An "Aha!" moment or event indicates a change in the cognitive state. I first heard about this concept from Frank Ohl and Henning Scheich, former colleagues, but recently also found it in the Wall Street Journal: A Wandering Mind Heads Straight Toward Insight, which serves as a better introduction. These moments need an environment in which they can flourish. As far as my moments are concerned, they come—surprisingly—reliably but only if I write about my work with the reader in mind. Most of my articles changed quite dramatically in the process of writing, although I used to start writing, only when I thought the creative work is seemingly finished. I learned nothing could be more wrong. So for me being engaged in making my work more transparent by writing about it at an earlier stage, while it is still in progress, is nothing less than forcing insight.

My goal is to make available as much information about dendrochronology as I can possibly find on the Internet, from the basics of tree-ring dating, to reference and bibliographic information, to products and supplies, to books, and more! My mission was born from an overwhelming need among dendrochronologists for a permanent repository of information that was free to the public, easily understandable, and as comprehensive as humanly possible. Come back and visit from time to time to learn more about new or updated software, new educational tools, new institutions conducting tree-ring research, new publications, and more!

Gideon Burton, Galileo opened the heavens with Open Access, Academic Evolution, May 20, 2009. The telescope was not the instrument through which Galileo opened the skies four centuries ago, forever changing our concepts of worlds terrestrial and celestial. No, Galileo's breakthrough was not a technological one, nor an intellectual one per se. Copernicus and Kepler had laid out the concepts before Galileo pointed his modest tube into the sky. ... No, it was Galileo's strategy for freely and publicly communicating his findings. Galileo opened the heavens with Open Access. ...