Nautilus

There are many different criteria that can be taken into account when judging the scientific success of individual researchers, but are some more meaningful than others? Nature Chemistry in its July Editorial (1, 251; 2009) is the latest to address this perennial question. (See, for example, this Nature Network forum on citation use and abuse.)
Nature Chemistry points out that the "basic currency of scientific communication is the journal article, and so it seems sensible to use this as a starting point for evaluating success in a given area. At first glance, this is a particularly attractive approach because we can boil down an individual's publication record to cold hard numbers. For example, we can count how many papers someone has to their name and we can also count the number of times a specific article has been cited — or indeed how much an individual's complete body of work has been cited. Moreover, the rise of the internet has made finding these numbers a fairly trivial task. But can we make meaningful comparisons?"
The Editorial identifies the fallacy of using journal 'impact factors' for this purpose, as well as flaws in alternative metrics that have been devised. Other suggested 'success measures' include the amount of funding a scientist can attract, recognition of peers (for example prizes and awards), and education.
Nature Chemistry: journal homepage.
About Nature Chemistry.
Nature Chemistry guide to authors.
Previous Nautilus posts on quality measures.
Previous Nautilus posts on citation analysis.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on June 30, 2009
Categories: Quality measures | Permalink | Comments (0)

Inhibition of the replicative cycle of hepatitis C virus
Richard Bethell, George Kukolj and Peter W. White
Nature Reviews Microbiology, June 2009.
It is estimated that 170 million people globally are infected with the hepatitis C virus (HCV). Chronic HCV infection can result in the development of liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma, and therefore represents a substantial public health problem. Current drugs against HCV have poor safety profiles and limited effectiveness, especially against HCV genotype 1. As a result, there is considerable interest in identifying specific inhibitors of HCV replication that could be used either as an adjunct to current therapy or in place of it. A free poster from Nature Reviews Microbiology summarizes the replicative cycle of HCV and the principal targets for specific antiviral agents that are currently being developed.

Download a high-resolution PDF of the poster here.
Further reading (PDF).
Nature Reviews Microbiology website.
A guide to Nature Reviews Microbiology.
About the journal.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on June 29, 2009
Categories: Disciplines, NPG special content | Permalink | Comments (0)

This weekly Nautilus column highlights some of the online discussion at Nature Network in the preceding week that is of relevance to scientists as authors and communicators. Readers are welcome to join any of these discussions by visiting the links provided. The Nature Network week column is archived here.

Registration is now open for the Science Online London 09 conference this summer. Act soon if you would like to attend, as there are only 150 places, 100 of which have already gone. A list of the attendees (so far) is here. The organizers have been collecting ideas for topics for discussion over the past few weeks, and will be announcing the programme soon.

Branwen Hide was asked the other day how she would set up a research base in the UK if she could start with a blank slate. She passes the question to Nature Network readers: "If you had ultimate power what would you do? If you want you can start now and talk about changes you would make and things you would like to see." Visit the UK science policy forum to add your answer! (Mine is there.) Moving from the UK to the US, Michael Nestor says that we need a national consortium of science, and for universities to be parallel distributed processors. Read on, and contribute.

Maria Nowotny, a researcher in materials science, enjoys peer-reviewing papers and acting as a guest editor for journals - so much so that she's interested in an editing career. An online discussion follows of the qualifications and experience needed for this role.

If you're a scientist who writes, and you like travelling to the remotest of places, Steffi Suhr rounds up current opportunities to visit the Antarctic, complete with insider tips.

How do you fit 4,000 years of science into 400 pages? Historians of science call this the Big Picture problem, and now Patricia Fara has provided the first ever solution – Science: A Four Thousand Year History (Oxford University Press). In a Second Life talk on Tuesday 30 June, she discusses three of the Big Questions she had to confront while she was writing her book – When did science begin? Who did science? How does science change? Some of her answers may be unexpected. More details are here. You may have difficulty attending if you are in Australia, unfortunately, as Craig Rowell reports censorship plans.

