New ADS Functionality for the Curator

In this paper we provide an update concerning the operations of the NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS), its services and user interface, and the content currently indexed in its database. As the primary information system used by researchers in Astronomy, the ADS aims to provide a comprehensive index of all scholarly resources appearing in the literature. With the current effort in our community to support data and software citations, we discuss what steps the ADS is taking to provide the needed infrastructure in collaboration with publishers and data providers. A new API provides access to the ADS search interface, metrics, and libraries allowing users to programmatically automate discovery and curation tasks. The new ADS interface supports a greater integration of content and services with a variety of partners, including ORCID claiming, indexing of SIMBAD objects, and article graphics from a variety of publishers. Finally, we highlight how librarians can facilitate the ingest of gray literature that they curate into our system.Comment: Submitted to the Proceedings of Library and Information Services in Astronomy VIII, Strasbourg, Franc

Artificial light at night alters life history in a nocturnal orb-web spider

The prevalence of artificial light at night (ALAN) is increasing rapidly around the world. The potential physiological costs of this night lighting are often evident in life history shifts. We investigated the effects of chronic night-time exposure to ecologically relevant levels of LED lighting on the life history traits of the nocturnal Australian garden orb-web spider (Eriophora biapicata). We reared spiders under a 12-h day and either a 12-h natural darkness (∼0 lux) or a 12-h dim light (∼20 lux) night and assessed juvenile development, growth and mortality, and adult reproductive success and survival. We found that exposure to ALAN accelerated juvenile development, resulting in spiders progressing through fewer moults, and maturing earlier and at a smaller size. There was a significant increase in daily juvenile mortality for spiders reared under 20 lux, but the earlier maturation resulted in a comparable number of 0 lux and 20 lux spiders reaching maturity. Exposure to ALAN also considerably reduced the number of eggs produced by females, and this was largely associated with ALAN-induced reductions in body size. Despite previous observations of increased fitness for some orb-web spiders in urban areas and near night lighting, it appears that exposure to artificial night lighting may lead to considerable developmental costs. Future research will need to consider the detrimental effects of ALAN combined with foraging benefits when studying nocturnal insectivores that forage around artificial lights

The Emerging Scholarly Brain

It is now a commonplace observation that human society is becoming a coherent super-organism, and that the information infrastructure forms its emerging brain. Perhaps, as the underlying technologies are likely to become billions of times more powerful than those we have today, we could say that we are now building the lizard brain for the future organism.Comment: to appear in Future Professional Communication in Astronomy-II (FPCA-II) editors A. Heck and A. Accomazz