The Scout Report -- Volume 24, Number 8

On February 1, 2018, the John Jay College of Criminal Justice released the New York Slavery Records Index, an online database containing more than 35,000 records. These records include "census records, slave trade transactions, cemetery records, birth certifications, manumissions, ship inventories, newspaper accounts, private narratives, legal documents, and many other sources." Collectively, these archives document the lives of enslaved individuals in New York state from the year 1525 through the advent of the U.S. Civil War, making visible an important part of the state's history that is often obscured from official accounts. The database was created by professors Ned Benton and Judy-Lynne Peters along with a team of graduate scholars. Visitors may want to start by exploring the section entitled Easy Searches to Try, which offers a list of abbreviations that the team used to tag different kinds of resources in the database. The database is also accompanied by several short essays that provide historical context about slavery in New York state. [MMB]

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The Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS) is a "consortium of over 120 US universities dedicated to the operation of science facilities for the acquisition, management, and distribution of seismological data." Researchers and science instructors will find a number of resources that may be of interest on this website. These resources include a variety of datasets, available in the research section. Many of these datasets are available for browsing while others can be requested via a web form. Instructors will want to check out the education section, which includes lessons (complete with assembled PowerPoint presentations), fact sheets, and posters. Here, visitors will also find the Earthquake Browser, an interactive map of real-time earthquake data. IRIS also frequently hosts webinars that "highlight recent scientific results stemming directly from the facilities administered by IRIS, such as EarthScope's USArray or core IRIS programs like PASSCAL and the GSN." Visitors can learn more about these webinars in the resources section. [MMB]

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In his introductory lecture for this Open Yale Course, History professor Frank Snowden proposes a thesis: "Infectious diseases are too important to leave solely to the doctors." As the professor explains, while he does not expect students to share his thesis, this course offers an opportunity to explore the topic. Over the course of 26 video-recorded lectures (available via the sessions tab), Snowden covers several great epidemics, including the plague, smallpox, tuberculosis, and AIDS. In other lectures, Snowden addresses important chapters of global medical history including the nineteenth-century Sanitary Movement and the horrific Tuskegee Experiment, which took place between 1932 and 1972. In the syllabus section, visitors will also find a complete list of books used in this course. [MMB]

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For researchers and journalists interested in the intersections of religion and society, British Religion in Numbers (BRIN) is a valuable resource. Hosted by the University of Manchester, BRIN offers a rich collection of datasets and public opinion surveys from Great Britain. The project is headed by a team of British academics: Clive Field of the University of Birmingham, David Voas of the University College London, and Siobhan McAndrew of the University of Bristol. Many of the datasets included in BRIN are based on surveys lead by this team; others are aggregated from other research institutions. One highlight of BRIN is the annual Counting Religion in Britain poll: in the 2017 poll, the BRIN team surveyed 29,000 adults about their religious affiliation. Other recent polls survey public knowledge about the life of Jesus Christ and public attitudes about the trustworthiness of clergy. In addition to these surveys about contemporary religious practices and attitudes, BRIN is also home to historical data about religion in Great Britain. [MMB]

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NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has created this series of K-12 curriculum materials that align with Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). These materials are designed to help young scientists understand the Engineering Design Process used at the Jet Laboratory and to use this process to participate in engineering themselves. Instructors can browse this collection by four grade levels: grades K-2; grades 3-5; middle school; and high school. Each activity in this collection features a short video that demonstrates JPL engineering in action. These videos are accompanied by a detailed, hands-on activity, available via a link in the "Use it in the Classroom" section. For instance, one activity for grade 3-5 students features a video about the Opportunity rover, which has been exploring Mars since 2004. In this video, rover driver Hallie Gengl describes how the team must take Mars's terrain into account when planning a drive. Next, students create their own rovers out of pasta, using the same design and planning principal they learned about in the video. [MMB]

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Based in Arlington, Virginia, the NewseumEd is a museum dedicated to all things journalism. For educators and librarians, the NewseumEd hosts a wealth of materials related to media literacy, including interactive activities, lesson plans, case studies, printable posters, and more. Most of these materials are aimed toward middle school, high school, or university level students. In one 30-60 minute lesson plan, "E.S.C.A.P.E. Junk News", students learn a helpful acronym for critically evaluating the news stories (Evaluate, Source, Context, Audience, Purpose, and Execution). Students then examine a contemporary news article with the aid of a helpful graphic organizer. In another activity, "Believe it or Not: When the News Media Makes Mistakes," students examine corrections printed in newspapers and other media sources and learn how to use an "accuracy checklist." While most of these resources are designed to help readers critically examine contemporary news media, other materials in the collection center on historical news coverage. For example, one activity addresses turn-of-the-century journalism regarding the women's suffrage movement, while another explores mid-twentieth century reporting of the Civil Rights Movement. [MMB]

