We had a little bit of a break last week, but now most of Wisconsin is under another air quality alert due to wildfire smoke. Wondering why those fires are still burning and why the smoke is so bad this year? Check out this article from NPR.
And here's more about the origin of this meme!
Reproductive Health and the Reference Desk: How libraries can provide information post-Roe
It has been over 1 year since the U.S. Supreme Court repealed Roe v. Wade. Abortion is now illegal in a significant portion of the country. What does this mean for information access? This webinar will discuss reproductive health as an information access concern, introduce the Reproductive Justice framework, and offer ideas for how libraries can provide create environments that are supportive of sexual and reproductive health information.
Guest Speaker: Barbara Alvarez is a PhD student in Information Science at University of Wisconsin–Madison with a focus on reproductive health. Barbara is the author of The Library’s Guide to Sexual and Reproductive Health Information with ALA Editions. She is a 2022 Library Journal Mover & Shaker and a 2011 Spectrum Scholar.
This presentation addresses increasing health equity through information and increasing health information access and the NNLM/NLM/NIH initiative of improving the public's access to information to enable them to make informed decisions about their health.
The Network of the National Library of Medicine is funded by the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services. Learn more at https://nnlm.gov
You might remember there was a small group working to update the WHSLA website. This update included new logos and a new platform for the site. On behalf of the website committee, we're happy to share a draft of the new website and feedback form.
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You'll find the new logos and color scheme on a live draft of the new website . If you have time to take a look, we'd love to hear your feedback.
The website draft was created after looking at current WHSLA webpage content, peer state and regional HSL sites, and paring down what needs to be maintained. Here are a few changes we've made:
Friday, Sept 29, 2023
The NNLM is offering a book discussion on Meghan O'Rourke's book, running from August 14 through October 31.After acquiring the book in your preferred format, join NNLM any time between August 14 until Oct 31 to participate.
Live Discussion
NNLM Book Discussion offers librarians and library staff interested in better understanding health issues faced by people in the communities that they serve an opportunity to explore topics with other professionals and earn Continuing Education Credit.
Participants can complete the book and earn CE credit on their schedule. A new book is selected each quarter. Participants can acquire the book in their performed format and have three months to complete the requirements.
Requirements to earn CE.
It is not necessary to engage in Moodle discussions for all three months, although you are welcome to do so.
Objectives:
In recognition of June is Pride Month, Jacqueline Leskovec at NNLM Region 6 featured resources to help health care professionals care for patients in the LGBTQ+ communities.
Here is a roundup of her weekly Pride blog posts for June 2023:
Welcome to Pride Month 2023 [Week 1]
Pride 2023 Week 2 – Reducing Health Inequities through the Health Professions
Pride 2023 Week 3 – Counting All Sexual and Gender Minorities (SGM) Elderly
Pride 2023 Week 4 – NIH Advancing Equity and Visibility for All
Check out the Pride Posts from 2022.
As cells divide, they must copy all of their chromosomes only once or chaos will ensue.
Every person starts as just one fertilized egg. By adulthood, that single cell has turned into roughly 37 trillion cells, many of which keep dividing to create the same amount of fresh human cells every few months.
But those cells have a formidable challenge. The average dividing cell must copy—perfectly—3.2 billion base pairs of DNA, about once every 24 hours. The cell’s replication machinery does an amazing job of this, copying genetic material at a lickety-split pace of some 50 base pairs per second.
Still, that’s much too slow to duplicate the entirety of the human genome. If the cell’s copying machinery started at the tip of each of the 46 chromosomes at the same time, it would finish the longest chromosome—No. 1, at 249 million base pairs—in about two months.
“The way cells get around this, of course, is that they start replication in multiple spots,” says James Berger, a structural biologist at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, who co-authored an article on DNA replication in eukaryotes in the 2021 Annual Review of Biochemistry. Yeast cells have hundreds of potential replication origins, as they’re called, and animals like mice and people have tens of thousands of them, sprinkled throughout their genomes.
Understanding Glaucoma Diagnosis, Treatment, and Research on the Horizon
8/14/2021; 74 minutesGlaucoma is the progressive loss and thinning of the tissue forming the optic nerve. UCSF experts explain that glaucoma isn't just one disease. They also look at risk factors, how it's diagnosed, and new treatment options, as well as explore promising research on the horizon. Recorded on 06/09/2021. (#37146)
In the course of doing some research recently, I stumbled across the above Mini Medical School for the Public video from The University of California-San Francisco.
Their Mini Medical School for the Public Series is archived online for anyone to view.
See also this video listing or their YouTube channel.
I remember mini medical schools being "a thing" years ago and I was excited about them because I thought that would be just the thing to help a medical librarian without a biology / science background to better understand the environment in which we live and work. The beauty of these lectures is that they are aimed at the public, and communicate in lay language non-scientists can understand. BUT at that time, you actually had to register, pay money to attend and class sizes were limited. In the beginning, I think the lectures were live and in-person. If you did not live near a medical school, your options were limited. Lots of barriers to actually participating ... and I forgot about it. Until now!
Turns out many of these programs have been recorded, archived and posted online for anyone to watch on their own time. Many medical schools offer such programs as a way to give back to their communities, and to let people know what they're working on. Here's the mission statement from The Oscher Collaborative:
The UCSF Osher Mini Medical School for the Public is designed to provide members of the community the opportunity to see and hear what goes on every day in UCSF’s classrooms and research labs with lectures from the same faculty who are on the front lines, teaching students in the health professions. UCSF Osher Mini Medical School addresses the accelerating public interest in the scientific knowledge behind the health headlines, the role of the consumer in health care decision making, and each citizen’s role in participating in the shaping of health policy.
You can still sign up for current courses and pay a registration fee to be part of the current semester.
Do a google search for mini medical schools, and you'll find many other options. Here are a few:
Exploring ChatGPT: Navigating its Implications for an Academic Medical Center (Part 1)
Delve into ChatGPT and its pros and cons with respect to medical education, and medical and scientific publishing. We discuss concerns raised by the medical library community, guidelines for responsible usage in research papers and the broader implications of AI advancement. Join them us as we debate the idea of a moratorium on advanced training for AI and its potential threats to and opportunities for academic medical centers.
In this episode, we continue our conversation about ChatGPT and its pros and cons with respect to medical education, and medical and scientific publishing, addressing concerns raised by the medical library community, guidelines for responsible usage in research papers and the broader implications of AI advancement. Join them as they debate the idea of a moratorium on advanced training for AI and its potential threats to and opportunities for academic medical centers.
The Structured Abstract [Zoom Recording]
Our own Liz Suelzer highly recommends this webinar If you have any interest in doing a poster or presentation at a conference.
It's sponsored by The Midwest Chapter of the Medical Library Association.
Have you got a great idea for a poster, lightning talk, or paper presentation but you don’t know how to get started? Do you have questions about how to create a structured abstract for the Midwest Chapter/MLA 2023 Annual Meeting? If this applies to you, consider attending this session!The Professional Practice Committee of the Midwest Chapter/MLA will be hosting a professional development session on preparing structured abstracts. The webinar will be held on Monday, June 26th at 1 PM EST / 12 PM CST. Register for this Zoom session here and receive an invite with login information.This session will provide guidance on submitting content to the virtual conference of Midwest Chapter in October, as well as information on
