NLM

More than 2.5 million images and figures from medical and life sciences journals are now available through Images, a new resource for finding images in biomedical literature. The database was developed and will be maintained by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), a division of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Images is available at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/images.

The database  is expected to have a wide range of uses for a variety of user groups including clinicians, researchers, students and educators.

NIH News

October 28, 2010

Abstracts of articles in PubMed Central now include a strip at the bottom containing thumbnails of the first few images in the article. The strip allows readers to scroll through a complete set of images, to enlarge individual images, and to link to a separate page containing the images and their accompanying captions.

Show off Your Apps: Innovative Uses of NLM Information

Five innovative software applications that help researchers, health professionals, and the general public in their quest for medical and scientific information are the winners of the National Library of Medicine’s first software development challenge.

The winning applications can help people learn about anatomy, help researchers find gene information in research literature, and help people sift through large amounts of scientific and medical information.

The library’s software development challenge, Show off Your Apps: Innovative Uses of NLM Information, solicited applications that used the library’s data to develop innovative ways for people to obtain and share scientific and medical information. Entrants could create a new app, or submit an existing one. An independent panel of judges chose five winners and five honorable mentions.

The National Library of Medicine (NLM), part of the National Institutes of Health, is the world’s largest medical library and itself a pioneer and innovator in the use of technology to improve access to biomedical and health information. NLM provides a wide variety of information online by developing groundbreaking databases and software tools that enable people to explore medical literature, clinical trials, historical images, DNA sequences and much more.

Millions of people worldwide use the library’s free online resources every day. Additionally, for more than 40 years, the library has been making the data it compiles for its electronic resources available for use in systems produced by others. Academic institutions, government organizations, businesses, non-profits and individuals can use NLM data to develop their own products, tools and services.

Find the complete story about the contest, including descriptions of the winning entries, at http://www.nih.gov/news/health/oct2011/nlm-27.htm.

In October, MedlinePlus released 100 new English and Spanish monographs on a broad range of dietary supplements and herbal remedies. The new content is provided by Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database Consumer Version (NMCD). Some of the highlights of the new monographs include:

• Descriptions of herbal remedies, dietary supplements, and how they work
• Safety concerns, including special precautions and warnings
• Information on interactions with medications, foods, and other herbs and supplements
• Dosages that have been studied in scientific research

The content from NMCD replaces the Natural Standard monographs that were previously on MedlinePlus.