Life Sciences

The Institute Archives serves as Caltech's collective memory, preserving the papers, documents, artifacts and pictorial materials that tell the school's history, from 1891 to the present. Holdings include manuscript, photographic, print and audio-visual materials, oral histories, fine art and historic artifacts. Many of the photographs are available in digital format (thumbnail and full size) through the photo archive. The site also includes information about using the physical archive, online versions of archive exhibits and facts about the Cal Tech archive.

The Dittrick Medical History Center is dedicated to the study of the medical past through a distinguished collection of rare books, museum artifacts, archives, and images. This web site includes images of exhibits and scientific instruments in the Dittrick Museum, images and annotations of samples from the 60,000 volume rare book collection, information about the archival collections and image collections. In addition, the site also hosts two virtual exhibits, "Haunting Images: Photography, Dissection and Medical Students," and "Smallpox: A City on the Edge of Disaster." Finally the site includes a section about research aids including on-line catalogues and bibliographical information.

Online database of the Greater Glasgow National Health Service Board Archive's holdings, largely comprised of the records of patient care and of hospital administration from the foundation of the Glasgow Royal Infirmary in 1794, which can be searched or browsed through several directories. The site also offers research guides and several image galleries.

In addition to basic materials such as a glossary, a links page and an introduction to the project, this site includes an online exhibit that focuses on significant bioscientists, video from the symposium, and digitized oral histories. The site also includes an internal search engine which should help users to move quickly through the information.

This site provides essays, timelines, and personal recollections of the history of research on plasmids, extremophiles and second generation antibiotics. Currently, only the plasmid portion of the site is fully developed. A timeline of plasmid research outlines major breakthroughs from 1903-1969, a glossary covers most of the important terms related to the field, and an extensive bibliography covers published papers on plasmids from the 1940s and 50s. Microbiologists and others involved with plasmid research can add their comments and recollections to the site's archive. In addition, the site contains links to other sites and professional associations interested in the history of microbiology.

This online database of over 3,000 images from the California Institute of Technology's archive of visual materials illustrates the history of science from the Scientific Revolution to the present. Photographs, fine prints, book illustrations, paintings, and architectural drawings of various scientists and their projects, including Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein, George Ellery Hale, and Linus Pauling are found in the database. Images are accompanied by a brief (roughly 150-word) biography and, in many cases, a photograph or other image of the scientist(s) involved in the project. The site can be browsed through two sub-categories, "Science and Technological artifacts" and "Rare Books," as well as a keyword search by scientist name or subject. This site provides an ideal tool for research on the history of science and prominent scientific figures.

This site contains biographical profiles of over 200 African-American men and women who have contributed to the advancement of science and engineering. The site provides brief (roughly 250 word) biographies of scholars from fields such as biology, chemistry, physics, zoology, and veterinary medicine, as well as inventors. Among the scientists included in the site are prominent figures like George Washington Carver, scientist and inventor of numerous industrial applications for agricultural products, and astronomer and mathematician Benjamin Banneker. Each entry also includes a bibliography of sources for further biographical information. The site is indexed by scientist name and profession, and there are special sections for the biographies of 20 women scientists and 14 of the first African Americans to receive Ph.D.'s in science. Though there are no primary documents on this site, it is a good place to find general information on prominent African-American scientists throughout American history.

This site features a short biography of Rachel Carson in addition to bibliographic collections of books by and about Carson. Of interest to researchers would be the collection of links of online Carson resources. A more general listing of links is also made available.

Site contains several biographies of the physicist and biophysicist Leo Szilard. Interviews and other primary sources are made available, as well as links to other sites for potential research. A number of images are present as is an extensive bibliography.