Further science-related blog reading and online discussion can be enjoyed at:
Planet Nature
Nature.com's science blogs index and tracker
Nature Publishing Group news at Nature Network

Posted by Maxine Clarke on June 26, 2009
Categories: Nature Network round-up | Permalink | Comments (0)

Nature Biotechnology's June issue contains several articles of particular interest to scientists as communicators, authors and entrepreneurs. Here are a few highlights:

Nature Biotechnology 27, 514 - 518 (2009).
Science communication reconsidered.
Tania Bubela et al.
As new media proliferate and the public's trust and engagement in science are influenced by industry involvement in academic research, an interdisciplinary workshop provides some recommendations to enhance science communication. Among these are that graduate students need to be taught about the social and political context of science and how to communicate with the media and a diversity of publics; that the factors contributing to media hype and errors (largely of omission) are explicitly recognized to allow science institutions and media organizations informed communication policies; research on science communication should be expanded to include online and digital media; more investment in the systematic tracking of news and cultural indicators, including traditional news outlets but also radio, entertainment TV, religious media, the web and new documentary genres; and a new 'science policy' beat in journalism courses to fill in the gaps between the technical backgrounders preferred by science writers and the conflict emphasis of political reporters. Finally, the authors argue, if there is a major threat to science journalism, it is that science journalists are losing their jobs at for-profit news organizations; new models of support for science journalism are needed, in which online digital formats blend professional reporting with user-generated content and discussion.

Nature Biotechnology 27, 528-530 (2009):
Maters of their universe.
Genentech—the biotech venture that launched a thousand companies—is no longer its own master. In March, majority stakeholder Roche reached an agreement with the South San Francisco, California–based company under which the Swiss drug maker would take over the biotech for $46.8 billion. But many remember those first years when a small team of bright, intellectually disciplined young scientists—often rowdy and personally eccentric people—got the company up and running. Randy Osborne and Laura DeFrancesco caught up with a few of those pioneers to talk about that era, their time and how they felt leading the charge.

Nature Biotechnology 27, 531 - 537 (2009).
Wasting cash—the decline of the British biotech sector.
Graham Smith, Muhammad Safwan Akram, Keith Redpath & William Bains
Undercapitalization and overgenerous boardroom compensation for management have been major contributors to the poor performance of UK biotech. Despite historic leadership in European biotech, the UK's industry has suffered a near collapse in the past two years and now has little private or public investment and no candidates for world-class companies. Why do shareholders allow UK public biotech companies to accumulate top management that pays itself so much, is unmotivated to drive shareholder value and as a consequence apparently drains the company of resources, notably cash? These questions, and others, are addressed in the feature.

Nature Biotechnology website.
Nature Biotechnology guide to authors.
Nature Biotechnology conference programme.
Nature Biotechnology focuses and supplements.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on June 25, 2009
Categories: Authorship, Conferences, Education, Ethics, Public and media, Publications | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thomson Reuters have just announced the 2008 Impact Factors. Nature is the top journal in the multidisciplinary science category by all Thomson Reuters' new metrics: 5 year Impact Factor, Eigenfactor and article influence score. It is also the top of all journals in the Journal of Citation Reports (Thomson Reuters, 2009) listing (n=6,598) by Eigenfactor score. Here are the 2008 Impact Factors for the Nature journals that publish primary research:

Nature 31.434
Nature Biotechnology 22.297
Nature Cell Biology 17.774
Nature Chemical Biology 14.612
Nature Chemistry N/A
Nature Genetics 30.259
Nature Geoscience N/A
Nature Immunology 25.113
Nature Medicine 27.553
Nature Materials 23.132
Nature Methods 13.651
Nature Neuroscience 14.164
Nature Nanotechnology 20.571
Nature Photonics 24.982
Nature Physics 16.821
Nature Struct Molec Biol. 10.987

Posted by Maxine Clarke on June 24, 2009
Categories: Citation analysis, Quality measures | Permalink | Comments (1)

