She never ran a gel or trained an electron microscope on a virus, but Mary Lasker (1901-1994) had a huge impact on biomedical research. The fundraiser and lobbyist is the latest subject in the U.S. National Library of Medicine's Profiles in Science series.

Lasker took illnesses personally--whether they were the frequent ear infections she suffered as a child growing up in Wisconsin or the cancer that killed her husband, Albert. "I am opposed to heart attacks and cancer and strokes the way I am opposed to sin," Lasker said. She got angry and used her connections and gift for persuasion to try to get even. One of her achievements was helping to boost the National Institutes of Health budget 150 fold in the years after World War II.

Volume 317, Number 5834, Issue of 06 July 2007

Biologists deploy antibodies to track wandering proteins, to fish enzymes out of molecular mixtures, and to perform a slew of other lab tasks. But to scientists' frustration, commercially available antibodies don't work in every situation. Find out which antibodies researchers have become attached to by visiting this Web site created by postdoc Guobin He of the University of California, San Diego. Opened last fall, the site collects experts' ratings of some 250 antibodies, including ones that target the androgen receptor and the cancer-fighting protein p53. So far, He and his colleagues have provided most of the evaluations, but users can also record their praise for--or gripes about--particular products.

Volume 316, Number 5833, Issue of 29 June 2007

The classic literature in botany dates back to the early days of the printing press. Check out some of these hoary texts at Botanicus, an online library run by the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis. The site features digitized versions of almost 200 titles published between 1480 and 1935 on plant systematics. You'll find works by German explorer Alexander von Humboldt, Harvard botanist Asa Gray, and Joseph Hooker, Darwin's confidant and defender. Many texts feature lavish illustrations, such as this painting of the water lemon (Passiflora laurifolia), which comes from a 19th century series that catalogs exotic plants in British gardens.

Volume 316, Number 5831, Issue of 15 June 2007

Short of a personal tutor who's willing to devote weeks or months to your training, a video might be the best way to learn the subtleties of a lab procedure. This pair of sites can help biologists find or swap video how-to's.

At the Journal of Visualized Experiments,* you'll find step-by-step demonstrations of more than 30 lab techniques, including how to isolate blood-forming stem cells or extract embryos from a mouse uterus. Launched last winter by former postdoc Moshe Pritsker and computer scientist Nikita Bernstein, the site features videos shot by professionals and vetted by scientists.

Volume 316, Number 5823, Issue of 20 April 2007

In an early Drosophila embryo, the cell nuclei twirl and divide with the impeccable synchrony of dancers in a Hollywood musical. A lengthwise cut through two sperm tails shows mitochondria lined up like kernels in an ear of corn. Those are a couple of the highlights from this gallery hosted by the American Society for Cell Biology in Bethesda, Maryland.

The videos and electron micrographs have all been peer-reviewed to make sure they are scientifically valuable. Included are descriptions of what they illustrate and how they were taken. The gallery boasts a slew of historic shots from society founders such as the Romanian-American scientist George Palade, now 94, who shared a 1974 Nobel Prize for helping to reveal the internal structure and workings of the cell. Curator David Ennist encourages other biologists to contribute footage and images.

Volume 316, Number 5822, Issue of 13 April 2007

By the late 1700s, scientists had categorized more than 4000 species of animals. Often tucked away in out-of-print publications, these early descriptions can be difficult for modern researchers to hunt down. AnimalBase from the University of Göttingen in Germany opens up the classic taxonomic literature.

The library stores or links to digitized versions of more than 700 books and papers, some from as far back as the 1550s. Along with a stack of works by Carolus Linnaeus, the Swedish botanist who reformed taxonomy in the 1700s, the holdings include lesser-known contributions such as the 1768 treatise by the Austrian naturalist Josephus Nicolaus Laurenti that describes the true toads (Bufo). To help visitors track down the first use of a particular scientific name, curators have begun combing the texts for mentions of species and other taxonomic groups.

Volume 315, Number 5819, Issue of 23 March 2007

With these shapely molars, an arctic fox (Alopex lagopus) can munch on lemmings, berries, or the remains of a seal carcass left behind by a polar bear. Researchers keen to analyze the fox's teeth or those of other mammals will find a wealth of data at MorphoBrowser from the University of Helsinki in Finland.

The database holds 3D scans of molars and premolars captured using confocal microscopy, computerized tomography, and other techniques. Paleontologists, developmental biologists, and anthropologists can check out the choppers of more than 100 extinct and living species and of several transgenic and mutant mouse strains.

To simplify comparisons, tools sort out similar teeth based on variables such as shape and crown type. Students might also find the database handy because it allows them to examine tiny teeth that are difficult to study in laboratory specimens.

Volume 315, Number 5818, Issue of 16 March 2007

Webs of interconnected proteins and genes keep cells running. To explore these networks, visit BioGRID from molecular biologist Michael Tyers of the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute in Toronto, Canada, and colleagues.

Stowed here are all known genetic and protein interactions in budding yeast, along with partial lists for humans, nematodes, and fruit flies--more than 167,000 associations in all. Curators glean data from the literature and update the collection monthly. Each entry maps the liaisons of a particular protein or gene and summarizes the experimental evidence for each association. Included is the interaction network for the enzyme Cdc14, which controls the exit from mitosis.

Volume 315, Number 5817, Issue of 09 March 2007

After spending years collecting specimens in exotic locales, a young British naturalist dreams up an explanation for how one species transforms into another. The description fits Charles Darwin, but it also matches Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913), the co-discoverer of natural selection and one of the 19th century's leading biologists. Wallace was also one of the founders of biogeography, the study of organisms' distribution.

A new online exhibit from the Natural History Museum in London documents Wallace's work and life with annotated selections from his writings and other memorabilia, such as a plate of a ring-tailed lemur from a 1900 collection of his articles. You can browse some of his travel dispatches, including the letter in which he describes the destruction of all his South American specimens in a shipboard fire. Other offerings indicate that Wallace didn't resent being overshadowed by the older scientist. For example, Wallace wrote a friend that he was "thankful that it has not been left to me to give the theory to the public."

Volume 315, Number 5811, Issue of 26 January 2007