Nautilus

This week's Nature addresses how the responsibilities of co-authors for a scientific paper’s integrity could be made more explicit (Nature 450, 1; 2007). The text of the (free access) editorial:

The two most notorious frauds of modern science, by the stem-cell biologist Woo Suk Hwang and the physicist Jan Hendrik Schön, both brought into question the responsibilities of co-authors in the oversight of their colleagues’ work. But despite the concerns raised after these episodes, there remains a need for a clearer understanding, both within a collaboration and by readers of the eventual papers, of the various contributions made by the authors not only to the research but also to safeguarding its integrity.
One welcome development in transparency was pioneered by the medical journals. Authorship of a paper is justified when a researcher has contributed significantly to the work being described and to the writing or approval of the manuscript. But the traditional publication style is entirely opaque as to which co-author contributed what. Concern about ‘honorary authorship’ — in which an author is unacceptably included for reasons other than any scientific contribution — and about this lack of transparency has led to the increasing use of statements in papers that specify authors’ contributions. Some medical journals require them, and others, including the Nature family, strongly encourage their use and may yet make them compulsory.
Such statements delineate contributions to the work but do not underwrite its integrity. Something more is needed.
It is too glib to state that every co-author of a paper shares full responsibility for its content. A researcher who specializes in the radio-active dating of rock strata cannot necessarily be expected to vouch for a palaeontologist’s analysis of fossils within them — especially if the work has been carried out in labs on different continents.
The fact that simple trust may no longer suffice is a sad reflection on recent scientific history, but anything that supports public confidence in research has to be welcomed, provided that its burden is not too great. What follows is a proposal in that direction, on which we invite readers’ comments.
We suggest that journals should require that every manuscript has at least one author per collaborating research group who will go on record in a way that collectively vouches for the paper’s standards. Each would sign a statement with reference to Nature’s publication policies as follows:
“I have ensured that every author in my research group has seen and approved this manuscript. The data that are presented in the figures and tables were reviewed in raw form, the analysis and statistics applied are appropriate and the figures are accurate representations of the data. Any manipulations of images conform to Nature’s guidelines. All journal policies on materials and data sharing, ethical treatment of research subjects, conflicts of interest, biosecurity etc. have been adhered to. I have confidence that all of the conclusions presented are based on accurate extrapolations from the data collected for this study and that my colleagues listed as co-authors have contributed and deserve the designation ‘author’.”
Principal investigators traditionally bask in the glory of a well-received paper. We are proposing now that they willingly open themselves to sanctions that could be brought to bear should the paper turn out to have major problems.
Misconduct investigators go out of their way to spare anyone apart from the direct perpetrators, but they have indicated concerns over the degree of oversight within collaborations. If the damage to reputations were more widespread in the event of fraud, researchers would be even more fastidious about the data emanating from their labs and the due diligence they would impose. The chances of major frauds, with their disproportionate impact on the reputation of science as a whole, would be diminished.
We invite comments from readers on this editorial.
(The Nature journals' current policies can be seen at Nature's Guide to Authors and at the Author and Reviewers' website.)

Posted by Maxine Clarke on October 31, 2007
Categories: Authorship, Ethics, Policies | Permalink | Comments (24)

Effective diagnostics are a crucial element of successful infectious disease management, yet their development and use, particularly in the developing world, remains a neglected area. To address this deficiency, Nature Reviews Microbiology is producing a series of user-friendly diagnostic evaluation guides as supplements to the journal.
The latest of these guides is now published, focusing on visceral leishmaniasis. You can access this guide free here.
This supplement is part of the Global Theme Issue on Poverty and Human Development, organized by the Council of Science Editors. All articles from Nature Publishing Group are available free. The content from all participating journals can be found here.
Robert G. Ridley, Director of the UNICEF/UNDP/World Bank/WHO Special Programme on Research and Training in Tropical Diseases, writes in his Editorial to the visceral leishmaniasis supplement (Nature Reviews Microbiology , S1; November 2007): "Apart from the lack of investment by public sector agencies and lack of commercial incentive, three major challenges in this field deserve highlighting. First, there is the scientific challenge to identify and develop diagnostic methodologies and techniques that can readily guide treatment. This is further complicated by the multiple Leishmania species that can cause VL [visceral leishmaniasis] and the multiple disease manifestations. Second, there is the challenge — addressed by this supplement — of ensuring effective and harmonized evaluation of diagnostic tests. Third, there is the need to develop regulatory controls that ensure appropriate evaluation of diagnostic tests before they come on the market and ensure sustained quality of manufacture and production, against defined standards, after they have been given marketing authorization."
The rest of the supplement is available here.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on October 31, 2007
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Via Washington University, St Louis' Biology Library News, I read that the National Academy of Sciences has made its entire historical collection of biographical memoirs freely available online, as PDFs. Fom the National Academy website:

Published since 1877, Biographical Memoirs are brief biographies of deceased National Academy of Sciences members, written by those who knew them or their work. These biographies provide a personal and scholarly view of the lives and work of America's most distinguished scientists and a biographical history of science in the United States.
Over the next several months, the entire collection of Biographical Memoirs will be available online as PDFs. Although memoirs published since 1995 have been freely available online, more than 900 memoirs published prior to 1995 were available previously only through archives and libraries. Among the 500 memoirs published recently online are those of famed naturalist Louis Agassiz; Joseph Henry, the first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution; Thomas Edison; Alexander Graham Bell; noted anthropologist Margaret Mead; and psychologist and philosopher John Dewey.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on October 30, 2007
Categories: Careers, Education, Public and media | Permalink | Comments (0)