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For librarians, educators, and parents in search of books for young readers, De Colores is a blog dedicated to "review[ing] and critiqu[ing] children's and young adult books about Raza peoples throughout the Diaspora." De Colores is authored and edited by educator Beverly Slapin and authored by a team of literature scholars, librarians, educators, and activists. Visitors can find the most recent book reviews on the site's homepage. Each book review contains a thorough synopsis and a short passage of the book - some entries reference books of related interest. Visitors can also browse previously reviewed books by title or by labels, which include author names and subject tags. The essays/stories section features longer essays that incorporate related children's literature. Another highlight of this blog is the valuable teaching resource "How to Tell the Difference: A Guide for Evaluating Children's Books for Honest Portrayals of Raza People." [MMB]

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Medical and Health Humanities is a new online journal dedicated to the intersections of medicine in the humanities. The journal was launched in 2017 by literary scholar Arden Hegele and physician Rishi Goyal. Hegele and Goyal both teach at Columbia University and share an interest in the medical humanities. This journal features contributions from scholars trained in a variety of disciplines, including English scholars, historians, neurologists, sociologists, and medical doctors. In one recently published article, English scholar Livia Arndal Woods argues that one can trace the legacy of Victorian novels in the way that the Fifty Shades of Grey novels depict pregnancy. In another recent essay, neurologist Sneha Mantri uses Kazuo Ishiguro's novel Never Let Me Go to consider creativity and empathy. [MMB]

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From PBS Digital Studios comes Eons, a show dedicated to covering the time period between the Archaean Eon (which began approximately four billion years ago) through the Mesozoic Era (which ended approximately 65 million years ago). This prehistoric time period encompassed the advent of the earliest life forms as well as the age of the dinosaurs. Hosted by veteran vlogger Hank Green, paleontologist Kallie Moore, and science writer Blake de Pastino, Eons offers clear and well-illustrated insights about the dawn of life in a series of short videos (each approximately ten minutes in length). One recent episode, "How Two Microbes Changed History," explains how endosymbiosis led to the creation of eukaryotic cells. Another episode, "The Age of the Giant Insects," describes the insects of the Carboniferous Period (358-298 million years ago), some of which were the size of modern-day pigeons. Eons premiered in June 2017, and new episodes are released weekly. [MMB]

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From Northeastern University comes What's New, a podcast dedicated to "new ideas and discoveries." The podcast is hosted by Dan Cohen, who serves as the Dean of Libraries and Vice Provost at Northeastern. In each thirty-minute episode, Cohen chats with a different Northeastern University scholar about their research or area of expertise. The result is a show that makes a wide variety of research topics and areas of inquiry accessible to the general public. In one recent episode, Cohen talks to Julia Flanders and Amanda Ross of Northeastern's Digital Scholarship Group discuss "how to design digital systems to be more attentive to the true diversity of humanity." In another recent episode, Cohen talks to Dietmar Offenhuber, a professor of Art, Design and Public Policy, about systems of waste management reveal about a society. [MMB]

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For architecture aficionados who live in the United States (or are planning to travel to the U.S.), the Society of Architectural History (SAH) offers this "Archipedia" of hundreds of classical buildings that can be found across the country. This collection is part of SAH's complete Archipedia (available by subscription only), which contains almost 20,000 entries about works of American architecture. Visitors can search for classic buildings by state through an interactive map. Alternatively, visitors may also search by material, style, century, architect, or type. Each featured building is accompanied by a detailed entry and photograph. This diverse collection includes the Jeffers Petroglyphs in Minnesota, which date back to approximately 5000 years BCE; the Pueblo Mission Church of San Felipe in New Mexico, constructed in the early eighteenth century; the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, built in Bentonville, Arkansas, in 2011; and much more. [MMB]

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How well do you think you know world geography? John Nelson recently designed this Esri story map, which is all about American geographic misconceptions. This story map is based on an excerpt from a paper published in the 1990s by Central Michigan University geographers Burton D. Nelson, Robert H. Aron, and Mark A. Franck, which outlines common misconceptions of U.S. students in an introductory physical geography class. Many U.S. students, for example, do not realize that two-thirds of Africa are north of the equator and associate the entire continent with the Southern Hemisphere. Similarly, U.S. students also tend to underestimate how far north Europe extends. To the surprise of many Americans, Minneapolis, Minnesota sits at the roughly same latitudinal line of Venice, Italy. Meanwhile, London, U.K. is close in latitude to Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Nelson's story map includes helpful visuals that debunk these common geographic misconceptions, along with possible explanations as to why these misconceptions have become so widespread. [MMB]