Various codes of conduct have been proposed for nanotechnology —and in the June issue of Nature Nanotechnology (4, 336; 2009), Richard Jones examines what they mean for individual researchers, particularly in the light of the European Commission's code, aimed at academic research rather than at businesses and other commerce.
"How is responsibility divided between the individuals who do science, and the organizations, institutions and social structures in which science is done? There's a danger that codes of ethics focus too much on the individual scientist, at a time when many scientists often feel rather powerless, with research priorities increasingly being set from outside and with the development and application of their research out of their hands. In this environment, too much emphasis on individual accountability could prove alienating, and could divert us from efforts to make the institutions in which science and technology are developed more responsible.
Scientists, however, should not completely underestimate their importance and influence collectively, even if individually they feel impotent. Part of the responsibility of a scientist should be to reflect on how to justify one's work, and how people with different points of view might react to it, and such scientists will be in a good position to have a positive influence on the various institutions they interact with, such as funding agencies. But we still need to think more generally about how to make responsible institutions for developing science and technology, as well as responsible nanoscientists."

About Nature Nanotechnology.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on June 23, 2009
Categories: Communication, Disciplines, Education, Ethics, Public and media | Permalink | Comments (0)

The art of paper folding is a useful way to illustrate some concepts about protein folding in the cell, according to June's issue of Nature Structural and Molecular Biology. "When all goes well, you end up with a beautiful and functional structure. When things go wrong (misfolding), you may get a crumpled mess that needs to be smoothed out (unfolding) to try to start the process over again (refolding), or you may just give up and feed it to the shredder for recycling (degradation). Some unfolded or misfolded conformations can aggregate and generate forms that are difficult to degrade, akin to a pile of sheets glued together, and cause cellular toxicity or death. In fact, defects in protein folding have been linked to a number of pathologies where such aggregates (amyloids) are observed, including neurodegenerative conditions such as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and Huntington's diseases, although what the toxic species are remains to be determined."
Many of these concepts are covered in the Reviews and Progress articles that comprise a Nature Structural and Molecular Biology Focus on protein folding (free to read online), with an emphasis on recent developments in the field. Online features of the Focus include an annotated collection of 'Classics' —landmark papers that shaped and guided research. This compilation provides a historical perspective on how the field has progressed. The journal editors have also asked researchers about their views on where the field is going—the 'big questions' that still await answers and the technical developments that will make answering those questions possible; you can read these in 'Looking ahead'. And you can browse a library of recent papers on protein folding published in the Nature journals.

About Nature Structural and Molecular Biology.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on June 22, 2009
Categories: Disciplines, NPG special content | Permalink | Comments (0)

The UK Resource Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology is hosting an evening of speakers and discussion on Thursday 25 June at the Institute of Physics,London, 6pm – 8.30pm (approx). There are some spaces left – men and women are very welcome, but booking in advance is essential.
The discussion:
Women in Science, Engineering and Technology – and the recession
Is gender equality key to recovery?
What is the impact of the recession on women in science, entineering and technology professions? We’ll look at the role of these disciplines in economic recovery, whether gender equality become a luxury in a recession, and the place of women in the new employmnet landscape that emerges.
Speakers include Ruth Sunderland (chair), Business Editor at the Observer; Anne Pettifor, an expert commentator and campaigner on financial systems, author of the Green New Deal and the Debtonation blog; Professor Douglas Kell, Chief Executive of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, also a blogger; Mandy Clarke (Halcrow Ltd); Professor Ursula Martin (Queen Mary University of London); and Annette Williams (Director of the UK Resource Centre)
There will be refreshments and networking before and after. The meeting is upstairs at the Institute of Physics, but places are limited and prior booking is essential by email or by telephone (+44) 01274 436485.
About UKRC.
See also this Nature Network forum entry by Ruth Wilson.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on June 19, 2009
Categories: Careers, Conferences, Public and media | Permalink | Comments (0)

This weekly Nautilus column highlights some of the online discussion at Nature Network in the preceding week that is of relevance to scientists as authors and communicators. Readers are welcome to join any of these discussions by visiting the links provided. The Nature Network week column is archived here.

