Unofficial impact factors

Biomed Central has calculated unofficial impact factors for many of its titles that are not yet covered in Journal Citation Reports -- they used ISI data to figure out the IFs for ~100 BMC titles. Seems like a great way to work around the delay between when a journal begins publication and when ISI begins tracking/calculating IFs.

More here on the Biomed Central blog and here on the BMC Impact Factor FAQ.

Friday humor: David Sedaris

The Fresh Air David Sedaris interview is up on the NPR site -- he talks about his latest book (When you are engulfed in flames).

(he's touring now too -- dates are up in Ticketmaster, including a Nashville date this fall!)

More on procrastination

This feature on NPR's Talk of the Nation fits in really well with my ongoing struggle to trick myself into doing things that I need to do but don't really want to do :) -- How to Be a Productive Procrastinator

Why do today what you can do the day after tomorrow? Procrastination expert Timothy Pychyl and self-professed "structured procrastinator" John Perry discuss the latest research on this type of behavior and how to prioritize what's really important.

including "the inner mechanics of lolly-gagging"...

And here's one of my favorite cartoons ever - "Tales of Mere Existence: Procrastination"

Finding the right word

I'm a huge fan of Roget's Thesaurus; a battered print copy inherited from my dad (copyright 1962) sits on the shelf above my desk and I use it at least weekly. I know I'm not alone in my love of words, and a Lifehacker post today confirms it! A whole group of word-related sites and webapps -- "Best Online Language Tools for Word Nerds."

Organic milk's shelf life

I've idly wondered about this from time to time but never tried to find an answer - why does organic milk last so much longer than regular milk? I started buying it partly because of the antibiotic issue, but have kept buying it because it suits my erratic like/dislike relationship with milk. This weekend, Scientific American briefly looked at why organic milk lasts so long, which turns out to be due to ultrahigh temperature processing instead of the way that it's produced.