Nautilus

Via the Nature Network blog Science in the Metaverse:

"The popular BBC Radio show The Naked Scientists will be broadcasting live into the virtual world Second Life starting this Sunday, 2 March at 18.00 GMT (10:00 AM PST). They have an island with a nice mansion and lots of comfortable chairs where you can listen to the show with other science enthusiasts and discuss whatever comes to mind. It’s in the middle of the sim named ‘SciLands’. If you already have a Second Life account, here’s a direct link to their mansion."

The background to the event is told by Dave Taylor at Knowlege Transfer Innovations:
......"last November I contacted Dr Chris [of The Naked Scientists] and asked him if he would be interested in having a studio audience in the SciLands. By happy coincidence Chris had been thinking along the same lines and so the idea of Naked Scientists in Second Life was born. This weekend Gordon Clark and I headed to Cambridge while colleagues in Second Life tested the audio link. The resulting podcast included an interview with us both. I described the ISM’s tour of the planets and our joint nuclear experiments with University of Denver while Gordon spoke about his recent trip through a biological sim. You can read the transcript or download the podcast here. During the show I said that innovations often come out of different disciplines meeting and having corridor discussions."

Joanna Scott, Nature Publishing Group's expert on Second Life, is usually at Second Nature (Nature's island on Second Life) between 4 and 5 p.m. GMT (8 - 9 a.m. SLT) , so please log in and join her then if you'd like to tell us what you are doing in Second Life, and what you think Nature Publishing Group might do there that would be useful for you. She looks forward to meeting you.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on February 29, 2008
Categories: Communication, Partners | Permalink | Comments (1)

Nature Milestones in Spin was published yesterday, 28 February 2008. Nature Milestones in Spin is a presentation from Nature Physics that focuses on ground-breaking technologies and advances in 'spin' — the idea that elementary particles possess intrinsic angular momentum, which substantially affects their behaviour. This Nature Publishing Group supplement tells the story through a series of 'milestones' marking the significant developments through the twentieth century to the present day.
Read the content free online for 6 months or order your free print copy . (There is a limited number of printed copies, which will be dispatched on a first-come, first-served basis.)
The rest of the Nature Milestones series, which highlights key discoveries that have shaped different scientific fields and enables the wider recognition of them by nonspecialists, can be seen here.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on February 29, 2008
Categories: Publications | Permalink | Comments (0)

Raf Aerts, on his Nature Network blog African Blog of Ecology, writes about the relentless increase in the number of multi-authored manuscripts. He reproduces a graph from the magazine Science Watch (November/December 2007 edition) which tracks papers grouped into four tranches of more than 50, 100, 200 and 500 authors. Between 1993 and 2003, the numbers of papers with these large numbers of authors were fairly stable, but after that time, the numbers in all categories increased significantly (to 2007). Raf Aerts writes:

"But then came the cracker: in 2000 there was a report with 918 authors, and the current record holder is physics paper published in 2006… with 2512 authors. Imagine all these authors track-changing the manuscript!"

At Nature, and many other journals, the editors ask one author to coordinate revisions and changes between all coauthors, and convey those to the journal on behalf of all of them. The challenge for the poor corresponding author must be quite significant on occasion.

Why do papers need so many authors? Modern, "big" science means that a paper can take years to gestate, involving researchers at many centres, international facilities (for expensive equipment, for example), and complex software. Martin Fenner, in a comment to Raf Aert's post, writes: "In my last published paper I have 82 coauthors, my personal record. The paper is the result of a consensus conference on the management of testicular cancer."

The papers tracked by Science Watch do not cover the "ten-author" paper in which a couple of professors might use their seniority muscle to add their names to an author list even though they made no contribution to the intellectual or physical effort of creating the paper. Is this type of paper making more of a mockery of the concept of "authorship" than the several-hundred author collaboration? How else would these researchers receive deserved credit for their work?

