Reference Sites for the Intellectually Omniverous

Reference Sites   for the    Intellectually Omniverous

ANTHROPOLOGY
Anthropology Resources on the Internet	A central spot from which to hop-scotch around the world. Unlike a lot of websites, this one includes an easy-to-follow organizational pattern. The days’ news in anthropology, sites focused on every conceivable nook and cranny of the world, dictionaries, software, it’s all there… except, alas, for pictures. For anthropological images to die for, go to AnthroArcheArt.
Anthropology Resources at the University of Kent	This site in Canterbury, England, is maintained by the University’s Centre for Social Anthropology and Computing. It includes an ethnographic color photo gallery and many other resources designed specifically for anthropologists, among them a valuable software archive.
BIOLOGY
CELLS alive!	This is a state-of-the-art page with sound, animations and videos showing how single-celled beasts poke around for food and other microorganic necessities, even in some cases when their plat du jour is you and me.
MIT Biology Hypertextbook–search	The best up-to-date source of biological facts on the web. Well-written, temptingly illustrated and absolutely definitive. Use the rather austere-looking search page to find the bio-info you hanker for.
Image Library of Biological Macromolecules	How do we store oxygen? With great, galumphing molecules of myoglobin. To the left is a myoglobin oxygen-grabber from a sperm whale. Guess what else is made of macromolecules? You! Ya gotta see this site. If only to know who–and what–you really are.
COMPLEX ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS
Complex Adaptive Systems and Artificial Life	You are a collection of 100 trillion semi-autonomous cells cooperating in what’s called a complex adaptive system. A society is a collection of 100 million individuals or more in yet a larger complex adaptive system. What’s a complex adaptive system? And why does it matter? Go to Moshe Sipper’s Complex Adaptive Systems and Artificial Life website or read all about it in Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind From the Big Bang to the 21st Century.
Self Organizing Systems	At heart, The Lucifer Principle tells how human passions and physiology make us components of self-organizing systems like cultures and societies. The SOS site is a limited way station from which to reach a few of the major centers of self-organizing systems research.
Floys–An Experiment in Java A-Life	For a gut sense of how complex adaptive systems work, try playing with these. Floys are flocks of carniverous boids–speck-like artificial life forms that thrive in the environment of your computer screen. They work together to make mincemeat out of the prey you toss their way. But all their adaptations, no matter how swift, are based on just a handful of rules. Hit the “stranger” button to feed the floys and see them pounce. Then think of how humans do the same.
Complex Systems	Neural networks, which make a key appearance in The Lucifer Principle as a model for cultural superorganisms, are “complex adaptive systems.” This page is your cruiser to complexity’s frontiers–with links to artificial life, fractal graphics, fuzzy logic, chaos, neural nets, and even a color visualization of the Lorenz Attractor.
Telepolis	A German cyber-oriented online magazine (in English) probing the outer bounds of technology, evolution, philosophy and the future.
EVOLUTIONARY SCIENCES
Ian Pitchford’s Darwin & Darwinism	Ian Pitchford has built a site on psychology, evolution, and interdisciplinary science that boggles the mind. Scroll down his Darwin and Darwinism page for the full text of Charles Darwin’s books and for other key works in the history of evolutionary theory. Then take a look at Pitchford’s extraordinarily rich and varied daily reports on late-breaking developments in the sciences of life, evolution, emotion, and the mind. If that isn’t enough for you, dive into Pitchford’s seemingly endless archive of research reports using Ian’s handy search engine. Keep it up, Ian!
Human Behavior and Evolution Society Home Page	The Human Behavior and Evolution society is THE worldwide organization for evolutionary scientists, including anthropologists, evolutionary psychologists, pioneers of evolutionary medicine, and others devoted to the second generation of sociobiology. The HBES homepage includes a comprehensive list of upcoming scientific meetings for insiders, and hundreds of cross-links to related resources and organizations.
GEOPOLITICS
AOL	Yes, it is monolithic. Yes, it can be annoying, cloying, and totally overbearing. But one of the best-kept secrets in world news is AOL’s NewsProfiles service. Specify which parts of the globe interest you and which subjects fit your tastes. Then watch as critically important stories ignored by the New York Times and Washington Post roll in.
Georgie Anne Geyer	The obligation of a scientist is the pursuit of truth no matter what the cost. The obligation of a journalist is the same. Yet only one journalist I know lives up to this obligation: Georgie Anne Geyer. Geyer has contacts in the world of international politics who reveal to her what they reveal to no other. What’s more, her take on their whisperings is deliciously unconventional…and breathtakingly on target. (Except on the Middle East.)
