Year in review

Looking back at 2011 - what are the top stories you remember? . . . From Yahoo!: Yahoo!'s year in review . . . From Reuters: 2011 year in review. . . From Infoplease: infoplease year-by-year

Movies: 2011 Yearly Box Office Results: from Box Office Mojo

Music: 2011 End-of-the-year-charts from Billboard

 Weather: 2011's Stunning Year in Weather: from the Weather Channel

Patchwork Nation

Patchwork Nation, from the Jefferson Institute. This unique site loads quickly and offers a wealth of information for undergraduates seeking demographic information for courses in political science or business and marketing.
Funded by the nonprofit Knight Foundation, this Web site is a reporting project of the Jefferson Institute, ostensibly established to cover the 2008 election. Patchwork Nation examines communities over time via demographic, voting, and cultural data. It has created 12 organizational clusters, e.g., Boom Towns, Evangelical Epicenters, Mormon Outposts, Monied "Burbs, Military Bastions, and Tractor Country. The project uses data from the 2000 US Census and 2006 estimates of common census items at the county level. Religious data come from the Glenmary Research Center's "Survey of Religious Congregations in America, 2000." Patchwork Nation makes its data and methodology available for those who wish to mine or replicate results. It explains limitations to data, e.g., measures of county size, median income averages, and inferences about behavior within places and counties.
 R. Tolley-Stokes, East Tennessee State University. Reviewed in Nov 2011 CHOICE.

College students and the flu

Every year, the flu spreads across college campuses nationwide. Close living quarters, shared restrooms, and a lot of social activities makes a college student more likely to catch the flu. Check the information provided by the National Insitute of Health, National Library of Medicine for information on symptoms, treatment, medications, and vaccines

Where can you get a flu shot ? Check out Google's Flu Vaccine Finder - enter a zipcode and find the provider closest to you!

Another informative site is Flu.gov - With the fall semester under way, college administrators and students should be prepared for a ramped-up flu season. Unlike the seasonal flu, the H1N1 (Swine) flu has been affecting college-age adults at a higher rate than older adults or seniors. The H1N1 (Swine) flu is a new virus. College students do not have immunity against it. Schools and students should focus on prevention and follow these flu guidelines...

Science Podcast, from Scientific American

Science Podcast, from Scientific American.  This site offers an appealing and engaging range of 60-second podcasts, broadcast weekly, in six topic areas: Science, Mind, Earth, Space, Tech, and Health. Podcasts discuss current scientific/technical issues in an easily digestible manner for nonscientists.

They offer basic background information and present interesting developments on topics ranging from invasive species to learning disabilities, electric cars, women's health, and more. Complementing the pithy, brief podcasts is the Science Talk series with Steve Mirsky, which explores topics in more depth, often through interviews with experts in the field. The transcripts of the podcasts provide links to related information. The podcasts are playable on the Web and available for MP3 download, and can be shared by e-mail or social networking. Site visitors can also register to receive podcasts via RSS feeds. In addition, Scientific American subscribers can post comments about the podcasts. Overall, they are a valuable offering from Scientific American that can serve as a gateway to entice users to further explore other content in this journal; they can also serve as a starting point for additional research on a subject. 

Reviewed in 2011dec CHOICE, K. J. Whitehair, Johnson County Library