The Nature journals appreciate the problems, but wish authors to be transparent with their readers -- as we do not want to support the practice of honorary authorship, while being sympathetic to genuine collaborations. We encourage coauthors of a paper to specify their contributions to the work, in a statement in the acknowledgements. Our policies, as well as (free-access) editorials in our journals on this topic, are gathered at the Author and Reviewers' website; and our discussions of authorship on Nautilus are gathered under the tag "authorship", which you can see listed by clicking on this link. We welcome your views, which can be made online as a comment to any of these posts.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on February 28, 2008
Categories: Authorship | Permalink | Comments (0)

From Nature 451, 879 (2008):
Harvard University has adopted guidelines under which the 'final drafts' of academic papers written by researchers at its Faculty of Arts and Sciences will automatically be published on the university's website, unless the authors request a waiver. Immediate open access to papers could conflict with the copyright policies of many journals including Cell, Nature and Science.
Many institutions keep open-access repositories of papers but the decision makes Harvard the first US university to sign up to default open-access publishing for its research staff. Although the University of California has toyed with the idea for years, it has yet to agree on a policy.
Stuart Shieber, the computer scientist at Harvard who proposed the scheme, says that any request for an exemption will be granted. The university has not yet worked out how to define what constitutes a 'final' draft of a scholarly paper, nor come up with a time limit for submission.
Critics of open-access policies worry that highly selective journals with large readerships will suffer, and that non-peer-reviewed research will become more prominent.
A longer version of this article is available at Nature News.
There is also an online debate on the Harvard announcement in the Publishing in the New Millennium forum at Nature Network, with several updates and links to further information.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on February 27, 2008
Categories: Access | Permalink | Comments (1)

From the February issue of Nature Medicine 14, 112 (2008):
Attacks against researchers by animal rights extremists have steadily increased in recent years. More than 70 such attacks occured in 2006 alone, according to data collected by the Foundation for Biomedical Research, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit organization that aims to serve as the voice of scientific reason in the ongoing debate that surrounds animal research. Frankie Trull currently heads the foundation, which she established in 1981. She explains to Nature Medicine why she has devoted her career to improving the public understanding of the essential role of lab animals in medical research and discovery.
The question-and-answer interview that follows covers various issues, including the reasons for the recent increase in extremist actions in the United States, how to safely increase the transparency of animal experimentation, protection measures, approaches to replace animals, and the diseases that are most likely to benefit from the use of live animals in research.
The full article is available at Nature Medicine's website.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on February 26, 2008
Categories: Animal experiments | Permalink | Comments (0)

Philip Campbell, Editor in Chief of Nature, writes (Nature 451, 643; 2008):
"When Nature asked a group of experts to offer their visions of the future, we were aware that such a project can have its pitfalls. Experts can get things drastically wrong — although, as Arthur C. Clarke noted, this usually occurs when they assert what is not possible. When they say what is possible, they can be inspiringly right.
With such inspiration in mind, these five Horizons articles (listed below) offer a sense of what our authors believe should happen over the next few years. The collection is in no way comprehensive — we simply wanted to deliver a mix of fundamental and applied science, with the writers articulating their unrefereed agendas for their disciplines."
The five Horizons articles, all in the 7 February 2008 issue of Nature:
A systematic look at an old problem
As life expectancy increases, a systems-biology approach is needed to ensure that we have a healthy old age.
Thomas B. L. Kirkwood pp 644-647
Chemistry for everyone
Moves by chemists to help computers access the scientific literature have boosted the drive to make scientific information freely available to all.
Peter Murray-Rust pp 648-651
Building better batteries
Researchers must find a sustainable way of providing the power our modern lifestyles demand.
M. Armand and J.-M. Tarascon pp 652-657
Evolution of anatomy and gene control
Evo-devo meets systems biology.
Georgy Koentges pp 658-663
Wiring up quantum systems
The emerging field of circuit quantum electrodynamics could pave the way for the design of practical quantum computers.
R. J. Schoelkopf and S. M. Girvin pp 664-669

Posted by Maxine Clarke on February 25, 2008
Categories: Communication, Publications | Permalink | Comments (1)

Senior Nature editor Henry Gee writes on Nature Network's Ask the Editor forum about writing a scientific paper.