As announced on Nautilus in July, Nature is a 2007 winner of the prestigious Principe de Asturias award established by His Royal Highness Heir to the throne of Spain. The Principe de Asturias award is the best-known cultural prize in the Spanish-speaking community. The awards honour individuals, groups or institutions whose creative work or research represents a significant contribution to universal culture in the scientific, technical, cultural, social and humanistic fields. Nature shares the 2007 Award for Communication and Humanities with the journal Science.
Annette Thomas, Chief Executive of Macmillan and Philip Campbell, Editor of Nature, went to Spain last week to collect the award. Philip wrote a blog post for In The Field about his journey. "Would I remember to bow to the royals in the right order? (I did.) Would I trip as I climbed the stairs onto the platform? (I didn’t.) " Read his full account here.
El Pais provides some lovely photographs of the event in a picture gallery: one of Philip here and here, Annette, receiving their awards.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on October 29, 2007
Categories: Awards | Permalink | Comments (0)

Juan C. Gallardo of Brookhaven National Laboratory, New York writes in this week's Correspondence (Nature 449, 572; 2007):

As chair of the American Physical Society's Committee on International Freedom of Scientists, I wish to express my alarm about the kafkaesque situation confronting the Russian biologist Oleg Mediannikov, reported in your News story 'Russian scientists see red over clampdown' (Nature 449, 122–123; 2007).
The American Physical Society is the biggest organization of physicists in the United States, with a large international membership. The society is independent of any government, and its international freedom committee is responsible for monitoring the human rights of scientists throughout the world, including the United States, and assisting those in need. In the past couple of years our efforts have been partially focused on Russia, where several scientists collaborating with foreign researchers have been intimidated and prosecuted.
As well as Mediannikov, we are actively assisting Valentin Danilov, Oscar Kaibyshev, Igor Sutyagin and Oleg Korobeinichev. We are committed to defending our colleagues at risk and we will continue to raise our voices whenever scholars encounter a prohibition on travelling, publishing or pursuing research. We call upon scientific human-rights organizations to join us to protest at restrictions, by any government, on the free exchange of ideas, be it by denying visas or barring scholars from attending conferences or taking academic positions.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on October 29, 2007
Categories: Ethics, Policies | Permalink | Comments (0)

Are you interested in finding out more about research in Mainland China and Hong Kong? Take a look at Nature China. Every week, the editors of Nature China survey the scientific literature to identify the best recently published papers from mainland China and Hong Kong, and provide a summary of the results.

Divided into subject areas, this portal allows you to stay up-to-date with the latest research appearing in various scientific publications in this region. Taking materials science as an example, here some recent highlights posted on Nature China:

• Carbon nanotubes: Becoming a brighter fighter
• Drug delivery: Wet or dry
• Magnetic nanoparticles: Artificial enzymes
• Super-hard conductors: Electric diamonds

Other subject areas are: biotechnology; cell and molecular biology; chemistry; clinical medicine; developmental biology; Earth and environment; ecology and evolution; genetics; neuroscience; space and astronomy; and physics. You can register for Nature China e-alerts at the website, and stay abreast of the latest research in your field from mainland China and Hong Kong. Help us identify the best Chinese papers by using the recommended paper section of the website. Click here to recommend a paper and find out what papers other users have recommended.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on October 26, 2007
Categories: Author services, Communication, Publications | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Council of Science Editors has organized journals around the globe to participate in its 2007 Global Theme Issue on Poverty and Human Development. Hundreds of journals are publishing articles related to the scientific and medical issues that surround this theme. The Nature journals are pleased to contribute the content highlighted on this page, all of which is free. We have also created a supporting archive comprising previously published content from the Nature Publishing Group that is relevant to this theme.
See here for the nature.com Poverty and Human Development index page.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on October 25, 2007
Categories: Author services, Communication, Partners | Permalink | Comments (0)

"A few years ago I took part in a debate at the Royal Institution on ‘who was the first scientist?’ ", writes Brian Clegg in the science writers' forum on Nature Network. Brian continues: "Lewis Wolpert championed Archimedes, I stood up for Roger Bacon ....and Frank James spoke for James Clerk Maxwell. Archimedes won, with Bacon a close second. The arguments were loosely that Archimedes was the first to use maths in science, Bacon the first to emphasise the importance of experimental verification, maths and the communication of results, and Maxwell because the word ‘scientist’ wasn’t invented until his time.................I know it’s a very arbitrary point, but who out of all scientific history would you call the first, and why?"
Predictably, there is a bit of an argument among the replies about the terms of the question, but remarkably few suggestions other than a first-removed nomination of Galileo (attributed to John Gribbin). Here is my contribution: "Eve is my vote. She was the person who did the first scientific experiment, isn’t she? If you won’t count her, I suggest the unnamed man, woman or ape who first worked out how to make fire by rubbing two sticks together. I believe that suggestions such as Galileo and Bacon far too late to be considered “first” (and also show a bit of cultural influence, perhaps?)." Pierre Lindenbaum has helpfully responded with a link to a YouTube clip of the fire experiment (but not Eve's).
What are your thoughts? (Bearing in mind Brian's exhortation: "Come on guys, lighten up! I know it’s not possible to really say who the first scientist was, any more that it’s possible to say what was the best scientific idea – but we still have a Nobel Prize. The idea of this exercise (more contributions, please!) is to nominate the person you would like to be thought of as the first scientist and to give a reason.")

