NEW RESOURCES

Science Magazine: An integrated assessment of the vascular plant species of the Americas. “The cataloging of the vascular plants of the Americas has a centuries-long history, but it is only in recent decades that an overview of the entire flora has become possible. We present an integrated assessment of all known native species of vascular plants in the Americas. Twelve regional and national checklists, prepared over the past 25 years and including two large ongoing flora projects, were merged into a single list. Our publicly searchable checklist includes 124,993 species, 6227 genera, and 355 families, which correspond to 33% of the 383,671 vascular plant species known worldwide. In the past 25 years, the rate at which new species descriptions are added has averaged 744 annually for the Americas, and we can expect the total to reach about 150,000.”

New to me, from The Next Web: This nifty tool can help you land a job abroad and relocate smoothly. “New year, new beginnings. But a large part of getting off to a good start is about finding the right opportunity – and perhaps the right place. This is precisely what Relocate.me can help you out with.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

AdWeek: Twitter and Emaar Properties Are Ringing In the New Year With a Livestream From Dubai. “For the second year in a row, Twitter and Emaar Properties have partnered to livestream Dubai’s New Year’s Eve festivities to Twitter users around the world.”

USEFUL STUFF

Tech Republic: How to add a layer of privacy to your conversations using Tor Messenger. “If you need to add a layer of anonymity and security to the likes of Google Hangouts and Twitter, Tor Messenger has you covered. Jack Wallen shows you how to make use of this tool.”

TorrentFreak: FilePursuit Finds Amazing Files All Year Round, Not Just at Christmas. “People looking for all kinds of files tend to visit file-sharing sites for their fix but there is another way. FilePursuit is a web and Android-based service that trawls the Internet looking for open directories and it does an incredible job. Today, TorrentFreak catches up with its creator to find out where it all started.”

Make Tech Easier: How To Create a Custom Google Docs Template Without GSuite. “At one time Google Docs used to have a feature where you could create a template and submit it to a template gallery. This made it very easy to set up a template to use repeatedly for new documents. However, Google has since stripped custom templates out of regular Google Docs and moved it to their GSuite service, which requires regular payment to use. Regular users can still use Google’s pre-made templates but not upload their own. For users who don’t want to pay just to make a template, let’s look at how to manually create a template on your own.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Japan Times: Putin calls for social media activities of ‘some’ firms to be monitored during 2018 election . “President Vladimir Putin said on Monday the Russian authorities should monitor the activity of ‘some companies’ on social media during next year’s presidential election and assess the extent of their involvement in domestic politics.”

The Guardian: Government admits ‘losing’ thousands of papers from National Archives. “Thousands of government papers detailing some of the most controversial episodes in 20th-century British history have vanished after civil servants removed them from the country’s National Archives and then reported them as lost. Documents concerning the Falklands war, Northern Ireland’s Troubles and the infamous Zinoviev letter – in which MI6 officers plotted to bring about the downfall of the first Labour government – are all said to have been misplaced.”

Engadget: China’s censors have taken down 13,000 websites in 3 years. “It’s no secret that China is fond of censorship. Now, however, the country has divulged numbers that give a sense of that crackdown’s scale. A report from the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress has revealed that China has either shut down or revoked licenses for more than 13,000 websites since the start of 2015, or just under 3 years ago. It had also prompted the closure of nearly 10 million internet accounts (most likely social network accounts). To no one’s surprise, there’s a heavy amount of spin on the reasons these sites and accounts were taken down.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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