BBC Country Profiles	Need to know the name of the current president of Tanzania? (Benjamin Mkapa.) Curious about who controls the media in Algeria? (The government.) Want to find out if the average American makes more money than the average Swede? (She does.) This is your perfect cyber-spot.
HISTORY
World History	History sources on the WWW are, alas, still a confusing labyrinth in which one could get lost forever. Nonetheless, the World History site provides a solid starting point for those willing to spelunk the murky, sometimes dead-end corridors that lead to knowledge of the past.
Hanover College History Department – Texts and Documents	A rapidly growing electronic library of original texts for history buffs and for scholars in the field. Includes documents ranging from speeches and letters by Abraham Lincoln to India’s ancient Tipitaka, the collected sayings and teachings of the Buddha. Also includes links to other sites with further caches of internet- configured historical documents.
Historical Atlas–Hyperhistory Online	When you’re tracking the forces of history though Lagash, Nippur, Uruk, and Ur, it helps to see exactly where these cities were. This colorful site will do the trick. When you get to the hyperhistory homepage, click the “Maps” button on your left.
MEMES
meme lion by KMO–for more of his artwork, click hereThe World of Zoologist Richard Dawkins	Richard Dawkins, author of The Selfish Gene, is one of the most influential and stimulating evolutionary thinkers of the last two decades. His concept of the “meme” appears countless times in the pages of The Lucifer Principle. The website dedicated to him is a virtual library of Dawkins’ output and related materials.
Lucifer.com/virus	Since Dawkins proposed the “meme,” this concept of a self- replicating twist of mindstuff leaping from one human brain to another has given birth to both a new science (memetics) and a new religion (The Church of The Virus). The mini-labyrinth of lucifer.com plays host to those interested in both. It is crammed with book recommendations, reviews, an active news group for those who like to exchange ideas on mind-contagion, and numerous other surprises.
meme.central	Meme Central is a site built around Richard Brodie’s book Virus of the Mind. However unlike so many other web locations, this is not an embryo of better things to come. It is what it promises: a full-grown midpoint from which to explore the Web world of the meme.
Principia Cybernetica	This “Universal Knowledge System for Cybernetics and Systems Science”–put together by Belgium’s Dr. Francis Heylighen with a prestigious international team–is a wonderland in which you could wander for months. It covers memes, genes, evolution, the global brain, epistemology, metaphysics, ontology, “the meaning of life,” and nearly every conceptual cutting edge.
POLITICAL SCIENCE
Political Science Net Station	Political Science is a noble mission that hasn’t yet become a science. But The Poltical Science Net Station makes up for that flaw by offering an entry point into the political systems, parties, issues, original documents and scholarly debates of just about every nation on earth. Here’s your wormhole to everything from Amnesty International’s Annual Report on Romania, an Armed Conflicts rundown on Saudi Arabi from 1800-1999, and a survey of sexually transmitted diseases in Mongolia to the homepage of the Arab Organization For Human Rights and a huge site on Mass Media, Communications, Journalism and Propaganda.
Political Science Research Resources	Political Science Research Resources is rich in listings for the mathematically inclined, with separate sections on dynamic models, game theory, artificial intelligence, econometrics, and raw political science data. It’s also a good hunting ground for links to political science departments, journals, and directories.
PSYCHOLOGY AND PHYSIOLOGY (Believe it or not, these topics overlap so intricately that it seems necessary to lump them together.)
Digital Anatomist Interactive Atlases	The ultimate resource on brain and body structures. A compendium of road maps to even the most obscure physiological appurtenances, these Digital Atlases are loaded with 3-D graphics and next- generation film clips that will astonish even science-hating websurfers.
The Whole Brain Atlas	Have you ever stayed up all night wondering what the cingulate gyrus looks like? Or has the urge to anatomize the brain with a very fine salami slicer ever hit you? The folks at Harvard University have fulfilled your wishes, giving you real photos (courtesy of CT, SPECT/PET, and NMRI scanners) which cover the brain in three to five millimeter sections. Here’s your chance to keep up with Oliver (The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat) Sachs by comparing a normal brain with that of a patient whose speech abilities have been knocked out by stroke.
PsychReport	The day’s news in psychology from the definitive source, the American Psychological Association. Don’t let that scare you. These articles are readable as all get out.
PsychCrawler, PscyhArticlesDirect, and Psychological Science On the Net	Three extraordinarily good search engines for research articles on matters psychological.
Psych Web by Russ Dewey	In the days when the American Psychological Association was hoarding its data like the Grinch, Russ Dewey’s Psych Web was salvation on a microchip. Today, Dewey’s site has been eclipsed, but it still has its bright spots–complete text versions of two key books: The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud and The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James; a vital tool for psych students–the APA Manul Crib Sheet; and material on states of consciousness, sports psychology, and the psychology of religion.