Posted by Maxine Clarke on October 25, 2007
Categories: Education, Public and media | Permalink | Comments (0)

Nature Chemical Biology is updating the formats of its original research papers, as announced in an editorial in this month's (November's) issue (3, 679; 2007). Based on feedback from the community, the editors have decided to discontinue the publication of Letters to Nature Chemical Biology. From the January 2008 issue, the journal will publish original research contributions as Brief Communications or Articles. To accommodate this change, the guidelines to authors have been updated to provide two clearly defined formats for research papers in Nature Chemical Biology. Naturally, as the editorial concludes: "Independent of the classification of our papers or how policies are implemented at the journal, authors and readers can be confident that maintaining the high quality and broad interest of the content in Nature Chemical Biology remains our highest priority."

Posted by Maxine Clarke on October 24, 2007
Categories: Format | Permalink | Comments (0)

Juan-Carlos Lopez, via Spoonful of Medicine (Nature Medicine's blog), was chatting to some scientists at a conference, when one of them told him that some journals take advantage of the announcement of the Nobel prize to send out an e-mail highlighting the papers by the laureates that they have had the privilege to publish. Juan-Carlos writes: "I don't know about you but such a marketing strategy strikes me as somewhat cheeky...... if other publishing firms are currently entertaining a similar strategy, here's an idea to turn it on its head -- send e-mails highlighting the papers from the laureates that your journal has REJECTED and the name of the publication where they were ultimately published.......It's a shame that confidentiality issues get in the way of such an idea because, if you were to send such an e-mail, people would surely be talking about your journal."

Posted by Maxine Clarke on October 23, 2007
Categories: Awards, Quality measures | Permalink | Comments (0)

A presentation and press briefing by Nature Publishing Group (NPG) was held at a high-technology fair in Shenzhen China on Friday 12 October, to announce and distribute the 20-page Spotlight and Regions advertising feature on Shenzhen published in Nature in the 27 September issue. NPG staff gave presentations on publishing activities in China to a packed audience of about 100 from academia, government, industry and the media. A reprint of the Spotlight translated into Chinese was released at the event.
Nature Publishing Group's Shenzhen Spotlight project has involved about 25 NPG staff and freelancers from around the world. David Swinbanks, NPG's publishing director in Tokyo, writes; "After three years of discussion, we were finally given the green light by the Shenzhen local government in early August and had to pull the 20-page feature together by 21 September for the 27 September issue so that copies could be made available at the China High Tech Fair on Friday." As the supplement is also fully online, this was a considerable achievement for all the writers, editors and project-managers involved.
Part of the Spotlight supplement includes a video of a self-pollinating orchid, which can be seen here in all its beauty, showing in a stunning way the incredible power of plant adaptation and evolution.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on October 23, 2007
Categories: Communication, Partners, Public and media, Publications | Permalink | Comments (0)

There is an interesting historical piece in the current issue of Nature Reviews Genetics (8, 897-902; 2007) by Marsha Richmond of Wayne State University, Detroit, entitled Opportunities for Women in Early Genetics. From the abstract:
"Although women have long been engaged in science, their participation in large numbers was limited until they gained access to higher education in the last decades of the nineteenth century. The rediscovery of Mendel's work in 1900 coincided with the availability of a well trained female scientific workforce, and women entered the new field in significant numbers. Exploring their activities reveals much about the early development of the field that soon revolutionized biology, and about the role of gender in the social organization of science."
See here for the complete article.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on October 22, 2007
Categories: Careers, Disciplines | Permalink | Comments (0)

Philip Esler, chief executive of the Arts and Humanities Research Council, Bristol, UK, writes in Nature's Correspondence page this week (Nature 449, 781; 2007):
The United Kingdom's research base has seen unprecedented increases in public investment in recent years, mostly predicated on the long-term benefits to society expected to arise from that investment. It is the research councils' responsibility, as the major public funders of UK research, to provide compelling evidence that these expectations are being met. Your Editorial 'Innovation versus science?' (Nature 448, 839; 2007) concludes that efforts to document this herald a shift away from our support for basic research. As a research council chief executive, leading our efforts to increase our economic impact, I can say that is not the case.
The UK Research Councils have just published a report, Excellence with Impact, that looks across research councils' investments. Each of 18 case studies shows actual and/or potential impact, ranging from biotech spin-outs and skilled engineers to climate-change policy. Probably the most reassuring finding was the extent to which some demonstrated multiple types of impact. Furthermore, many of the impacts were not necessarily part of the original rationale for the specific investment, suggesting that serendipity and opportunism are important factors for the research councils. Investment in DNA technologies, for example, did not anticipate the forensic power of DNA fingerprinting, and polymer research was not funded with the anticipation that it would create a new market in flexible displays.
These results demonstrate the wisdom of the research councils' commitment to funding excellent basic research. Rather than weaken that commitment, our approach is to embed economic-impact considerations in our organizations, thus shifting the central focus of the research councils to excellent research with high economic impact. So it is about what basic research we should fund, rather than if we should fund it.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on October 22, 2007
Categories: Quality measures | Permalink | Comments (0)

