We are inching ever closer to holidays, fun in the snow, winter break, and a bit of R&R.  You undoubtedly have reading to do before then - and might need a good, in-depth review article to give context to a project or paper you’re working on.  That’s our cue to highlight --

Annual Reviews!

The volumes of Annual Reviews seen here are all accessible online, so you don’t need to plow through the structure in the science library’s front window.  Go directly to annualreviews.org, where you can search across all of 50+ journals, in subjects ranging from anthropology to economics, environment, geology, neuroscience, sociology, statistics, virology... it’s quite the treasure trove for the social and natural sciences, including medicine and public health.

Paul A. Johnsgard, from the acknowledgments in A Chorus of Cranes

As reading period begins, remember that library staff are available to help.  Contact us!

In the meantime, please enjoy a remarkable video from Naysan McIlhargey, owner of Miami Valley Pottery in Yellow Springs, of a flock of Sandhill Cranes on their migratory journey, staying close to the Little Miami River.  The Sandhill Crane flyway through Ohio is a secondary route, compared to the hundreds of thousands passing through and resting in Nebraska every year, but no less satisfying to witness.  See: Sandhill and Whooping Cranes: Ancient Voices Over America’s Wetlands. [ebook]

The photo below is of a Sandhill Crane at Sandy Ridge Reservation, North Ridgeville, a regular inhabitant in the summer.  Learn more from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. [photo credit: Alison Ricker]

Zoology Building, The University of Iowa, 1910s

Creator: Kent, Frederick W.

{3 of 100 days of productivity}

Studying in the library ft. The Single Most Satisfying Green Bar In Existence (CS people will relate)

The front covers (and contents!) of science news magazines are intriguing any time of year, but especially when transitioning from one year to the next.  

Editors, artists, and photojournalists put together issues that highlight the biggest stories of the year, celebrate achievements and forecast the next big breakthrough, and tantalize with headlines that suggest findings to delight the most curious reader.  

Above:  New Scientist Dec. 18-31, 2021

Just three headlines on this issue of Science News hint at the wide range of topics covered in every issue: hope in the pandemic; shrinking birds; finger snap physics (say what?).

A new year often inspires us to focus on a healthy diet, and New Scientist picks up on that by explaining that a “self-indulgent mindset is key to diet success.”  Sounds promising!

Science, the highly-respected, "premier global science weekly” from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, is fully accessible online, in a very satisfying format for web-based browsing.  

Here: Poems for the Planet (Copper Canyon Press, 2019) was just donated to the Science Library.  

Edited by Elizabeth J. Coleman with a forward by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the poems are thematically arranged: poems for our planet, for our endangered world, for the animals; poems that are the voices of young people, and poems that lead from inspiration to action.  Just two are shared in the image below: “The Occupation” by Robert Bringhurst and “The Peace of Wild Things” by Wendell Berry.

The collection concludes with a guide to activism by the Union of Concerned Scientists, which pledges to “use science to make change.”  The final exhortation of the book is “Get Out There!” with this quote from Jane Hirshfield, founder of Poets for Science and celebrated author of many works of poetry and essays: 

“The world asks of us only the strength we have and we give it. Then it asks more, and we give it.”

Acknowledgements:

“The Occupation” from Selected Poems. Copyright 2012 by Robert Bringhurst, published by Copper Canyon Press.

“The Peace of Wild Things” from The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry. Copyright 1998 by Wendell Berry, published by Counterpoint Press.