1. (less than 20minutes)
Use Pubmed in NCBI's Entrez to find an article written by Carl R. Woese (famous scientist, co-discoverer of the Archaea), published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences with the words primary kingdoms in the title of the paper. Try to use Boolean operators and field tags; if you cannot recall the tags, use the Preview/Index tool.
What query did find the 1977 article?
How many related articles are linked to this article?
(in the window that gives you the title authors and abstract, click on the link labeled "see all related articles ..." )
When was the most recent published (Hint: set the "Sort by" pull down menu to Pub date)?
2. (ca. 7 minutes) (Note: Entrez' pulldown menus do not work well in Safari -- use Firefox)
In NCBI's Entrez/pubmed find the earliest paper co-authored by Senejani and Gogarten. What is the topic of the paper?
To learn about inteins, select books as the target database to search (pulldown menu on the left, below the black bar) and search for intein. The link on intein homing is instructive. For more information check Wikipedia on inteins
3. (ca. 5 minutes)
Dr. Gogarten seems obsessed by an important protein called ATP synthase. Is he interested in anything else? How many articles has he published that are NOT related to the ATP synthase OR ATPase?
What query did you assemble?
How many articles did you find?
4. (10 minutes)
For a scientist of your choice (e.g., your advisor, or someone who publishes in your field of interest), using ISI's Web of Science database (note: there might be a limit on the number of simultaneous users, if you don't get in, try again later), search for articles that cite this author (i.e., use a cited reference search).
Which was the most cited article?
How often was it cited?
When was the most recent citation?
Did you find any interesting article?
Was this article available online?
5. (5 minutes)
Using Entrez search for articles co-authored by Taiz and Gogarten.
How many articles did you retrieve?
Using the display selector in the second header bar, display all nucleotide and all protein links. How many did you find?
Do all the different protein sequences really refer to different sequences?
What might explain your finding?
6. (8 minutes)
To what domain (super kingdom), phylum (kingdom), and family does Thermoplasma belong? (Use the Taxonomy link. In the line labeled lineage, if you hover the mouse pointer over the names, it tells you which taxonomic category you are pointing at. )
How many protein sequences are available for Thermoplasma acidophilum, how many are available for the genus Thermoplasma? (In the taxonomy browser go to Thermoplasma and check protein in the header, then hit the return key on your keyboard)