"In my experience, the best-written submissions to Nature come from people whose first language is not English – and who have therefore been taught English, properly, as it no longer is in England........I had a paper recently that was written in a most peculiar way, so much so that I had to turn to the author list – and found that both authors were English, working in England. In general, though, Nature editors aren’t looking for English that is beautiful (though it’s nice when it happens) but English that is comprehensible and clear, and whose meaning is unambiguous. If you are attempting to write in clear English, I find it’s best to adopt a few simple rules: the same rules that journalists use to improve the clarity of their prose." Here are Henry's rules:

1. Look at the lengths of your sentences. If you can split them into shorter sentences, do so.
2. Don’t use words or phrases in print that you wouldn’t use in conversation: write as you would speak. I find that if you’ve written something and you think it doesn’t make sense, speak it out loud. If it still seems like it doesn’t make sense, then it probably doesn’t.
3. Use simple sentence constructions that start at the beginning and progress in a stately and linear way to the end.
4. Avoid relative clauses.
5. Avoid the use of double negatives (cell biologists absolutely adore double negatives).
6. Avoid compound nouns (ditto).
7. Avoid neologisms (very popular in the United States).
8. Avoid creative-writing classes.
9. Audit English Literature classes. When looking for models of good writing, study writers who could really write. If you are English, read Jane Austen. If in the United States, read Hemingway.

The Nature Nanotechnology group Asia-Pacific and beyond (also on Nature Network) features some technical style tips with examples of how to shorten sentences, and lazy phrases to avoid. There is also excellent advice, including worked examples, at Time for a Change, the blog of Linda Cooper.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on February 22, 2008
Categories: Writing | Permalink | Comments (0)

The digital edition for the Nature Events directory 2008 is available. Now in its ninth year, the directory is full of conferences, meetings, courses and symposia being held during 2008 across all scientific and medical disciplines. From each entry in the Nature Events listings, you can click directly to the conference website for further information.
If you prefer a PDF version of the directory, you can obtain it from the Nature Events main page. Whether via the directory or its regularly updated database, Nature Events aims to offer a comprehensive resource that will help researchers identify the right event to attend.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on February 21, 2008
Categories: Careers, Communication, Conferences | Permalink | Comments (0)

The UK Research Information Network (RIN) has produced a framework of key principles and guidelines on the stewardship of digital research data for research institutions, libraries, publishers, societies and funders, produced after more than a year of wide consultation among these groups. The summary of the framework is available as a two-page PDF, and the full report as a 16-page document (PDF).
The framework is not only addressing the basic issue of the preservation of research data because it is essential to evaluate and re-assess results, but is identifying new approaches to managing and providing access to the data in an era of digitization, new technologies, aggregation and "adding value" to data by re-use.
The framework document identifies five key principles, in abbreviated form:
1. The roles and responsibilities of researchers, research institutions and funders should be defined and have codes of practice to ensure that creators and users of research data are aware of and fulfil their responsibilities.
2. Digital research data should be created and collected in accordance with international standards.
3. Digital research data should be easy to find, and access should be provided in an environment which maximises ease of use, and which provides credit for and protects the rights of those who have gathered or created data, and/or who have legitimate interests in how data are made accessible and used.
4. Models and mechanisms for managing and providing access to digital research data must be both efficient and cost-effective.
5. Digital research data of long-term value arising from current and future research should be preserved and remain accessible for current and future generations.
The full details are available at the RIN website.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on February 20, 2008
Categories: Data availability | Permalink | Comments (0)

Chinese authors are publishing more and more papers, but are they receiving due credit and recognition for their work? Not if their names get confused along the way. Jane Qiu investigates these, and other questions, in a Nature news feature in the current issue of the journal (Nature 451, 766-767; 2008). The article covers the huge problem of how to distinguish between Asian researchers, given the vast numbers of people sharing relatively few surnames. The problem is particularly challenging in the publishing sphere, not only in identifying an author correctly in citation databases and other indeces, but for editors in choosing appropriate peer-reviewers. Asian researchers suffer in being hampered from full participation in the international scientific community, for example they are less likely to be invited to contribute to conferences, to be successful in grant applications or to win awards.
The news feature provides a clear overview of these issues, and more, from a range of perspectives. Some journals have begun to provide author names in original (not Latin) characters, and there are various initiatives to provide unique author identifiers. At this stage, however, there is no consensus as to the best way to proceed: there are problems of technical compatibility between publishing, database and indexing systems, of agreement on universal standards, and other challenges, such as the high mobility of scientists, making it difficult to track the author of several publications.
Nature Network has a forum "What's in an Asian name?", in which several Asian and other researchers provide their perspective of this challenging issue for publishers and database curators. A Nautilus post last year highlighted the efforts of the Human Frontiers Program to help Japanese and other Asian scientists to improve their international visibility.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on February 19, 2008
Categories: Authorship, Format, Publishing | Permalink | Comments (0)