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The Long Victorian is a blog dedicated to books written during the Long Nineteenth Century, from 1789 (the year of the French Revolution) through 1914 (the advent of World War I). The blog is maintained by a self-described "interested reader" who has worked as a librarian and in the book trade. The blog contains detailed book reviews of books that were either written during the Long Victorian or are set in the time period, along with musings other Victorian-related topics. Recently reviewed titles include Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Chinua Achebe's Things Fall About (set in the late-nineteenth century). Another recent blog post considers the nineteenth-century books that might be considered the precursors to the so-called Golden Age of Detective Fiction (1920s-1930s). Visitors may also enjoy a whimsical pair of blog posts that consider the Victorian doppelgangers of contemporary celebrities, which can be found in the blog highlights section. [MMB]

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How have solar eclipses shaped the course of human history? What happens when a human runs a marathon against a horse? Why do frozen lakes make that "Pew, pew, pew!" sound that is ubiquitous in action movies? If these questions pique your attention, you may want to check out Skunk Bear: a delightful series of videos from Adam Cole, NPR science desk reporter, and Ryan Kellman, the show's visual journalist and producer. Skunk Bear's tagline is "pocket-sized science facts," and videos typically run only between three and ten minutes in length. During this time, Cole shares answers to common scientific questions, sometimes in the form of song. Interested viewers can check out Skunk Bear via the link above, or follow the series on their Tumblr page. In case you are wondering why the show is called Skunk Bear, the term is a nickname for the wolverine, creatures that are "strong for their size and known for their incredibly diverse diet." Similarly, Skunk Bear has, "an insatiable appetite for all kinds of science stories - big and small." [MMB]

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As the 2018 Winter Olympics conclude in Pyeongchang County, South Korea on February 25, Olympics fans may be interested in exploring the event's 94-year history. In 2014, the Los Angeles Times created this interactive infographic of Olympic winners to commemorate the Sochi Olympics. Here, visitors can explore the individuals and countries that emerged victorious in Winter Olympic events of yesteryear. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Scandinavian countries dominated the first-ever Winter Olympics, held in Chamonix, France in 1924: of the 49 medals awarded that year, 17 went to Norway and 11 to Finland. In fact, Norway took home the most Olympic medals every year between 1924 and 1952 with just one exception: The United States edged out Norway in the 1932 Olympics in Lake Placid, New York. Visitors can also explore past medal winners by age and gender, offering a glimpse into how the event has changed over the years. In 1924, women competed in just one event: figure skating. [MMB]

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Sourcetree is a graphical front-end for the Git revision control system. First created in 2005 for the community of Linux kernel developers, Git has become one of the most popular revision control systems among technical people of all kinds. For example, the Library of Congress maintains Git repositories (hosted on GitHub) for a number of projects they are working on. These include XSLT to translate MARC records into BIBFRAME RDF, reference implementations of the BagIt standard in a number of languages, XML schemas for a number of metadata standards, and more. Users typically access Git repositories using the Git command-line tool. Unfortunately, this tool is famously hard to learn - so much so that papers on Git's obtuseness have been published as computer science literature. Sourcetree provides a much more intuitive, visual tool for interacting with Git repositories. It also includes a set of comprehensive tutorials covering the basic concept of Git. Sourcetree is available for Windows and macOS. [CRH]

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Next browser is a web browser for power-users inspired by the venerable Emacs text editor. Like Emacs, Next browser is written in and can be extended with the Lisp programming language. It can also be operated entirely from the keyboard, with keybindings that largely mimic those of Emacs. These include keyboard shortcuts for scrolling the page, navigating between tabs, jumping to HTML headings, searching the page, manipulating bookmarks, and navigating history. Next browser's history is featured as somewhat unique in that it stores history as a tree with multiple branches rather than a linear sequence. Next browser is open source software, available under the 3-Clause BSD license with source code on GitHub. Next browser is available for macOS and Linux. [CRH]

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Drawing on archival material from the Chemical Heritage Foundation, Stinks, Bangs, and Booms offers an interactive and highly entertaining tour through the history of the chemistry set. Stinks, Bangs, and Booms was last featured in the 05-27-2015 Scout Report.

Have you ever wondered about the origins of the chemistry set or its evolution from the Young Chemists Pocket Companion of 1797 to the modern kits we know today? Stinks, Bangs, and Booms answer those questions and more as it traces the rise and fall of the American chemistry set through four interactive chapters: Inception (1791), Heyday (1920-1960), The Decline (1960-1979), and The Resurgence (1980-Today). The engaging online interface was created by Bluecadet and draws upon the plentiful research and archival material of the Chemical Heritage Foundation. Interactive elements and mini-games keep readers interested and users have the opportunity to delve a little deeper or move on to the next section. One particularly interesting activity, featured in the Heyday chapter, includes listening to the short oral histories of professors, business leaders, and others as they remember their first chemistry sets. While most site visitors will be intrigued by the American chemistry set's colorful history, educators and librarians are sure to find many exciting uses for this amazing website.

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