American Psychological Society (APS)	The major organization for research-oriented psychologists. A good jumping off point for the discovery of research results, research tools, organizations and data.
Society for Behavioral Neuroendocrinology	Behavioral neuroendocrinology, the study of the interaction between the hormones that drive us and the way we act or feel, is another discipline on which The Lucifer Principle draws heavily. And like so many other boundary-crossing fields, it has yet to achieve a full-scale, omni-purpose website. This homepage is not much of a start. But the search function at the bottom of the opening screen is a treasure!
Neuropsychology Central	The Grand Central Station of cross links to the sciences that illuminate the minuet between brain, mind, and body. Particularly useful for scientists who take their splicing of physiology and psychology seriously.
Scent of Eros	The Lucifer Principle is about forces that move us in strange ways without our being aware of them. One of these is scent. Scent is an ancient signalling system. Though we live in what one Turkish scientist calls an “olfactorily illiterate” society, odors released by another human can unconsciously shift our bodies’ rhythms and a great deal more. The Scent of Eros is an excellent source of scientific studies and popular articles documenting that point.
REFERENCE
Wolfram Research’s World of Science	A fabulous online encyclopedia of mathematics and the “hard” sciences–astronomy, chemistry, mathematics, and physics–garnished with biographies of science’s greats. Try the search engine at the bottom of the homepage and soar. This gem is brought to you by legendary theoretical physicist and mathematician Stephen Wolfram and self-billed “Web Encyclopedist, Astronomer, Menace to Navigation” Eric Weisstein.
RhymeZone	A silly name for a super resource. Rhymezone is the Swiss Army Knife of dictionaries–a rhyming dictionary, the best thesaurus going (use the “related word” feature for the best results), a directory to Shakespeare quotes on the word of your choice, homophones, antonyms, and even what purports to be a picture search engine.
Library of Congress Catalog	It’s frustrating, confusing, and makes you want to scream, but The Library of Congress search engine is a key cyber-tool for digging out detailed information on just about any book ever published in the English language.
Bookfinder.com	Once upon a time there was an extraordinary site that would find you just about any used or out-of-print book ever set in type. It was called BiblioFind. Amazon.com bought it and put it out of business. Bookfinder.com ain’t BiblioFind, but it hunts down new, used, and out-of-print books, then gives you price comparisons so you can pick the bargain of your choice.
The Encyclopedia Britannica	It used to cost a fortune. Now it’s free. THE encyclopedia. And, as a bonus, it’s searches bring you more than just Britannica articles–they fetch other web resources that might help answer your questions.
SCIENCE NEWS
ScienceDaily	The quickest way to swallow a day’s worth of exciting but extremely solid science news in a single gulp.
CNN – Science – Technology	A nice dessert after the epicurean meat and potatoes served by ScienceDaily.
EurekAlert!	Run by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, EurekAlert! is a bit more bland than ScienceDaily. But both ScienceDaily and EurekAlert give direct access to the press releases from which outlets like ABC Nightly News, CNN, The Discovery Channel, and the popular magazines get their scoops.
SEARCH ENGINES
Google	The best search tool I’ve ever seen. Works quickly, eliminates confusion, and homes in on what you really need. It will even sniff out the homepages of researchers whose work interests you. Google turns the World Wide Web into the World’s Greatest Library!
excite	If science is your sport and you want a to cast a wider net than Google offers, the Excite search engine is better than most.
SHOPPING
Amazon.com	Over two million books, all easily accessible via search engine. Unlike the far more limited databases of other online bookstores, most of the entries in the Amazon.com computer offer lots of descriptive information. A tip–for many of the same books at far lower prices try AllDirect.com.
Yahoo! Shopping	If you effervesce over ideas and would rather spend your time reading or brainstorming than shopping, try Yahoo! Shopping. Enter any item you want, and Yahoo will track it down at dozens (or hundreds) of e-commerce stores. Then Yahoo! Shopping will give you its results in order of price, so you can zero in on bargains that would make uncomputerized connoisseurs of the cut-rate jealous. Fill in your order and go back to the bubbling pleasures of thought.Try Yahoo! Shopping for books. It will often find you what you want at a cost well below Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.
SOCIAL SCIENCES, general
Social Science Information Gateway – SOSIG	A one-stop foyer through which one can enter social science reference sources hidden all over the world. And unlike many sites, the Social Science Gateway comes complete with an internal search engine.
WEB DESIGN
Animated GIF Artists Guild	A great site from which to steal (or borrow) animated images for website design. Many of the images on this page come from the AGAG gallery of winning animated images.

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