Nature has introduced a web-based production tracking system for research manuscripts that have been accepted for publication, which we hope will bring many benefits for authors. In the first phase at Nature, authors are able to access a website to download the journal's edited version of the text of their accepted manuscript, so they can make their corrections and upload the revised version back into the system. Very soon afterwards, the typeset PDF, laid out and complete with figures and/or tables, can also be uploaded and checked by the authors.
According to a survey of authors who have been testing the system in the past few weeks, a substantial majority strongly agreed that the new process is easy to operate and, for those who had published in Nature before, 100 per cent found the new system easier. One author wrote: "If it will always remain this efficient and user friendly, it is an easy, professional way of taking a manuscript through the production process." Another said: "I found the responses by the Nature staff to email queries were very impressive, being both very rapid and very helpful."
The system is being further developed, already being in use in several of the Nature monthly journals. We will keep authors informed as we introduce new components.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on February 18, 2008
Categories: Author services | Permalink | Comments (0)

The role of scientists in informing the public about their field is addressed by Frank Gannon in this month's (February) issue of EMBO Reports (9, 111; 2008 ). Dr Gannon writes about a perceived "creeping cynicism" among the public, and urges scientists to "instill a healthy dose of optimism about what science can do—albeit in a fair and balanced way. We have to do this for ourselves as well as society at large. We have to explain the complexities of the tasks that lie ahead and, at the same time, highlight the genuine successes that scientific research has achieved. We must counter the cheap shots directed against honest and determined scientists, and reign in those who overstate their work and its implications. But more than anything else, we have to stress time and again that rigorous research is the only way to discover the cures and solutions needed for the twenty-first century."

At the same time, there is a variety of views on this topic being expressed by science writers on their Nature Network forum, in response to Brian Clegg's question "Is balance the enemy of science writing?" In cases where "there is overwhelming scientific evidence in favour of one opinion", writes Brian, "the media’s attempt to provide balance by giving equal weight to both sides of the argument is a mistake. It misleads the public, and does a disservice to science.
Is this true? If so, what should science writers be doing about it?" Or, as Frank Norman puts it, quoting Richard Dawkins and Jerry Coyne: "When two opposite points of view are expressed with equal intensity, the truth does not necessarily lie exactly half way between. It is possible for one side simply to be wrong." A stimulating and very heated discussion follows about the role of the media in (mis)communicating science. To Michael Kenward it is relatively simple: "Look at examples, point out to the perpetrators that their idea of balance is actually no more than giving publicity to the lunatic fringe." Other contributors discuss longer-term goals, such as changing the way science is taught in schools, and rewarding scientists for personal public-education initiatives. Elsewhere on Nature Network, senior Nature editor Henry Gee provides his own unique perspective at his blog End of the Pier Show, in a post entitled Plausible Unavoidability.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on February 15, 2008
Categories: Communication, Public and media | Permalink | Comments (0)

At Nature Publishing Group, we are often in a position of celebrating birthdays across a full range of ages, from Nature itself (139 on 4 November this year) to our youngest anniversarian, Nature Network, one year old today. In its brief span, the network has become host to a huge range of forums, groups, blogs and event notifications, some created by staff but the vast majority by users -- scientists, students, and (to quote the Editor Emeritus of Nature, Sir John Maddox) camp-followers.
Today, my shapshot shows me that the most vibrant discussions are on the role of money in Indian science; the quality of writing as a factor in the peer-review process; and nanotechnology trends predicted for this year. Tomorrow, these will be different, but equally stimulating. And fun -- check out Stripped Science, the blog of PhD student Viktor Poór, for a regular dose of science cartoons, this week with a birthday theme. Anyone can join the network, it is all free, so please do visit and meet others in a similar field, or with similar interests, to yourself.
Nature Network shares anniversaries of various kinds with the element Lawrencium, Dolly the sheep, Alexander Graham Bell, James Cook and, of course, St Valentine. The network almost, but not quite, shares a birthday with a person very closely connected with Nature in its earliest days -- Charles Darwin (who would have been 199 on Tuesday of this week, 12 February). In celebration of that anniversary, and of Nature Network's own much younger achievement, I reproduce a small part here of Matt Brown's lovely blog article about a walk through Darwin's London (complete with Google map):

"Walking up Lower Regent Street you might want to take a detour into Leicester Square. In Darwin’s day, No. 28—on the eastern side of the square—was the headquarters of the Zoological Society of London and the site of a zoological museum. On 4 January 1837, Darwin handed over 80 mammals and 450 birds collected during his Beagle trip. These included the now-famous Galapagos finches, specimens that ornithologist, artist and taxonomist John Gould was quick to describe as 'an entirely new group, containing 12 species.' "

I highly recommend reading the whole of this delightful combination of essay and guided tour. Happy birthday, indeed, Nature Network. I look forward to 199 (or more) lively years of your existence.