Milestones in DNA Technologies (October 2007) is a collaboration from Nature, Nature Methods and Nature Reviews Genetics, focusing on ground-breaking technologies and advances in the analysis of DNA. Developments in the last 50 years range from the first Sanger sequences to the latest next-generation chemistry, and from the earliest methods of DNA separation to transgenic organisms and specific gene replacement in human cells.
You can request a free print copy here. In addition, the full content of DNA Technologies, plus further articles and features, is freely available online from October 2007 for six months. The table of contents listing is here. You can also see here for a timeline of milestones in DNA technologies.
Index of all Nature Publishing Group's Milestones publications.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on October 19, 2007
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The Ask the Nature Editor forum on Nature Network is now taking questions on careers in science publishing. Moderator Corie Lok (also Editor of Nature Network) writes: "Have you ever wondered about careers in scientific publishing? What is it like being a manuscript editor, a science writer, or a copy editor? You can find out by posting your careers question here. Editors at Nature, including ones who hire editors here, will answer your queries."
If you have questions about publishing in the Nature journals, peer review, writing your paper, and so on, you can still post them in the Ask the Nature Editor forum, and they will be answered by Nature editors, including me (Maxine), Karl Ziemelis (Chief Physical Sciences Editor), Ritu Dhand (Chief Biology Editor), Natalie De Witt (senior biology editor), Chris Gunter (senior biology editor) and Linda Miller (US Executive Editor), and Nature journal editors, including Laurie Dempsey (senior editor, Nature Immunology). We are receiving some interesting questions, and are enoying answering them and interacting with you.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on October 19, 2007
Categories: Careers, Publishing | Permalink | Comments (0)

From Nature's current issue (Nature 449, 769; 2007):
Aggressive academic management can correct pay disparities between male and female scientists, say researchers. Their study assesses the effects of intervention to equalize salaries at the University of Arizona's College of Medicine in Tucson between 2000 and 2004 (A. L. Wright et al. J. Gen. Intern. Med. 22, 1398–1402 ; 2007). By 2004, women with basic science doctorates, for instance, were paid 97.6% of the amount men were paid.
Lead author Anne Wright, the college's associate dean for faculty affairs, says the study was undertaken to gauge the success of administrative actions after an earlier analysis found women faculty members were paid about $13,000 (11%) less than men (A. L. Wright et al. Acad. Med. 78, 500—508; 2003).
The new study directly involved personnel records of about 400 faculty members, anthropologist Wright says, rather than using a percentage of staff who respond to a survey.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on October 19, 2007
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Have you ever seen something in Nature — be it a research paper, news story or an editorial — that you thought deserved far more attention that it received? We value your opinion, so we've launched a website, 'Best of Nature ', that allows readers to nominate, vote for and discuss content from Nature's past. Please vist, and tell us what we may have missed while compiling the 'History of the Journal Nature ', a newly launched website which explores Nature's history back to the first issue in 1869, and of which more later.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on October 18, 2007
Categories: Author benefits, Communication, Publishing | Permalink | Comments (0)

