LibGuides: Biological Sciences: Articles and Databases

Articles and Databases

OneSearch This link opens in a new window
Search for articles, books, course reserves, and more; all in one! Provides access to the majority of the library’s resources from a single entry point. OneSearch including the library's physical items and most of the library’s electronic content.
Biological Abstracts Web of Science This link opens in a new window
Biological Abstracts 1926-present, indexes journals covering life science topics that range from botany to microbiology to pharmacology. In addition to searching for articles on your topic, you can use Biological Abstracts to find cited references, determine impact factor and much more. Full text may be available via the "Find It" link.
ScienceDirect This link opens in a new window
Abstracts, tables of contents, and full text of articles and book chapters in the physical sciences and engineering, life sciences, health sciences, and social sciences and humanities.
PubMed This link opens in a new window
Comprises more than 23 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. Citations may include links to full-text content from PubMed Central and publisher web sites.
SpringerLink This link opens in a new window
Full-text access to journals, books, series, protocols, and reference works published by Springer.
AGRICOLA This link opens in a new window
Catalog and index to the collections of the National Agricultural Library. Organized into two bibliographic data sets: The NAL Online Public Access Catalog containing citations to books, audiovisuals, serials, and other materials; and the Article Citation Database including citations, many with abstracts, to journal articles, book chapters, reports, and reprints.
American Chemical Society This link opens in a new window
Forty journals published by the American Chemical Society.
Cochrane Library This link opens in a new window
Six evidence-based medical databases, with protocols, controlled trials, and full-text reviews. Access restricted to 1 user at a time.

MedlinePlus
MedlinePlus is an online information resource for patients and their families and friends. It is a service of the National Library of Medicine (NLM), the world's largest medical library, and a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). MedlinePlus presents reliable, high-quality, relevant health and wellness information that is trusted and easy to understand in both English and Spanish.
Public Health Digital Literacy
The Public Health Digital Library (PHDL) provides state and local public health departments access to library resources, including e-journals, e-books, and databases. Resources support evidence-based practice and research in public health.
BLAST: Basic Local Alignment Search Tool
BLAST finds regions of similarity between biological sequences. The program compares nucleotide or protein sequences to sequence databases and calculates the statistical significance.
NCBI Taxonomy Database
The Taxonomy Database is a curated classification and nomenclature for all of the organisms in the public sequence databases. This currently represents about 10% of the described species of life on the planet.

Rarely will you know the best terms or keywords to plug into a database. Choosing the best keywords is a process of trial and error. For scientific research you will want to be specific. Look at the results list from a database search to help you locate the best search terms. In the detailed record there will often be lists of subject terms, author-supplied keywords, MeSH terms (Medical Subject headings) etc. that will lead you to the best search terms. Below is an example from the PubMed database:

PubMed article with key words MESH Terms highlighted.

Make full use of limiters and tools. Each database is different but in general they will all have some variation of the following limiters and tools. For more results make sure Full Text is not selected. For fewer results limit the Publication Date.

You can usually email yourself a copy of the record, save full text articles, send yourself the permanent link and/or use the citation provided by the database. Make sure to double check the citation as they are computer generated and may have mistakes.

Top Biological Science Journals

The following list is a small sample of journals useful for researching the biological sciences. Many discipline-specific journals are also available. Please check the catalog record for format information (online or print).

Biogeosciences
Biogeosciences (BG) is a not-for-profit international scientific journal dedicated to the publication and discussion of research articles, short communications, and review papers on all aspects of the interactions between the biological, chemical, and physical processes in terrestrial or extraterrestrial life with the geosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere.
Biological Reviews
Published by the Cambridge University Press, Biological Reviews covers the entire range of the biological sciences, presenting several review articles per issue. Although scholarly and with extensive bibliographies, the articles are aimed at non-specialist biologists as well as researchers in the field. Authors are specifically instructed to be aware of this fact in their writing, and the resulting reviews serve as extensive introductions to particular fields, defining the state of the art, and drawing attention to gaps in knowledge.
Cell
Cell publishes findings of significance in any area of experimental biology, including but not limited to cell biology, molecular biology, neuroscience, immunology, virology and microbiology, cancer, human genetics, systems biology, signaling, and disease. The basic criterion for considering papers is whether the results provide significant conceptual advances into, or raise questions and hypotheses regarding, a biological question. In addition to primary research articles in four formats, Cell features review and opinion articles on recent research advances and issues of interest to its broad readership in the Leading Edge section.
Nature
Nature is a weekly international journal publishing peer-reviewed research in all fields of science and technology on the basis of its originality, importance, interdisciplinary interest, timeliness, accessibility, and conclusions. Nature also provides news and interpretation of topical and coming trends affecting science, scientists and the wider public.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
PNAS is the world's most-cited multidisciplinary scientific serial. It publishes high-impact research reports, commentaries, perspectives, reviews, colloquium papers, and actions of the Academy. In accordance with the guiding principles established by George Ellery Hale in 1914, PNAS publishes brief first announcements of Academy Members' and Foreign Associates' more important contributions to research and of work that appears to a Member to be of particular importance.
Science
Science, founded by Thomas A. Edison in 1880 and published by AAAS, today ranks as the world's largest circulation general science journal. Published 51 times a year, Science is renowned for its highly cited, peer-reviewed research papers, its special strength in life science disciplines, and its coverage of breaking science news. The online edition includes the full text of current issues, and Science archives dating back to Edison's first edition in 1880.