Update: See this posting at Nature Network for a brief history and some highlights of the first year.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on February 14, 2008
Categories: Communication, Partners, Publications | Permalink | Comments (0)

In an article just published in Research Information magazine (December 07/January 08 issue), Timo Hannay and Hilary Spencer of Nature Publishing Group explain why this publishing company has launched a free preprint service for biologists, chemists and Earth scientists. They write:

"Nature Precedings is perhaps most easily understood as a preprint server that allows scientists to upload non-peer-reviewed (or pre-peer-review) documents so that they can be discovered, downloaded, read, and cited by other researchers. In this way, it is similar to arXiv.org, a website that has been providing an indispensable service to physicists, mathematicians, and computer scientists for over 15 years. In contrast to arXiv.org, however, Nature Precedings serves scientific fields in which the open and early exchange of research findings has yet to take root. Running a preprint server might seem like a bold, or even quixotic, goal for a publishing company, but we strongly believe that such open and early exchange of information between researchers is in the best interests of science as a whole, and NPG exists to enable such activities."

Read the whole article Research Information : Features : PREPRINTS : Document sharing speeds up research for an account of the benefits of sharing research results in this way, and why it makes sense for a publishing company to develop a preprint-sharing sevice.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on February 13, 2008
Categories: Communication | Permalink | Comments (0)

Aled Edwards of the Structural Genomics Consortium, University of Toronto writes in a Correspondence in this month's issue of Nature Structural & Molecular Biology (15, 116 ;2008):
The Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC) is a public-private partnership that places the three-dimensional structures of proteins of relevance to human health into the public domain without restriction on use. Over the past 3 years, the SGC has deposited the structures of more than 550 proteins from its Target List into the Protein DataBank (PDB); this accounts for about one-quarter of the new structures of human proteins in the PDB over this period ('new' is defined as <95% sequence identity to proteins whose structures were already available in the PDB) and the majority of the new structures from the human parasites that cause malaria, cryptosporidiosis and toxoplasmosis. Over the next 4 years, the SGC is committing to determining the structures of another 600 proteins from its Target List, including eight human integral membrane proteins.
The SGC has been releasing the coordinates for all the SGC structures into the PDB immediately after they meet the SGC quality criteria, even if the ultimate intention is to describe the work in the peer-reviewed literature. This data release policy, which has often meant that coordinates were available for several months before the manuscript was even written, has not limited the ability of our scientists to publish.
In keeping with our policy to make our data available as soon as possible, the SGC is now also providing 'pre-released' coordinates on its website when a new SGC structure is submitted to the PDB, allowing scientists to access the structural information while the deposition files are being processed. Scientists should ensure that the revised coordinate file is downloaded once it is released by the PDB.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on February 12, 2008
Categories: Data availability, Disciplines | Permalink | Comments (0)

From Nature 451, 619 (2008):
African researchers have just been connected by a high-speed Internet link to Europe's research network, GÉANT2. The deal has been struck between GÉANT2 and UbuntuNet, an alliance of African national research networks created in 2005. It will speed up communications and data transfer not only between African scientists and the estimated 30 million GÉANT2 users in 34 European countries, but also with scientists worldwide — through GÉANT2's connections with the United States and other research networks around the world.
UbuntuNet is not related to Ubuntu, the popular free version of the Linux operating system. But both namesakes help bring affordable quality information technology to African scientists.