What’s the impact of the “impact factor”? Are you satisfied with the current scientific publishing process? Will the internet revolutionize publishing? What are your thoughts on open access publishing and how it will affect the future of scientific publishing? If you are interested in these questions, join the Nature Network forum "Publishing in the New Millennium" , which is linked to a conference on Friday 9 November 2007, 1:00 – 6:00 p.m., at Harvard Medical School.
The conference is organized by students, and will convene experts from across the world to discuss the state of publishing in the biological sciences. The keynote address will be by Nobel laureate Harold Varmus, former director of the NIH, now head of the Memorial-Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
The State of Publishing will critically assess the impact that scientific publishing has on scientific research, with panellists including Robert Kiley, head of e-Strategy of the Wellcome Library; Isaac Kohane, director of the Countway Library at Harvard University; Emilie Marcus, Editor-in-Chief of Cell Press and Editor of Cell; and professor Stuart Shieber of Harvard University. Publishing 2.0 will examine the future of publishing in an increasingly digital world. Panelists include Moshe Pritsker, Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Visualized Experiments; Hilary Spencer of Nature Precedings; John Wilbanks, executive director of Science Commons; and Bora Zivkovic of PLoS ONE.
By joining the Nature Network forum, you can discuss topics before the meeting, receive updates, suggest topics, and see who else is going.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on October 18, 2007
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Articles in Nature Reports Stem Cells this month call for a return to nuance in the age of dogma. A pair of bioethicists worry that participants in clinical trials may hear "stem cell" and think "therapy", even without evidence of medical benefit. A stem-cell scientist describes his frustration at the fact-twisting practiced by proponents and opponents of embryonic stem-cell research. And a US presidential order strikes the term "embryonic" from the list of stem cell lines eligible for federal research.
Our top stories:
Therapeutic misconception and stem cell research
Mildred K. Cho and David Magnus from the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics worry that some advocates are making too good a case for stem cells' medical benefits.
Cancer stem cells, sightings and slightings
How rare are tumour-initiating cells? How relevant? Nature Reports Stem Cells asks whether the efforts to to identify cancer stem cells in one tumour after another might miss the big picture.
Alternative energy for pluripotent stem cells
Markus Grompe, the director of the Oregon Stem Cell Center, describes hopes and plans to create pluripotent stem cells without destroying embryos.
Stem cells by any other name
A funding crunch is forcing Singapore’s ES Stem Cell International to go after medium-term revenues.
Q&A: King of the stem cells
On 14 September, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) appointed Australian biologist Alan Trounson as its new president.
Making the Paper: Embryonic stem cells make their own niche
By untangling the interplay of two growth factors, Mick Bhatia finds that stem cells in culture create ways to stall differentiation.
Nature Reports Stem Cells is a free, interactive forum for stem cell scientists and other stakeholders to communicate about the research, policy, ethics, business and medicine of stem cell science.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on October 18, 2007
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Subhra Priyadarshini writes:
In keeping with the increasing global interest in Asia, Nature Publishing Group (NPG) will launch its India-specific website Nature India next month. Nature India aims to be the one-stop site for information on Indian science. The website, serving the scientific community of the world's largest democracy, will have a potpourri of content such as jobs, events, research highlights and science news from India. In addition, it will attempt to capture India's rapidly changing scientific and economic scene and her globalization. Through in-depth features and commentaries, leading members of the science community will reflect on contemporary issues affecting Indian science.
Readers will also have free access to some handpicked premium content from various NPG journals. Nature India will host a number of interactive sections — recommended papers, our 'Indigenus' blog, and a Nature Network forum where peers can network or indulge in a leisurely chat.
In terms of design, Nature India attempts to be just as vibrant, colourful and boisterous as the people of this magical land. Be among the first to explore India through its cutting-edge scientific pursuits.
Sign up for our regular Nature India e-alert, and we will send you your first newsletter when the site is live.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on October 17, 2007
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For those interested in specific groups of organisms, we have arranged the large-scale biology papers published at Nature Publishing Group into a "Tree of Life" organization at the Omics Gateway, so that you can browse among the organisms. Papers that focus on a single species can be found in the most exclusive organism page that includes that species: for example papers on humans will appear on the human page rather than the primates or mammals page. Papers that focus on, or are relevant to, multiple species can be found in the set of pages that encompass those species: for example a paper that compares the dog genome with the human genome will appear on both the human and mammal pages. Categories listed on the gateway and in the picture include animals; archaea; arthropods; bacteria; chordates; eukaryotes; firmicutes; fungi; green plants; human; mammals; metagenomics (genomics of microbial communities); nematodes; primates; proteobacteria; rodents and viruses.
As well as browsing organisms, you can also browse subjects at the Omics Gateway. Why "omics"? It is a suffix that has been added to many fields to denote studies undertaken on a large or genome-wide scale. While not everyone agrees with this change of terms, it is a short and inclusive term to use to help point you to our published papers in the area. For example although we may not yet be able to precisely define the metabolome, we can all appreciate that studies in this area should yield novel insight into the processes that drive cellular metabolism and detailed interactions between them. Papers here come from publications throughout Nature Publishing Group in one or more of the subject areas of: cancer genomics; chemical genomics; comparative, evolutionary and population genomics; epigenomics; genetics of gene expression; genome sequence and analysis; glycomics; metabolomics/nomics; pharmacogenomics; proteomics; systems biology; techniques and methods; and transcriptomics.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on October 16, 2007
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Mentoring and training for ethical behaviour aren't all they're cracked up to be, according to the (free access) Editorial in the current issue of Nature (449, 638; 2007) . Melissa Anderson and her colleagues at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis decided to investigate the relative effects of mentoring and formal instruction in setting a young scientist's ethical framework (M. S. Anderson et al. Acad. Med. 82, 853–860; 2007). As many as a quarter of the NIH PhD fellows in 2000–01 had not taken ethics courses or been mentored in ethics workshops or discussion roundtables. One quarter of the survey respondents admitted that they did not feel well prepared to deal with ethical issues in their work.
After highlighting several puzzling and dissapointing resposes to the survey, the Editorial goes on to conclude:
"Collective discussions are perhaps a better way to reinforce good behaviour. A good forum for such discussions might be the lab's journal club — particularly if the mentor is skilled in inviting open discussion in a non-confrontational atmosphere. Mentors who regularly set aside time to discuss issues of concern may find that everyone benefits from the 'wisdom of the crowd'. Students can be asked to propose topics to kick off discussion: "I have a friend whose adviser asked her to write several anonymous reviews for him because he is too busy. Should she say yes? Ask for proper attribution?" Figuring it out together is the way to raise everyone's game."
Read the full Editorial here.
Also in the current issue of Nature is the report of our South African mentoring awards (449, 752; 2007).

