Are you searching for Genomics information? There are a lot of choices out there. Perhaps one of the most fun is BlindSearch. Just enter your search term and simultaneously it is searched in the three “big” search engines: Bing, Google and Yahoo (no rank implied, just alphabetically listed). Then you can vote on which search engine is best for that topic. Another search engine I put high on my list, especially when I am talking to young students, is Ask.com. This search engine allows the searcher to type in a natural language question, so it helps formulate the search when the student is not really sure what they are looking for. This is especially useful if it is a question that has been asked many times before. These tools are all fine if you are looking for background information on a specific topic. But what to do if you want to keep current with a topic? You can’t do a new search every day. One suggestion is to set up email “news alerts” or “news updates” from your favourite search engine. Read more Another common way to access the latest information is to set up RSS feeds to the websites, blogs, and news feeds you want to follow. At presentations I have made over the past three years, I have encouraged my audience to follow my blog through the RSS feeds provided on the site. I personally use RSS feeds to follow several topics of interest to me, including Canada’s all-time favourite – the weather.

I have found one of the most fascinating ways to keep up on trending topics is the micro-blogging site, Twitter. Last night through a tweet, I learned that the president of the Human Genome Organisation (HUGO) was using Twitter from Geneva to comment on the Symposium on Genomics and Ethics, Law and Society. I didn’t need to search for this information; I got it directly by following my colleague Mike Spear @mikesgene on Twitter. If you search terms such as “genome” and “genomics” on Twitter, you will find that it becomes obvious which significant people to follow if you want to know what the latest information is in this field.

You may find that you do not wish to spend time following all the links on Twitter even if you have narrowed the field down to a couple of topics. Not to worry, as Genome Alberta has set up a comprehensive mechanism to help you follow news and blogs with a Facebook application called GenOmics. You can view many aspects of this application even if you have not joined Facebook yourself, but if you wish to take advantage of the interactive features, having a Facebook account is necessary.

If Web 2.0 was the connection between people on the web, some have defined Web 3.0 as connection with information. This type of thing was predicted by Tim Berners-Lee, James Hendler and Ora Lassila when they wrote about The Semantic Web in 2001 in Scientific American. Until this is a reality, I encourage you to keep up with genomics by following my blogs, my tweets @gwardis and our application, GenOmics.

Helping You Keep Current with Genomics

November 2, 2009 2:00 PM

Filed Under: Gerry Ward

Are you searching for Genomics information? There are a lot of choices out there. Perhaps one of the most fun is BlindSearch. Just enter your search term and simultaneously it is searched in the three “big” search engines: Bing, Google and Yahoo (no rank implied, just alphabetically listed). Then you can vote on which search engine is best for that topic. Another search engine I put high on my list, especially when I am talking to young students, is Ask.com. This search engine allows the searcher to type in a natural language question, so it helps formulate the search when the student is not really sure what they are looking for. This is especially useful if it is a question that has been asked many times before. These tools are all fine if you are looking for background information on a specific topic. But what to do if you want to keep current with a topic? You can’t do a new search every day. One suggestion is to set up email “news alerts” or “news updates” from your favourite search engine.

Another common way to access the latest information is to set up RSS feeds to the websites, blogs, and news feeds you want to follow. At presentations I have made over the past three years, I have encouraged my audience to follow my blog through the RSS feeds provided on the site. I personally use RSS feeds to follow several topics of interest to me, including Canada’s all-time favourite – the weather.

I have found one of the most fascinating ways to keep up on trending topics is the micro-blogging site, Twitter. Last night through a tweet, I learned that the president of the Human Genome Organisation (HUGO) was using Twitter from Geneva to comment on the Symposium on Genomics and Ethics, Law and Society. I didn’t need to search for this information; I got it directly by following my colleague Mike Spear @mikesgene on Twitter. If you search terms such as “genome” and “genomics” on Twitter, you will find that it becomes obvious which significant people to follow if you want to know what the latest information is in this field.

You may find that you do not wish to spend time following all the links on Twitter even if you have narrowed the field down to a couple of topics. Not to worry, as Genome Alberta has set up a comprehensive mechanism to help you follow news and blogs with a Facebook application called GenOmics. You can view many aspects of this application even if you have not joined Facebook yourself, but if you wish to take advantage of the interactive features, having a Facebook account is necessary.

If Web 2.0 was the connection between people on the web, some have defined Web 3.0 as connection with information. This type of thing was predicted by Tim Berners-Lee, James Hendler and Ora Lassila when they wrote about The Semantic Web in 2001 in Scientific American. Until this is a reality, I encourage you to keep up with genomics by following my blogs, my tweets @gwardis and our application, GenOmics.

Posted by Gerry Ward at November 2, 2009 2:00 PM

Comments

Berci Mesko email - http://www.webicina.com

I launched a genetics/genomics section in the simplest aggregator of quality medical information. Here is PeRSSonalized Genetics:

http://www.webicina.com/perssonalized/?page=1&cat=11

Gerry email - www.genomealberta.ca/blogs/

Berci, thanks for adding your link to my blog. It looks like a valuable source of medical information.

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