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BioTechniquesVol. 43, No. 6 WebWatchOpen AccessWebWatchKevin AhernKevin AhernSearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:16 May 2018https://doi.org/10.2144/000112663AboutSectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInReddit Very FishyYou don't have to travel 20,000 leagues under the sea to view over 30,000 species of fish. All you need to do is trawl the waters of FishBase to reel in the big ones, which at this time includes over 44,000 pictures, 40,000 references, 260,000 common names, and 1500 collaborators. Perhaps not too surprisingly, the site also handles an astonishing 24 million hits per month, as well. Indeed, FishBase is so packed with info about our underwater friends that it might more accurately be described as a “databass” than a database. Managing this mother lode of content is the task of a well-designed search engine on the opening page, providing options for searching by common/scientific name, family, location, ecosystem, topic, biodiversity map, and more. There's also a reference database and a searchable glossary to lure you in.@ www.fishbase.orgGetting CulturedYou've got some plant tissue you hope to propagate, but you don't know where to turn for assistance. Help! Thanks to Dan Lineberger at Texas A&M, assistance isn't very far away. His Plant Tissue Culture Information Exchange (PTCIE) site provides useful insights to the topic of plant tissue culture in an easy-to-access format. Topic headings of micropropagation, embryogenesis, protoplasts, chimeras, and biotechnology guide visitors to collections of links, which, in turn, lead to (i) protocols; (ii) commercial labs/suppliers; and (iii) miscellaneous related sites. PTCIE serves plant researchers by delivering on the promise of information exchange.@ aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/tisscult/tcintro.htmlThe Eyes Have ItIf your eyes yearn for beauty, then you'll want to treat them by navigating to this aptly named site. Home to one of the most jaw-dropping collections of science-related images you're ever likely to see in one place, Eyeofscience.com (EOS) is something of a scientific voyeur's delight and a work of art, to boot. At the opening page, a teaser image provides a tantalizing view of the contents inside, and these never cease to amaze, from plant parts to bacteria to insects up closer and more personal than you've ever seen them. Produced using scanning electron microscopy (EM), computer tomography, light microscopy, underwater cameras, and (likely) a dose of Adobe Photoshop, EOS images sizzle and literally “pull” viewers right into the picture.@ www.eyeofscience.comMetabolic Building BlocksIs a cell greater than the sum of the parts composing it? Anyone harboring such a notion might have doubts after reviewing the enormous collection of metabolite data in the Human Metabolome Database (HMDB), hosted by GenomeAlberta, a not-for-profit Canadian enterprise serving the genomics community. Intended for use in clinical chemistry, biomarker discovery, and general education, as well as metabolomics, HMDB's detailed descriptions about abundant (>1 µM) and rare (<1 nM) cellular compounds paint a broad stripe across the stuff of life. After perusing data on 2500 small molecules and over 5500 large ones (proteins and DNA), a visitor could be excused for being overwhelmed. Subsections of the database, such as biofluids (plasma metabolites), tissues, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) search (spectral database), DrugBank, and mass spectrometry (MS) search (mass spectral data) point to specialized collections, whereas Text Query and Chem Query provide broader searching options.@ www.hmdb.caLet's Get ChemicalThe National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST) knows data. Boy do they! The USA's measurements and standards organization, NIST, provides valuable information for use in virtually every technical industry. The chemistry site is illustrative of NIST's many offerings, containing links to numerous databases. These encompass vibrational and electronic energies, ionization energy, electron/proton affinity, acidity, and molecular weight data. Data collections include thermodynamic data, infrared (IR)/mass/ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis) spectra, and constants of diatomic molecules. To help users find their way through the many offerings, there's even a hyperlinked guide to the site, complete with detailed instructions.@ webbook.nist.gov/chemistryFiguresReferencesRelatedDetailsCited BySimulation and experimental research of melt convection on dendrite morphology evolutionActa Physica Sinica, Vol. 60, No. 12 Vol. 43, No. 6 Follow us on social media for the latest updates Metrics History Published online 16 May 2018 Published in print December 2007 Information© 2007 Author(s)PDF download