http://publications.nigms.nih.gov/computinglife/index.htm

Computers are embedded in much of what we do, whether it's a form of instant communication or the navigation of city streets via a GPS unit. Computers have also proved to be extremely useful to scientific researchers, a fact not lost on the people at the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS). The NIGMS has created this virtual online booklet titled "Computing Life" in order to inform young people about the various scientific and medical careers that are open to them and to educate people more generally about the role of computers in scientific inquiry and discovery. The homepage features a set of "Featured Topics" that contains video clips of researchers talking about their work, interactive games, and role-playing exercises. These intriguing topics include "Movie Mania", "The Next Top Protein Model", and "Made Possible By…". In the "Web Extras" area, visitors can watch short films (including a simulation of potential pandemic flu in the United States), listen and watch interviews, and take a crack at a crossword puzzle. Visitors who get hooked on the site may wish to sign up to receive updates via their RSS feed. [KMG]

http://www.archaeology.org/online/interviews/

If you have always wondered about the relationship between olives and humans, this website will be a most efficacious source of information on that subject. Created and maintained by staffers at Archaeology magazine, this special "Interviews" area looks at the aforementioned subject and many others via a series of lively and informative sessions with anthropologists and archaeologists. On this site, visitors can read a dozen interviews with experts that include archaeology educator Shelby Brown, maritime archaeologist Vello Mäss, and David Gill who offers some perspective on the fate of classical antiquities in North American collections. Additionally, visitors should feel welcome to browse through recent editions of Archaeology magazine and maybe even take a peek at their events calendar. [KMG]

http://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/

Everyday, research sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) turns up a new discovery, an interesting facet of a scientific endeavor, and sometimes, just something that might delight and amaze even the casual observer. Recently the NSF created this website to serve as a clearinghouse of information about the work they sponsor. The "Discoveries" site can be searched in its entirety, or visitors can just peruse the chronological list that's front and center on their homepage. Over in the "Research Areas" section, visitors can wander through "Biology", "Education", "Nanoscience", and eight other topical areas. Some summaries that might be of particular interest include "Mysteries of the Unregulated Internet" and "The Bizarre Creatures of Madagascar". Also, it's worth nothing that parties who enjoy the site can sign up for their RSS feed here. [KMG]

https://www.amherst.edu/academiclife/support/writingcenter/resourcesforwriters

As with many other colleges and universities, Amherst College is dedicated to helping their students become excellent writers. In order to accomplish this goal, they have created a fine set of online resources for use by their own students and members of the web-browsing public. This particular set includes a long list of resources created by staff members at Amherst and at other institutions. These resources are divided into thematic headings such as "Preparing to Write", "Thesis and Argument", "Clarity and Grace", and "Using Sources". On the left hand side of the page, users can view the same list and also learn more about the writing center at Amherst and their work. Overall, it's a fine set of resources, and one that college students in particular will find useful, especially as they approach a paper deadline. [KMG]

http://digital.uwyo.edu/

Since 2002, the University of Wyoming's Digital Initiatives program has been crafting carefully considered collections from their vast storehouse of historical ephemera. The Initiative is a member of the Collaborative Digitization Program, and they have worked on projects such as the Rocky Mountain Online Archive and the Wyoming Memory Portal. This site provides access to all of their digital collections, which include document archives related to the career of noted historian and national activist Grace Raymond Hebard and the travels of Thomas Kennet-Were, an English gentleman who wandered across the United States and Canada in 1868 and 1869. Visitors can search through all of the collections here as they see fit, and educators will also want to click on over to the "Teacher Resources" area for a selection of high quality lesson plans and activities. [KMG]

http://myloc.gov/exhibitions/creatingtheus/Pages/default.aspx

As with other countries, the United States is very much a "work in progress". Of course, the nation's founders made a concerted effort to form a republic that would be able to govern effectively across a large geographic region and a plethora of different cultural traditions. This thoughtful and introspective online exhibit from the Library of Congress brings together a set of interactive resources and activities organized around themes that include "Creating the Declaration of Independence" and "Creating the Bill of Rights". Clicking on these themes will bring visitors to a brief narrative essay that sets the tone for the primary and secondary historical documents within each area. Here visitors will find such gems as an early map of the Appalachians, woodcuts of early Presidents, and the musings of Thomas Paine, among many others. Moving on, visitors should not miss the "Interactives" area. Here they can test their mettle by connecting particular phrases and ideas set down in the Declaration of Independence with the key texts that preceded it. And if visitors aren't stumped there (or even if they are), they can try the same tasks with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. After a visit to this site, some may even find themselves dusting off their old civics textbooks or at least planning a strip to a local government facility for further edification. [KMG]

http://www.library.umass.edu/spcoll/digital/brooks.htm

This website presents the digitized collection of correspondence and other ephemera of William Penn Brooks, of the Massachusetts Agricultural College. From 1877 to 1888, Brooks helped organize and run the Sapporo Agricultural College in Japan, which had been established by the Massachusetts Agricultural College, faculty and students, in Hokkaido, Japan. Most of the correspondence is between Brooks and his sister, while he was in Japan. Each letter is in offered as a pdf file, and Brooks faithfully wrote to his sister about every month. The letters are well-preserved, making them easy to read, and they catalog the daily goings on of the newfound agricultural college. There are also photographs and biographical works about Brooks' influence on agriculture. Visitors to the site should not miss the Japanese paper from 1915 titled "A Historical Sketch of the College of Agriculture, Tohoku Imperial University: What America Has Done for a Japanese Government College". In it, the authors describe Sapporo as becoming an "experiment station for American civilization" due to the Agricultural College's strong influence. [KMG]

http://www.vivo.colostate.edu/hbooks/pathphys/digestion/index.html

Colorado State University has produced this website as a hypertextbook on the subject of pathophysiology of the digestive system. In the "Introduction and Guide" link, they describe it as an education experiment that hopes to bypass the drawbacks of traditional paper and ink textbooks. The layout of this hypertextbook has a clickable table of contents, and at the bottom of each page is a helpful navigation device to show you what topic is next and what topic precedes it. Explanatory drawings or pictures accompany each concept, which makes for an excellent way to learn about the subject. Visitors should not forget to click on the "Hypertextbook" menu to see the other pathophysiology and biomedical sciences topics that are available as hypertextbooks at Colorado State University. [KMG]