- Our colleagues at Taubman Health Sciences Library have written a great overview of the new Altmetrics in Scopus. Complete with screenshots and clarifications from Elsevier reps, it is a nice tour if you haven’t had a chance to dig in yourself yet. They also mentioned the new ALM (Article Level Metrics) Reports at PLoS, who are encouraging users (funders, researchers, and librarians) to give them feedback on the new reports and tools.
- There is a new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project on family caregivers (now 39% of adults) and their use of technology. Caregivers are much more likely than others to search for certain types of information online.
- The unanimous Supreme Court ruling in the case against Myriad Genetics – who held patents on the BRCA1/2 genes and the tests for them – says that human DNA cannot be patented, an opinion that was cheered last Friday by breast cancer advocates and some doctors. The NY Times covered the decision, and another piece includes a quote from MSKCC’s Dr. Kenneth Offit, ‘Many academic labs, including our own, will soon be offering panel tests for dozens, or even hundreds of genes, for the same price Myriad historically charged for just two genes.’ Much has been and will continue to be written about this case. Here are a few more blog posts from the National Association of Science Writers and Nature News, and Hank Greely at Stanford Law School, bothered by Justice Scalia’s unusual concurrence, weighs in with this post.
- It is also worth noting that there is a public effort to catalog BRCA mutations called the Enigma consortium.
- Mozilla has announced that they are creating Mozilla Science Lab to encourage digital literacy among scientists and empower them to exploit the power of the web to further science. Kaitlin Thaney, formerly of Creative Commons’ science program and now leading the Mozilla project, also blogged her announcement. The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has provided support for the project.
- An item over on Wired discusses a new type of DRM that would change the words in ebooks to discourage piracy. While we’re on the subject of ebooks and security, Krafty Librarian has a post, Medical Library eBooks: Five Years Behind, about how the electronic offerings from our content suppliers are not measuring up to the expectations of our users. The post has generated lively comments which are also worth checking out.