The science and development network Scidev.net reports the formation of a new network, Scientists Without Borders, an initiative of the New York Academy of Sciences, which will "integrate the efforts of the scientific and health community to address global health, agriculture and energy challenges in accordance with the Millennium Development Goals." Ghana will be the first country in the scheme, from where a range of information is being collected to create a collaborative database and website, followed by others in the African continent.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on February 11, 2008
Categories: Communication, Partners | Permalink | Comments (0)

Four Nature Network bloggers feature in an anthology of selected science blog posts of 2007, Open Laboratory 2007. Out of more than 450 nominated entries, 52 were chosen for publication, including these from Nature Network bloggers:
Deanne Taylor, a research scientist with the Harvard School of Public Health, describes what changes need to be made to boost faculty diversity in science.
Kristin Stephan, a Tufts graduate student, discusses how difficult, but necessary, it is for PhD students in grad school to learn about careers outside academic science.
Henry Gee writes about how his 9-year-old daughter's Asperger's syndrome might help her become a good scientist.
Jennifer Rohn, a postdoc at University College London, documents in a series of four posts her return to the lab and academic science after four years as a journal editor. Required reading for anyone contemplating a career change.
In a short review of the book in Nature's 24 January issue (Nature 451, 401; 2008), Nature's Books and Arts editor Joanne Baker wrote: "If you are overwhelmed by the surge in science-related blogging and don't know where to start, then this compilation may help you steer a course through the sea of perspectives on offer — or inspire you to start a blog yourself."
The book is available either as a PDF or a printed paperback, from Lulu.com.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on February 08, 2008
Categories: Author benefits, Awards, Writing | Permalink | Comments (0)

February's Edtiorial in Nature Medicine (14, 106; 2008) addresses the question of what we mean by 'perceived' conflicts of interest. The reader wrote: "This term crops up frequently in the editorials of Nature journals, and I would be extremely grateful if [...] you would like to explain the difference between a perceived and an actual conflict of interest."
The policy in full is described on our Author and Reviewers' website, but to summarize, perceived competing financial interests [CFIs] are instances in which no competing interest (or conflict) exists, but the potential for financial gain as a result of what is published could give readers the impression of a conflict.
An example given in the Editorial is the publication of sponsored content. "Producing, say, a supplement to Nature Medicine requires financial resources that may not be part of our budget. If we want to publish this content for the benefit of our readers, we must find the money elsewhere. A sponsor may be interested in the topic of the supplement and agree to underwrite the costs. To the casual reader, this may look like a CFI—either the sponsor directly paid for the content, or the journal published on this topic to get money from the sponsor. There is, however, no conflict, because our sponsors never have a say on the editorial content of anything we publish. In fact, all of the editorial content for supplements is often already commissioned before we approach potential sponsors." For Nature journals, all such content contains a clear statement by the editors, in order to be maximally clear.
We welcome readers' views about perceived and acutal interests, either in respect of sponsored content or other aspects of the publication process.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on February 07, 2008
Categories: Competing interests | Permalink | Comments (0)

Is it possible to reconcile the caution of most scientists about their results with the demands of the media for headlines and the growing emphasis placed by funding agencies on the economic impact of research? In this month's issue of Nature Nanotechnology (3, 65-66; 2008), Richard Jones urges caution: "scientists may not be at all confident that their own work will have a big impact, but they are confident that science in general will deliver big benefits. On the other hand, the public have long memories for promises that science and technology have made but failed to deliver (such as electricity from nuclear power being 'too cheap to meter'). This, if nothing else, suggests that the nanoscience community would do well to be responsible in what they promise."
The cancer nanotechnology plan of the US National Cancer Institute, for example, is criticized for its opening statement: "To help meet the Challenge Goal of eliminating suffering and death from cancer by 2015, the NCI is engaged in a concerted effort to harness the power of nanotechnology to radically change the way we diagnose, treat and prevent cancer." As Dr Jones writes," a close textual analysis of the document shows that the NCI does not explicitly claim that nanotechnology will cure cancer by 2015; rather, it talks of "challenge goals" and "lowering barriers". But is it wise to make it so easy to draw this conclusion from a careless reading?"

Posted by Maxine Clarke on February 07, 2008
Categories: Public and media | Permalink | Comments (0)

A free poster, by Matthias P. Wymann, Thomas Rückle, Christian Rommel, Matthias Schwarz and Roger Schneiterfrom, is published this month (February) by Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology . The poster provides an overview of the protein--lipid signalling network, and how this network can be exploited pharmacologically in the study of proliferative, inflammatory and metabolic diseases. It accompanies a review article by Matthias P. Wymann and Roger Schneiter in Nature Reviews Molecular and Cell Biology (9, 162-176; 2008), which also contains a Web Focus on Lipids.
View the poster as a high-resolution PDF.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on February 07, 2008
Categories: Author services | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Nature Physics editors (Nature Physics 4, 81; 2008) want to hear from physicists what kind of tools would help in managing the ever-growing tide of information from, and the exciting possibilities of, the internet. One hundred years ago, communication was relatively slow, and scientists attended conferences to find out what was going on outside their own place of work; now, we live in an environment in which there is an over-abundance of data-rich information that is a challenge to assimilate. What tools do scientists most need to communicate, share and organize information in the most meaningful, or "filtered", way? Nature Publishing Group has already created several such tools, for example Connotea, a reference management system, and Nature Network, a social website for various kinds of specialist discussion forums. The editors would like to hear from readers about the tools they would like to see developed. Please send them an email if you have suggestions you'd like to make, or drop a comment to this post.
Nature Physics February 2008 Editorial: A tangled web we weave.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on February 06, 2008
Categories: Author services, Communication | Permalink | Comments (0)