Posted by Maxine Clarke on October 15, 2007
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Outsourcing has been relatively rare in academia until now, but is that beginning to change? So ask Franz B. Pichler and Susan J. Turner of the University of Aukland in their Commentary in this month's Nature Biotechnology (25, 1093-1096; 2007). They write: "The rapid development of ever more complex and expensive technology coupled with the increasingly competitive environment in the life sciences is changing both how we access technology and how we conduct research. It is no longer possible to expect every technology to be readily available within a research institution, let alone a laboratory, yet access to such technology is often the difference between success and failure within today's competitive funding models. To fully embrace emerging technologies, scientists are increasingly reliant on outsourcing to contract technology providers (CTPs). In this context, CTPs are companies or institutes that conduct partial or entire experiments on a commercial basis."
The Commentary addresses the pros and cons of going out of house, and some of the strategies needed to make sure this novel form of collaboration works. On what side of the fence sit the authors? "Ultimately, science is more about the conceptualization of the experiment, its design, analysis and interpretation than the actuality of conducting an experiment. Provided that the experiment is performed to the required specifications, it should not matter that some or all of the work has been outsourced. As outsourcing can achieve significant efficiencies in research, we predict that it will become an increasingly common component of research programs, even in academia."

Posted by Maxine Clarke on October 12, 2007
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Google announced back in April that it would be adding presentations to its Google Docs&Spreadsheets tool. Now the service is available, and Google has, thankfully, decided not to call it "GoogleDocs&Spreadsheets&Presentations" but has shortened the name of the suite of applications to "Google Docs." To see what it looks like, go to your Google Docs page (or open an account), click on "new" over at the left, then click on Presentations.
I am told by my testing team, a couple of teenage girls, that Presentations does not (yet?) offer anything like the features provided by Microsoft Powerpoint. However, the main advantage of Presentations is that it is online, allowing one to collaborate easily when developing a presentation. (This is also a feature of Docs and Spreadsheets, of course.)
To learn more, you can visit YouTube to see and hear a video called Google Docs in plain English.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on October 11, 2007
Categories: Communication, Conferences | Permalink | Comments (2)

"What would you do if you could publish only 20 papers throughout your career?" asks Juan-Carlos Lopez on Spoonful of Medicine blog, referring to this month's Nature Medicine editorial (free access at Nat. Med. 13, 1121; 2007). If scientists would agree to limit their output to 20 papers over a career, would this clean up the scientific literature and improve on the peer-review process? Juan-Carlos writes: "many articles reporting incremental advances would no longer be written, and many specialized journals would disappear. And with far fewer papers to read, each one reporting a much more complete piece of research, search committees or funding bodies could directly evaluate the work of a given scientist, instead of leaning on surrogate indicators such as a journal's impact factor or number of citations, "evil" numbers that many researchers love to hate."
See the Nature Medicine editorial for further details of this radical proposal.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on October 11, 2007
Categories: Publishing, Quality measures | Permalink | Comments (0)

Cell Migration Update, a part of the Cell Migration Gateway, is a one-stop online resource designed to keep you in touch with the latest and hottest research in cell migration, by Nature Publishing Group in collaboration with the Cell Migration Consortium.
Each month we showcase two exciting new cell migration articles from the current literature. Nature Publishing Group papers are available free for 3 months, and the Editor's Reviews are free indefinitely.
This month's selections:

Par-Tiam1 complex: Persistently on Par
Tiam1 and the Par polarity complex control cell polarity, chemotaxis and persistent cell migration of epidermal keratinocytes by affecting microtubule stability.
Curr. Biol 9 Oct (2007).
Editor's Review is here.

Integrin adhesiveness: May the (shear) force be with you
Immobilized chemokines promote T-lymphocyte migration in a shear stress-free environment, but induce integrin activation and adhesiveness in the presence of external shear forces.
Nat. Immunol. 8, 1076-1085 (2007)
Editor's Review is here.

See also this month's Cell Migration Gateway research highlights, research library, latest news and conference calender.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on October 10, 2007
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A reminder to Nautilus readers that Nature Protocols Volume 2 is open access to the end of this month. So far, there more more than 250 protocols in the volume -- please visit Nature Protocols and check them out for yourself.
Whether you want help with an experimental technique, or can offer advice on the questions already posted, please join in the debate on the free Nature Protocols discussion forum on Nature Network. There are currently 26 topics in the forum, with many questions and answers, on subjects including insoluble proteins, mitochondrial DNA from plants, immunoglobulin and other protein purification, large cloning fragments and hydrogen peroxide detection.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on October 09, 2007
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For 61 years, the Albert Lasker Medical Research Awards have celebrated scientists whose accomplishments have made major advances in the understanding and treatment of many of the great crippling and killing diseases of our century. Nature Medicine is pleased to present a free collection of commentaries by Ralph Steinman, Albert Starr, Alain Carpentier and Anthony Fauci, the recipients of this year's Lasker Awards.
Juan-Carlos Lopez, Chief Editor of Nature Medicine, introduces the collection:
"The Lasker Awards are arguably the most coveted prize in biomedical research. Ever since their creation, the Awards have set the standard of scientific excellence. This year, the Basic Medical Research Award recognizes Ralph Steinman’s discovery of dendritic cells—cells of the immune system that initiate and regulate the body’s response to foreign pathogens. The Clinical Medical Research Award honors Albert Starr and Alain Carpentier, inventors of the mechanical and ‘bioprosthetic’ cardiac valves, respectively. Last, the Public Service Award acknowledges the remarkable work of Anthony Fauci, who has led the efforts to create an unprecedented international AIDS treatment and prevention plan that will save millions of lives in the developing world.
To receive recognition from the Lasker jury is one of the greatest triumphs that any scientist can aspire to achieve. We are delighted to publish this collection of commentaries by the recipients of this year’s Lasker Awards, and wish to add our congratulations to the winners for their remarkable achievements."

