Biology
"Beyond Bio 101: The Transformation of Undergraduate Biology"
http:///www.hhmi.org/Beyond Bio101/
Created by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, this website focuses on the changing learning environments of biology students at a number of American colleges. "Beyond Bio 101" is based on the experiences of some of the colleges and universities that have been expanding research opportunities for undergraduates with the support from grants awarded by the Undergraduate Biological Sciences Education Program of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The website features useful information on topics such as curriculum redesign and electronic learning as well as a resources section for biology educators. (Vol. 1 No. 9, January '97)
"The Biology Place"
http://www.biology.com/
"The Biology Place" is brought to you by Peregrine Publishers and Faculty Director Neil A. Campbell from the University of California, Riverside. The prototype is still under construction, but looks like a promising enterprise. Among the main topics are Chemistry, Cells, Genetics, Animals and Ecology, and each section features student activities, web resources and research news. So far only the genetics section is complete--featuring student activities such as "Solving Mendelian Genetics Problems," "Investigating Huntington Disease" and "Investigating the Bacterial Genome"--but it's a site whose evolution seems to be worth waiting for.(Vol. 1 No. 5, Sept. '96)
"BioMOO"
http://bioinfo.weizmann.ac.il:8888
http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~mercer/htmls/BioMOOHomePage.html
Founded by Gustavo Glusman at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, the BioMOO (Multiple-User Object-Oriented environment) takes a website for biologists to the level of real-time interaction. The site is a place for scientists to exchange ideas and conduct seminars and allows simultaneous users to communicate among themselves. Visitors enter BioMOO through Telnet connections and receive notices on their computer screens describing which rooms they have entered and who else is "present" in them. In the tradition of "Dungeons & Dragons," you may find a skull in the dungeons of this site--but this one can be rotated for scientific purposes. (Vol. 1 No. 2, May '96)
"Memetics Index"
http://143.236.107.53/authors/kkitow/memetics/
This website is dedicated to the school of thought which studies the transmission of ideas by viewing ideas--memes--as living organisms. Memetics as a school of thought is based on the theories of evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, who researched the similarities he encountered between the replication of genes and ideas. The site is an excellent introduction to this 'new science,' featuring articles such as "Viruses Of The Mind" by Richard Dawkins and "Virus-Like Sentences And Self-Replicating Structures" by Douglas R. Hofstadter, as well as other resources and links to related sites. (Vol. 1 No. 6, October '96)
"PigVision"
http://toolshed.artschool.utas.edu.au/PigVision
"PigVision" is dedicated to collaborations of artists and scientists in the area of agricultural science. It originated in a research concept of Raymond Rohner who "had studied and worked in the field of agriculture science in Switzerland before taking up his Fine Art studies at the Tasmanian School of Art in Hobart/Australia." This sublime site is a tribute to the possibilities of interdisciplinary work. Many links from net-savvy biology departments around the world lead to this site. Really great pictures of pigs and interesting research on the pig's rubbing behavior are just two of the reasons for visiting this webpen. (Vol. 1 No. 7, November '96)
"Virtual FlyLab"
http://vflylab.calstatela.edu/edesktop/VirtApps/VflyLab/IntroVflyLab.html
If you want to feel really creative, try breeding mutated flys! With the purpose of teaching about the actual statistical occurrence of Mendelian traits, this site lets you play geneticist; just choose the genetic traits of the female insect and the male insect--for example, do you want the bristles to be "wild type" or "forked"? When you're done selecting traits, press on the button marked "Mate," and watch the offspring from your experiment appear! Fun for all the family, and for generations to come! (Vol. 1 No. 6, October '96)
Bioethics
"Ethics and Genetics: A Global Conversation"
http://www.med.upenn.edu/~bioethic/genetics/
This project, headed by Glenn McGee, is a joint effort of the University of Chicago and the University of Pennsylvania. The site features articles on the ethical issues raised by genetics and uses an automated comments system that sends your comment to the author and posts it immediately--thus allowing real-time conversations with anyone else who happens to be visiting at the time. The discussion focuses on the controversies surrounding genetic testing, genetic enhancement, gene therapy and genetic engineering; the web-wide approach and quality of the setup make this site a perfect place for catalyzing discussions of the philosophical issues occasioned by the science of genetics.
(Vol. 1 No. 4, July/August '96)
Chemistry
"The Chemical Educator"
http://journals.springer-ny.com/chedr
This site consists of a peer-reviewed journal intended for "chemical education professionals" (in common parlance: chemistry teachers). The site had been offering a free trial subscription, but, if they stick to their present plans, then a subscription cost will have gone into effect by the time you read this. "The Chemical Educator" is a first-class online journal: visually pleasing, well-organized and updated bi-monthly. Articles cover such areas as Internet resources for chemistry, the role of chemistry in a liberal arts education, as well as articles on specific applications of scientific methodology. (Vol. 1 No. 4, July/August '96)
"Chemicool"
http://the-tech.mit.edu/Chemicool/
Cool it is: this website, maintained by David Hsu, lets visitors choose elements from the "Chemicool Periodic Table" and access information about them--ranging from appearance, characteristics, and reactions to radius, conductivity, and abundance. At present, the site is a useful reference guide, and more desirable features are in the making: Hsu plans to implement a search feature, add some multimedia demos and more info about the history of chemical elements. (Vol. 1 No. 11, March '97)
"Moviemol"
http://chem-www.mps.ohio-state.edu/~lars/moviemol.html/
Ohio State University offers access to Moviemol, a program for
visualization and animation of molecular structures for PCs, IBM RISC/6000s
and SGI workstations. Moviemol displays sets of molecular coordinates one
after the other to create a "movie". The molecules can be rotated or
translated, magnified or diminished during the animation. The program can be obtained
from the authors or by anonymous ftp from chem-ftp.mps.ohio-state.edu. It is
free-of-charge for academic researchers. (Vol. 1 No. 1, April '96)
Classics
"Argos"
http://http://argos.evansville.edu/
"Argos" is a peer-reviewed, limited area search engine (LASE), designed to cover the ancient and medieval worlds and to restrict search results to entries relevant to scholarly study. "Argos" was created by Managing Editor Anthony F. Beavers and Technical Director Hiten Sonpal at the University of Evansville during the Summer of 1996. What makes this site an excellent resource is the quality of the index, which is controlled by qualified professionals ( the Associate Editors of the project); any page that turns up in an Argos search has been "certified" by the Editorial Board.
