamic clusters (by subject, source, sites) that can help increase precision with little effort and also help the searcher “see” things they might otherwise miss. A job search using Clusty also offers this technology as does SearchUSA.gov (also take notice of the FAQ’s at the top of the results). We’ve also like the ability to embed a result directly into the results list by simply clicking the magnifying glass icon.

Exalead
+ Note the page preview that when clicked takes you to a cached version of the page.
+ Numerous narrowing options available with just a click (language, format, site type, etc.)
+ Option to Customize the Home Page with Images of “Favorite Pages”
+ For the advanced search several options unavailable elsewhere (truncation, proximity, etc.)

Ask.com
Here are a few examples.
++ Focusing on things you don’t always find elsewhere and ease of use. Try Zip Codes Springfield, Boston Red Sox Logos Children’s Books, Market Cap General Motors, and/or The Rolling Stones.
Look for direct links to key resources (Smart Answers), binoculars (page previews), Zoom related results results to narrow/expand/ find related names and more. In the case of the Rolling Stones you can even preview popular tracks directly from the results page.

+ PubMed Central Hits One Million Article Mark

+ eSnips Adds Slideshow Feature
eSnips makes saving, storing, and sharing just about any type of content easy. Each account is given 5GB of storage space. Btw, you can also embed your slide show on any web page. Look for the slide show icon with folders that contain imagery.

+ STM Future Lab Committee getting into gear

STM is pleased to announce the creation of the Future Lab Committee, a high level brainstorming group on ‘Technology Trends’. When deciding to establish a new Standards and Technology Portfolio earlier this year, the STM Board identified the creation of the Committee as an important part of the portfolio.

+ MetaCarta to Provide IHS with Geographic Data

Canada: ISBN Agency is Changing August 1, 2007

As of August 1, 2007, the Canadian ISBN Service System (CISS) will replace the current ISBN procedure with a single, seamless application. This new system will overcome many of the present challenges for staff in serving a high volume of clients. It will increase staff time for client service and decrease operational time for title-by-title assignment.

Source: Canadian ISBN Agency

Last July and again in the October, The World eBook Fair offered free access to a couple hundred thousand full text titles.

2007 will be no different and beginning next Wednesday (July 4th), the 2007 World eBook Fair begins. This time around free full text access to somewhere between 2/3 million and 3/4 million ebooks will be available. These estimates include over 100,000 commercial eBooks*.

So, for one month you have free access to the entire World Public Library and much more.

The World Public Library operates 365 days a year and complete access is inexpensive at $8.95/U.S./per year. Institutional pricing for schools and other groups is also available.

Additionally, The World eBook Fair total includes over 100,000 titles from various Project Gutenberg collections

Other Notes (via a news release)

+ eBooks in over 100 Different Languages

+ Created by Contributions from 150+ eLibraries Around the World

+ Coupons will be available for the commercial ebooks coming from Digital Pulp Publishing*

Source: World eBook Fair

Don’t Blame Me: It’s the Phone’s Fault! Many Internet and Cell Phone Users Find Devices and Applications Too Complicated or Hardly Worth the Trouble

Pew Internet’s typology of information and communications technology users tell us a lot about how far along we are — or aren’t — in the “information society.”

+ Don’t Blame Me: It’s the Phone’s Fault!

Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project

Today’s helping includes:

New
+ PlayByTheNewRules.com, .net, .org

+ Navegaprotegidoeninternet.com, .net, .org

Transferred to Microsoft Name Servers in the Past Few Days
+ InnovateOn.com

+ Windowsautomater.com, .net

Because this is National Lightning Awareness Safety Week we thought it would be useful to share
a few (of many) resources that offer near real-time lightning strike info. Useful? Yes. Cool. For sure. However, they are NO substitute for always keeping an eye to the sky. More stats and facts about lightning here.

Selected Near Real-Time Data Sources
+ U.S./Canadian Lightning Strike Info
Both national and regional maps.

+ NexStorm
Locations in the North America and Europe (access via map). Also, look for links to detection resources for Australia, Greece, Guatemala, Israel, Japan, Romania, New Zealand, and Venezuela.

+ Vaisala Real-Time Lightning Track (U.S.)
Based on real-time measurements from the U.S. National Lightning Detection Network. Additional functionality available for a fee.

+ Lightning/2000
On this map select various locations (global in scope) to get lighting info.

+ Lightning strike in and around Florida

+ Lightning Info for Upstate New York

+ Strike Map from U.S. Precision Lightning Network (USPLN)

+ Lightning Predictions (3 hr. period) for the U.S.
Select the “Prob. CG ltg” button.

+ 2 hr. Lightning Strike Info
From AccuWeather, using USPLN data. Animated image available. Additional data for a fee.

New Health Topic Research Brief from MedlinePlus: Family History

Your family history includes health information about you and your close relatives. Family history is an important risk factor for problems like heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer. A risk factor is anything that increases your chance of getting a disease. The reason a family history can help predict risk is that families share their genes, as well as other factors that affect health, like environment, lifestyles and habits.

Source: MedlinePlus

2007 State of World Population: Unleashing the Potential of Urban Growth
Description via UN Pulse:

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has issued the 2007 State of World Population: Unleashing the Potential of Urban Growth (full report, pdf). According to the report, over the next 30 years, the population of African and Asian cities will double, adding 1.7 billion people—more than the populations of China and the United States combined.

+ Direct to Press Kit
+ Direct to Version For You Youth

+ Direct to Selected Indicators (pdf).

Source: United Nations Population Fund (via the essential UN Pulse weblog)

Lists & Rankings: Top 500 Supercomputers, June 2007

The 29th edition of the closely watched TOP500 list of the world’s fastest supercomputers shows a lot of shuffling among the top-ranked systems and the largest turnover among list entries in the history of the TOP500 project.

For the fourth straight time, the BlueGene/L System development by IBM and DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and installed at DOE’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., claimed the No. 1 spot. The BlueGene/L reached a Linpack benchmark performance of 280.6 TFlop/s (“teraflops” or trillions of calculations per second). Two other systems exceeded the level of 100 TFlop/s: the upgraded Cray XT4/XT3 at DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, ranked No. 2 with a benchmark performance of 101.7 TFlop/s; and Sandia National Laboratory’s Cray Red Storm system, which ranked third at 101.4 TFlop/s.

Charts also available.

See Also: Highlights

Source: Top500.org

Posted 27 June 2007 on DocuTicker:
+ Coming to grips with IT risk (Economist Intelligence Unit and SAP)
+ Long-Term Effects of Cancer Survivorship on the Employment of Older Workers (Health Services Research)
+ What Determines Employment of Part-Time Faculty in Higher Education Institutions? (Cornell Higher Education Research Center)