Posted by Maxine Clarke on October 09, 2007
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In the August issue of EMBO Reports (8, 712 - 716;2007), Matias Pasquali argued for a more important role for video to record the work of laboratories as an effective way to portray an accurate view of science to society. He wrote: "By enabling the public to observe a cloning procedure or a microarray experiment, the concept becomes less obscure, and the mysterious and frightening becomes the mundane and ordinary. Studies of the effect of seeing an experiment on a person's perception of science have to be carried out, but exploring new methods of communication is essential to attract the public's attention to everyday scientific topics."
In the current issue of the journal (EMBO Reports 8, 10, 886–887; 2007), Nikos Darzentas and coauthors extend Pasquali's suggestion that communication of science for the next generation of scientists will require the use of other media. They think that social websites such as del.icio.us, WebSphere and YouTube are promising, in that graduate students are probably vary familiar with these web resources. They suggest that educators or science communicators appreciate that many young scientists would rather watch a 'science' video than sift through masses of written information. (A suggestion to use YouTube for scientific outreach was made on Nautilus in April by Clements et al.)
Darzentas et al. also think that journals' and scientists' use of video and web media will help to counteract the detrimental effect of scientific misinformation from non-authoritative sources. They describe their struggles to communicate a dense manuscript on the Net of Life—an intricate network of horizontal and vertical gene flow patterns across the microbial world. They write: "Despite excellent editorial handling, it was the traditional medium of the manuscript that limited the presentation of the data, algorithm and the visualization of the results. During conference presentations, we therefore demonstrated the complexity of this work by a simple sequence of alternative views of the gene flow network. To present the main results to our peers, students and the general public in an aesthetically more engaging way, we created a science communication video—the result of a collaboration between our research group and a digital media company." Videos have an even greater potential than just enhancing communication among scientists, they conclude: "In the near future, it seems possible that journals will look more like video collections that, after peer-review and editorial processing, users can evaluate using a star-rating system. These clips could represent the entry points to the scientific work; first triggering the curiosity of the reader, then directing them to the relevant material and enhancing their interactive experience."
Those interested in this concept might like to look at Nature Precedings, where scientists can upload their manuscripts and other material for online comments and rating by other readers.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on October 08, 2007
Categories: Communication, Public and media | Permalink | Comments (1)

A news story in the current issue of Nature (449, 512-513; 2007) reports on how the US National Science Foundation (NSF) is investigating how researchers account for time spent on federally funded projects. Auditors have found that the records kept are often not accurate, undermining the ability of the NSF to ensure that its grants are spent appropriately.
Although the audits may simply reflect record-keeping lapses, they could have significant financial impacts. For instance, in a grant- rich school such as the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, cutting back on indirect costs by just 0.5% would save $600,000.
An Editorial in the same issue of the journal (Nature 449, 508; 2007) points out that "the NSF hasn't decided to conduct the audits arbitrarily. Whistleblowers at two universities highlighted cases in which researchers failed to tell the National Institutes of Health (NIH) about the amount of time they spent on projects it had funded. The universities involved subsequently repaid the money.", concluding: "These NSF efforts may, in time, serve as an instructive template for the NIH, a far larger agency that has done little as yet to monitor its grantees' effort reporting. With so much money at stake, a little extra paperwork is not necessarily a bad idea."
You can add your comments to the news story online at the journal website.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on October 08, 2007
Categories: Ethics | Permalink | Comments (0)

Frank Gannon writes in an Editorial in the current issue of EMBO Reports (8, 10, 885; 2007):

At a recent scientific meeting, a speaker at a small workshop session caused me to stare in surprise. I did so not because of anything he had said, but simply because he was dressed in an impeccable three-piece suit and tie. It later became clear that he was a medic who had rushed to the meeting from work to give his presentation on time. Nevertheless, with his sartorial elegance he was obviously 'out of place'—all the other scientists attending the meeting were wearing a different 'uniform': a limited wardrobe in which jeans, colourful shirts and t-shirts were dominant, with the occasional jacket for those who were giving a talk. This casual style of clothes might suggest that scientists are 'cooler' and more relaxed than other professionals, but this seemingly carefree choice of clothes conforms to group pressure in just the same way as the obligatory suit and tie among medics or bankers—scientists are less free than their tie-free image suggests.

The Editorial goes on to discuss conformity in a more general sense, pointing out the irony of a group of individuals priding themselves on their free-spiritedness in terms of their dress code, but often spurning the diversity of ideas -- possibly to the extent of missing opportunities to gain new knowledge.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on October 05, 2007
Categories: Communication | Permalink | Comments (0)

Citation-based quality metrics were discussed on Nautilus earlier this year. One of those, the h (for highly cited) index, was covered recently in a News story, and is the subject of two Correspondence letters in the current issue of Nature.

Michael C. Wendel of Washington University Medical School writes (Nature 449, 403; 2007):
The h-index (the number n of a researcher's papers that have received at least n citations) may paint a more objective picture of productivity than some metrics, as your News story 'Achievement index climbs the ranks' (Nature 448, 737; 2007) points out. But for all such metrics, context is critical.
Many citations are used simply to flesh out a paper's introduction, having no real significance to the work. Citations are also sometimes made in a negative context, or to fraudulent or retracted publications. Other confounding factors include the practice of 'gratuitous authorship' and the so-called 'Matthew effect', whereby well-established researchers and projects are cited disproportionately more often than those that are less widely known. Finally, bibliometrics do not compensate for the well-known citation bias that favours review articles.