(Vol. 1 No. 10, February '97)
"Diotima: Materials for the Study of Women and Gender in the Ancient World"
http://www.uky.edu/ArtsSciences/Classics/gender.html/
see article Vol. 1 No. 1, April '96
" Project Archelogos"
http://www.archelogos.phil.ed.ac.uk/
Mastering the complex ideas of Plato or Aristotle will never be easy but the goal of "Project Archelogos"--funded by public and private sources in Greece and Cyprus--is to make their concepts more accessible to non-philosophers, particularly advanced high school and university students. This online database organizes philosophical arguments into conceptual structures of interdependence; it may be searched for academic analyses of ancient texts as well as alternative readings of each passage from different sources over the past two thousand years. Visitors are currently introduced to Plato's Protagoras through a multimedia application called LogAnalysis that acts as a front-end to the database. Though the shockwave demo version doesn't function particularly well at this point it is still an admirable attempt to use hypertext in a manner that even Socrates might appreciate.
(Vol. 2 No. 2, Spring '98)
"TELA"
http://scholar.cc.emory.edu/
"TELA"-- The Electronically Linked Academy--is the website of a consortium of more than twenty organizations that publish books, journals, and electronic magazines in the areas of religion, classics, and Mediterranean archaeology. Visitors will find publishers' catalogs, online books, journals, and reviews. Most notable is the "Scholars Corner," which includes a vast array of information: the topics range from Ancient Near East, Archaeology, and Computer Tools to Educational Institutions, Languages and Literature, as well as Museums. (Vol. 2 No. 1, Fall '97)
Cultural Studies
"CTheory"
http://128.2.19.107/ctheory/ctheory.html
See theory run, see theory jump, see big theory names, like the Krokers, Baudrillard, and many more! Also Kathy Acker. Theory, technology and culture all interact in the various articles collected here. Worth a bookmark, if you don't find theory dreary. (Vol. 1 No. 1, April '96)
"Digital Cultures"
http://www.livjm.ac.uk/Digital_Cultures
"Digital Cultures" is a three-credit, Level 3 module prepared by Sean Cubitt and offered by Media and Cultural Studies at Liverpool John Moores University. The course investigates the impact of electronic media and communications on contemporary cultural life and provides a substantive case-study in the analysis of major cultural theories of contemporary society. The website includes the course outline and guide, as well as hotlinks and a glossary. Even if you're not going to enroll, the "Digital Cultures" site is a valuable resource for educators and everybody interested in how identity, postmodernism and globalisation can be understood in the context of digital media.
(Vol. 1 No. 9, January '97)
"-Ism (N.)"
http://sunsite.unc.edu/ism/ism.html
If you had a video camera, how would you use it to represent diversity issues at your school? Do you consider your school to be diverse? How or why not? These are questions asked by the "-ISM (N.)" project, which was conceived in 1994 by six full-time field consultants who, during visits to college community centers, discovered that diversity was among the most important issues on students' minds. "-ISM (N.)" wants to provide new, more engaging approaches for addressing issues of diversity, and has now become an independent project of the Institute for Public Media Arts. The website devoted to this project provides valuable information on campus diversity and the "-ISM (N.) Curriculum," as well as access to an online gallery exhibiting video clips, photographs and dialogues from the students involved in the "-ISM (N.)" course. (Vol. 1 No. 9, January '97)
Cultural and Literary Theory
"Jacques Derrida"
http://www.cas.usf.edu/journal/fobo/jd.html
This site on Jacques Derrida provides the necessary service of offering some well-chosen passages from his work; in one of these passages, Derrida points out that his critics often rely on books about his writing rather than referring directly to his work itself. These excerpts offer fresh evidence of that statement's truth. Excerpts from works of writers who manifestly have read Derrida are also linked to this site. (Vol. 1 No. 5, Sept. '96)
"The Sokal Affair"
http://weber.u.washington.edu/~jwalsh/sokal/
Is it literary criticism, cultural crticism or an impostor? Social Text, one of those academic magazines some people love to hate, accidentally published an article written as a spoof . The author was Alan Sokal, and the parody was accepted for an issue in the currently controversial area of science studies. Unlike a recent issue of Lingua Franca, which published a letter from Sokal without giving the editors of "Social Text" a chance to respond, this website contains links to numerous sides of the argument. As Andrew Ross points out, media attention has helped make this scandal a Web-event. (Vol. 1 No. 5, Sept. '96)