According to The New York Times, a Mexican child has just died in Texas from the swine flu.  This is tragic news, and very alarming for public health officials in the United States who are attempting to prevent widespread panic over the swine flu outbreak.  There is indeed great cause for alarm:  the number of swine flu deaths worldwide is currently estimated to be approximately 160, with most of the fatalities taking place in Mexico.

We would like to invite researchers working on influenza to collaborate on ResearchGATE.  We have created a group for Influenza Research and hope that scientists in different parts of the world can discuss their research on this deadly virus.

The ResearchGATE Team

UPDATE May 1st, 2009 9:47pm: ResearchGATE has received a phone call from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in the United States.  The NIAID has offered to support the activities of the Influenza Research group on ResearchGATE.

We have just added a new feature which shows you papers from four different categories:

1.) Highest Ranked

2.) Most rated

3.) Most read

4.) Recently added

We will continue refining this functionality and would greatly appreciate your suggestions. Please contact us (contact (at) researchgate.net) if you have any ideas about how we can improve the literature section on ResearchGATE.net.

A lot of ResearchGATE.net members have asked whether it is possible to customize their start page. This blog entry will show you exactly where this feature is and what you can do with it.

Refer to the red box within the screenshot below to locate the customization section. If you click on it, you will be presented with 6 different options that allow you to customize the content on your start page.

Furthermore, we designed the boxes on the start page in such a way that you can drag and drop them (as you would do on your computer's desktop). Give it a try and tell us what you think about this nice tiny feature--and be sure to let us know how it might be improved!

The ResearchGATE.net Team

The Literature section on ResearchGATE.net offers you access to an incredibly powerful research tool.  Simply by visiting it, you will receive suggestions of papers that might be of great interest to you.

Many researchers have asked us how our system determines the papers it suggests to you. Here is a brief overview of the information that our system relies on:

1.) Your own publications and the publications which you read or keep in your library

2.) The scientific disciplines you indicate (including the additional keywords)

3.) All the other science related information that you provide in your profile

The more you invest in the ResearchGATE platform, the better the literature suggestions will be over time.

We recently had a long discussion with some of our members about what the best structure would be for administering topics and threads within groups. Initially, we allowed all members of groups to create topics and threads. In some groups this system got very confusing because topics were often duplicated.

We subsequently changed the administration structure so that only administrators could create topics, whereas threads could be started by any group member.  A new problem arose, however, in some groups whose administrators visited ResearchGATE infrequently and failed to start the first topic.

In the following screenshot you can see our new layout of the discussion board:

Your feedback suggested that we resolve this matter by automatically starting at least one topic in each group.  This topic will always be called "General Discussion".

Thank you to everyone who provided us with feedback on this matter and please contact us (contact@researchgate.net) if you have further suggestions.

The ResearchGATE Team

ResearchGATE is proud to share that its 1,000th group has been created!  Groups in ResearchGATE represent a wide array of scientific disciplines and the largest group remains the interdisciplinary Methods group with over 1,200 members. Smaller groups can easily attract members from other groups by taking advantage of the "group linkage function".  The group linkage function allows groups within ResearchGATE.net to link to each other in a hierarchical order (see screenshot).

Here are some helpful applications of the group linkage function:

(1) Connect groups within a scientific discipline to one another

(2) Connect groups which, although not within a scientific discipline, will benefit from interdisciplinary interaction

(3) Connect several lab groups from your department with each other.

Follow the official ResearchGATE Twitter account today!  We plan to write tweets often with news and updates from the ResearchGATE community.  We also hope to bring attention to some of the most urgent research questions and problems that arise in group discussions on ResearchGATE.net.

If you have a twitter account, please follow @researchgate and we'll follow you too!

ResearchGATE.net, the professional network for scientists, is pleased to announce a partnership with the German Society of Virology. The German Society of Virology, which includes the 2008 Nobel laureate Harald zur Hausen, will use ResearchGATE.net as the online communication platform for its 1,000 members.  ResearchGATE.net customized its existing functionality to facilitate this cooperation and to provide its German partner with a unique virtual environment for improving member administration and internal communication. “Our society’s members can interact more efficiently than ever before with ResearchGATE.net,” reports Professor Albert Heim of the German Society of Virology.  “ResearchGATE.net also helps our scientists gain access to information about the latest developments in Virology research by connecting them with the global research community.”

We're pleased to announce the arrival of ResearchGATE.net profile badges! You can access your personal badge from your ResearchGATE.net homepage (see image below) or by directly visiting the badge dashboard.

Simply copy and paste the HTML snippets into the code of your website or blog, and the link will automatically point directly to your public profile.

These badges offer you a very convenient and professional way of sharing your ResearchGATE.net profile. Enjoy!

The ResearchGATE Team