RSS- Science and Medical News and Journals

What is RSS?

RSS is a tool for reading websites efficiently. It allows users to receive announcements, news, abstracts, blog entries, etc., known as “feeds”, from sites that regularly add new content, and it aggregates this content in a centralized place, organizing and displaying it according to user preference. This eliminates the need for users to visit each website individually.

How can I receive RSS feeds?

To be able to receive RSS feeds, you will need to have an RSS reader. Currently, there are hundreds of RSS readers available on the internet, either commercially or for free. Three main types of RSS readers exist—web-based, standalone applications, and plugins that work within an existing program.

Any good reader will allow you to add and customize the organization of subscriptions. Directions for adding subscriptions to a specific reader will appear in the help section or on the reader’s website.

If you are new to RSS feeds; feel uncomfortable with downloading an application; or you want the convenience of reading feeds from any computer, you might want to use a web-based aggregator/reader. Web-based readers allow a user to check their feeds by accessing a webpage. This is convenient because a program does not have to be installed on a computer, and it allows users to read their feeds from anywhere. The following are two examples of popular web-based RSS readers; however, a variety of other options are available on the internet:

• NewsGator Online: http://www.newsgator.com/Home.aspx
• Bloglines: http://www.bloglines.com/

Suggested RSS Feeds

Medical and Scientific Journals

• Science
  Table of Contents and Abtracts for the most recently published issues
  RSS Feed URL: http://www.sciencemag.org/rss/current.xml
  
  
• Nature
  Table of Contents and Abtracts for the most recently published issues
  RSS Feed URL: http://www.sciencemag.org/rss/current.xml
  
  
• JAMA*
  Table of Contents and Abtracts for the most recently published issues
  RSS Feed URL: http://jama.ama-assn.org/rss/recent.xml
  
  
• New England Journal of Medicine*
  Table of Contents and Abtracts for the most recently published issues
  RSS Feed URL: http://content.nejm.org/rss/recent.xml

*Electronic full text access for JAMA and NEJM is only available in the Arnold Library.

Health and Science News—National and World

• ABC News: Health
  RSS Feed URL: http://my.abcnews.go.com/rsspublic/health_rss20.xml
  
  
• Health News: CBSnews.com
  RSS Feed URL: http://www.cbsnews.com/feeds/rss/health.rss
  
  
• MSNBC.com: Health
  RSS Feed URL: http://rss.msnbc.msn.com/id/3088327/device/rss/rss.xml
  
  
• CNN.com – Health
  RSS Feed URL: http://rss.cnn.com/rss/cnn_health.rss
  
  
• BBC News | Health
  RSS Feed URL: http://news.bbc.co.uk/rss/newsonline_world_edition/health/rss091.xml
  
  
• New York Times – Health
  RSS Feed URL: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Health.xml
  
  

Finding additional RSS Feeds

The easiest way to find out if an RSS feed is available is to visit the website from which you would like to receive updates. If the website has created a feed, a link to the feed’s URL will appear somewhere on the home page. Look for the words such as “add RSS Feeds,” “Subscribe,” or images similar to , , or .

There are also a variety of RSS directories and search engines. However, these are not complete. For scientific or specialized sources, it best to visit the website.