Nautilus has featured many posts about gender issues in scientific research, as can be seen at this link. The question of opportunities for women is one that endures: hard on the heels of two studies in EMBO Reports last November comes a Feature in February's issue of Nature Geoscience, Gender imbalance in US geoscience academia, by Mary Anne Holmes, Suzanne O'Connell, Connie Frey and Lois Ongley (Nature Geoscience 1, 79 - 82; 2008). From the article:

"We could wait for the pipeline to supply more women by having more women enter our programs, but the wait will be a long one: the proportion of women on the faculty will never equal the proportion receiving PhDs if we do not intervene to stop women's exodus from academia. The problem is not only the supply of women into geosciences majors, but the continual loss as more women drop out and head for other fields or other careers instead of tenure-track jobs and tenure. The processes by which our students complete a PhD and go on to achieve tenure may not be selecting for all traits that can contribute to the best science and teaching. We assert from our own experiences and acquaintances that the ongoing loss of women from the geosciences is not 'best selection', but a brain drain."

The full Nature Geoscience article is available here.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on February 05, 2008
Categories: Careers | Permalink | Comments (0)

Nature Materials gets to grips with the issue of authorship this month, in a freely available Editorial (Nature Materials 7, 91; 2008) about international guidelines that define authorship as "limited to those who have made a significant scientific contribution to the concept, design, execution, or interpretation of the research study". This definition, used by many journals in their author guidelines, becomes imprecise in some circumstances, as identified in the Nature Materials editorial:
"A classic example is the case in which an experimental facility has been used to obtain some of the data. Without the work of scientists employed to run that facility those results could not be obtained. But is their contribution to the specific work enough to warrant authorship, or would acknowledgements be more appropriate? What about the director of the facility? Should the contribution of technicians warrant authorship in general? What about collaborators that helped obtain funding that was used for the work? And what about reviewers, who in some cases substantially help improve a paper, but whose contribution is mainly editorial?" The Editorial points out the difficulties in implementing clear-cut rules, but urges institutions not only to clarify and unify codes of conduct, but also to ensure that the scientists they employ and/or fund appreciate their importance.
It is the policy of the Nature journals to encourage co-authors of papers to specify their individual contributions. Full details are provided at our authors' and reviewers' website.
The full-text of the Nature Materials Editorial can be read here.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on February 04, 2008
Categories: Authorship | Permalink | Comments (0)

Managing Editor - Nature
Nature is the world's leading scientific journal and is the flagship publication of Nature Publishing Group. With its authoritative journalism and opinion, a leading position in its science research content, and worldwide influence and engagement, Nature stands ready to undertake a period of further investment in both print and online formats. The publisher and the Editor-in-Chief of Nature wish to employ a senior manager who will take direct responsibility for the implementation of the publishing programme and for key aspects of publishing and editorial management.
Applicants must have a demonstrable familiarity with the scientific landscape, a strong commercial drive, and the ability to manage projects and to achieve demanding goals in a way that stimulates and inspires the colleagues on whom they depend. The job is based in the London offices of the Nature Publishing Group (NPG), and involves close interactions with colleagues in other parts of Europe, the United States and the Asia-Pacific.
Candidates should have prior commercial and editorial experience, preferably in scientific publishing. They should be comfortable with print and online media and have had experience of running projects and managing teams. Contact details: please send your CV, a summary of relevant experience, and your current salary, quoting reference number to NPG/LON/815, to Geetika Juneja, Personnel Assistant, at londonpersonnel@macmillan.co.uk All candidates must demonstrate the right to live and work in the UK to be considered for the vacancy. Closing Date: 14 February 2008.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on February 01, 2008
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