For Science!

Science has done A LOT of great things for us. We've gone to outer space, we've found cures for various deadly diseases, we can take pictures of the bottom of the ocean from satellites in space, and we can watch YouTube videos of cute animals while we're in an airplane! That rocks pretty hard. People have always been fascinated by the world around them, and science is a great way to learn more about it, even if you don’t happen to have a laboratory or a giant telescope on hand. What you do have however, is the library's terrific science resource called Access Science! It's one of the library's academic databases found on the Databases A-Z list, focusing on various forms of scientific know-how, including biographies of famous scientists, animations, and academic reports on anything from agriculture to zoology. Even if you don’t take a lot of science classes, this website is fun to explore, and easy to navigate. I am not the most knowledgeable about science, but have always been interested in it, and I am very willing to learn, so let’s take a look around, and I'll try to look at things besides dinosaurs.

Fine, I`ll get it out of the way. Dinosaurs! On the very front page, the Geological time scale is out front, listing the entire time scale of the Earth, including the eras of the Dinosaurs (there’s a picture of a dinosaur on the link to the scale because, really, that’s all we want to know about), giving a time scale as to when Jurassic Park was less of a Blockbuster, and more of typical Monday, but with less Jeff Goldblum. You can also learn more about my beloved dinosaurs by clicking on the Paleontology button on the Search Science section, and get articles on recent fossil discoveries, and find links to more information and pictures on recently discovered ancient creatures, like Acanthostega, an ancient reptilian animal that is not technically a dinosaur, but I am still counting it! Because everything is better with Dinosaurs! It's been proven! By SCIENCE!

There are a TON of nifty things to find on this site. Interested in space? There are updates about the Kepler experiment, which is keeping tabs on what is going on in the outer realms of space. Plus animations! Need to use the Periodic Table for your chemistry class? It not only has a virtual table, but also lots of information about each element. Does DNA get you all excited? As it should? There’s an animated DNA strain right on the front page. Articles from respected scientists about archaeology, biology, medicine, psychology, anything you can think of, I bet this has information on. Its articles even have instructions about how to cite them right on the page! Aren’t scientists so thoughtful?

Even though I have usually been more of an arts/writing sort of person, I have also always loved learning about science. In ARTstor, we saw how some of the beautiful, creative things people can create, and in Access Science we see how people have discovered the beautiful, creative things that nature has given us, and that we have created though research and drive. Like I said, we are very curious by nature, and we desire to know more about the world around us, and this is a great place to learn more. Oh, and we like to use science to blow things up. And yes, you can see that on this site too. FOR SCIENCE!   P.S. It's weird, but only two people can use this database at the same time. Be patient, one of them may take an experiment too far and then it's your turn.  

CP