Clint D. Kelly and Michael D. Jennions of Australian National University, write (Nature 449, 403; 2007):
The h-index seems to be breaking away from the bibliometric pack, in the race to become a favoured measure of scientific performance ('Achievement index climbs the ranks' Nature 448, 737; 2007). However, if the h-index is to become an assessment tool commonly used by university administrators and government bureaucrats, those using it should be aware of its pitfalls.
As noted in your News story, tallying how many papers a researcher publishes (their productivity) gives undue merit to those who publish many inconsequential papers. But at least for ecologists and evolutionary biologists, the h-index is highly correlated with productivity.
This is worrisome, because the h-index is easily misconstrued as an equitable measure of research quality. We offer two examples.
First, female ecologists and evolutionary biologists publish fewer papers than their male counterparts, and they have significantly lower h-indices. Should administrators therefore conclude that men are better researchers? No. The gender difference vanishes if we control for productivity. It seems unlikely that this phenomenon is restricted to ecology and evolution.
Second, the h-index increases with age and using the ratio of the two can be problematic. Therefore, reliably comparing the performance of younger researchers with older ones is difficult.

Your views are welcome.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on October 04, 2007
Categories: Citation analysis, Quality measures | Permalink | Comments (1)

Nature is now able to accept Word 2007 files, provided that they are authored from the beginning in "Compatibility Mode", that is, as a Word 97-2003 document and saved in .doc format. We cannot accept files in .docx format, so please do not write the paper as a Word 2007 document then save as a Word 97-2003 document. The resaons for the earlier compatibility problems with Word 2007 experienced by publishers, and the efforts made by them, their suppliers of production technologies, and Microsoft, to resolve these, are discussed in this earlier Nautilus post.
The details of how to format a submission in Word 2007 are described in Nature's Guide to Authors:
Using Word 2007 to produce a Nature paper
Open a new document.
Turn on ‘Compatibility Mode’: click the Microsoft Office button, Save As ‘Word 97-2003 document’.
Note that some features of Word 2007 will now be inactive, including the default equation editor. See this Microsoft page for details.
Copy and paste the Word 2003 template (available at the Nature website) into the open document, and write the paper.
NB To put in equations, use Insert/Object/Microsoft Equation 3.0.
To put in symbols such as Greek letters, use Insert/Symbol; we recommend using Symbol font.
Save As ‘Word 97-2003 document’.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on October 03, 2007
Categories: Author services, Writing | Permalink | Comments (0)

Portico and Nature Publishing Group (NPG) have signed an agreement to preserve Nature and all the other NPG journals and online databases across the life, physical and applied sciences and clinical medicine, to ensure that these publications are preserved and available for future readers.
Portico began as the Electronic-Archiving Initiative launched by JSTOR in 2002 with a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon foundation to extend the foundation's E-journal archiving programme. The goal was to build a sustainable electronic archiving model: for more than two years, project staff developed technology and discussed approaches with publishers and libraries. In 2004, the Electronic-Archiving Initiative became a part of Ithaka Harbors, Inc., a non-profit organization with a mission to accelerate the productive uses of information technologies for the benefit of higher education around the world. The electronic archiving service, known as Portico, was then developed and launched in 2005, with support from JSTOR, Ithaka, the Library of Congress and the Andrew W. Mellon foundation. The service aims to be a permanent electronic archive of scholarly journals. With the addition of the NPG titles, there are more than 6,200 publications in the archive.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on October 02, 2007
Categories: Access | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 2007 marks the first anniversary of the launch of Nature Nanotechnology. To celebrate, the editors have put together their highlights from the first 12 issues. The selection, which is available free until December 2007, reflects the diversity of nanoscience and technology, including contributions from chemists, physicists, materials scientists, engineers, biomedical researchers and others. We hope that you will enjoy browsing through the list, and join us in looking forward to an enjoyable, informative second year.
Nature Nanotechnology first-year highlights.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on October 02, 2007
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If you've read an exceptional paper recently in the fields of climate or stem cells, you can recommend that paper be included in one of our online journal clubs. You can visit the journal clubs to comment and rank the papers that you and other readers have selected.
Nature Reports Climate Change journal club.
Nature Reports Stem Cells journal club.
Papers on any subject written by Chinese authors can be recommended for the Nature China website, where readers can rank and comment on the highlighted papers.
The journal Nature has a weekly journal club column in its print/online edition, in which a scientist writes about a paper of his or her choice and explains why it is of personal interest. You can see all the entries so far, and comment on the selection, at the Nature journal club blog.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on October 01, 2007
Categories: Communication | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you are a neuroscientist attending Neuroscience 2007 in San Diego from 3 to 7 November, visit booth 221 while you are there. Pick up a sample copy of Nature or one of our other neuroscience journals, and meet the editors. Receive a 20% discount to any of our neuroscience titles by subscribing here.
Visit our conference webpage to access free neuroscience-related content from across Nature Publishing Group, link to our conference blogs and a special podcast, and find the latest jobs in neuroscience.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on October 01, 2007
Categories: Conferences | Permalink | Comments (0)