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Cool Internet Sites

For this issue The Panama News defers to Science magazine, the renowned scholarly publication, which recently highlighted five science-oriented websites they considered to be the most excellent. They made some very good choices.

EcoScale

http://www.ecoscale.org

So you have gone into a business that requires the use of industrial chemicals and you want to be socially responsible about it --- do you think first and foremost about the filters you want to put on your facility's drains, and second about the clay-lined pit where you'll bury the filters? Actually, if you are smart about using resources you will want to first consider which methods create the least waste. You will also want to consider the specialized equipment you would need for the various processes, which techniques might cause a laboratory explosion and the cost of the chemicals you would need. This website helps you weigh such factors.

European Bioinformatics Institute Primer

http://www.ebi.ac.uk/2can/home.html

What was that pesky prion in your hamburger that has you walking around in circles? This is a website that tells you how to use biological databases, particularly those oriented toward molecular biology.

National Inventors Hall of Fame

http://www.invent.org

Alas, no entry for the guy who came up with the werewolf formula. This is the website of an institution in Akron, Ohio that honors great inventors, and not just American ones.

Nikon Small World Contest

http://www.nikonsmallworld.com/index.php

The Panama News has featured this website in years past, but they have had a new batch of winners every year since 1974. The renowned camera company hosts the world's most important contest for photography of things tiny or microscopic, and the beauty of the natural world on that scale can be breathtaking.

Palaeos

http://www.palaeos.com

Originally this was a website started by two paleontology enthusiasts, but several months back they stopped adding to it because it was taking too much of their time. However, there was a great hue and cry of popular demand, so it was revived in the form of a wiki --- a database that contributors can expand and edit.