María José Navarrete-Talloni writes about her involvement in a Chilean organization for scientists called RedCiencia, a web platform for Spanish-speaking scientists from all over the world that promotes funding opportunities and jobs, as well as publishing news and columns (including one by her).

The Semantic Web is based on the relatively straightforward idea that to be able to integrate (link) data on the Web we must have some mechanism for knowing what relationships hold among the data, and how that relates to some “real world” context. Jim Hendler tells us what it is really all about at his Nature Network blog, and how useful technology is ready to be applied in fairly simple ways.

More on technology: what can we do to close the "digital divide" among scientists? Martin Fenner writes that "many if not most scientists are experienced users of computers and the internet, and use email or public databases such as PubMed on a daily basis. But few scientists regularly use Web 2.0 tools, which would include both general tools such as Twitter, FriendFeed or Facebook, as well as tools specifically targeted at scientists (and this would of course include Nature Network)." Some good suggestions for closing the gap follow, both in the post and in the ensuing online discussion.

Mickey Schafer and Linda Cooper discuss whether poor writing can be useful in teaching people how to write well in their scientific papers, in the Good Paper Journal Club.

Happy second birthday to Nature Precedings, a wesite now hosting more than a thousand documents, including several specialized document collections. Hilary Spencer writes that thousands of researchers have signed up to read and view pre-print manuscripts, posters and presentations, and many have posted comments providing feedback on these submissions. Santosh Patnaik assesses usage of the service during its second year. More information and updates are at the Nature Precedings forum.

Streamosphere is the latest web application from Nature Publishing Group. Euan Adie has created a visualisation and aggregation tool that lets you track scientific discussion on the web in real-time. Futher details, with links to the service, are provided at the Nature Publshing Group news forum.

Further science-related blog reading and online discussion can be enjoyed at:
Planet Nature
Nature.com's science blogs index and tracker
Nature Publishing Group news at Nature Network

Posted by Maxine Clarke on June 19, 2009
Categories: Nature Network round-up | Permalink | Comments (0)

New rules for the presentation of statistics in the Nature journals are described in the June Editorial of Nature Cell Biology (11, 667; 2009). From the Editorial:

Thanks to advanced imaging technologies and better integration with molecular and systems approaches, cell biology is undergoing something of a renaissance as a quantitative science. Robust conclusions from quantitative data require a measure of their variability. Cell biology experiments are often intricate and measure complex processes. Consequently the number of independent repeats of a measurement can be limited for practical reasons, yet the variability of the measurements can be rather high. Cell biologists have developed good intuition to guide their analysis of such constrained datasets. Biological complexity and the reliance on intuition can cause culture shock to physical scientists crossing over into cell biology (a kind of extension of the celebrated 'two cultures' concept of C. P. Snow).
With the arrival of quantitative information and '-omic' datasets, statistical analysis becomes a necessity to complement instinct. The problem is that statistical tools are built on basic assumptions such as the independence of replicate measurements and the normality of data distribution. Usually, sizeable datasets are prerequisite for statistical analysis. Alas, these can be as hard come by as a biostatistician (n is typically well below 5). The result is that all too often statistics (frequently undefined 'error bars') are applied to data where they are simply not warranted.
There are no easy solutions to rectify the prevalence of poor statistics in cell biology studies. However, an obvious recommendation is to consult a statistician when planning quantitative experiments. Consider whether n represents independent experiments (you may actually be publishing a measure of the quality of your pipette!) and whether it is large enough for the test applied. Avoid showing statistics when they are not justified; instead, show 'typical' data or, better still, all the measurements. Importantly, displaying unwarranted statistics attributes a misleading level of significance to the data. Always describe and justify any statistical analysis applied. We have updated our guidelines to reflect these recommendations. One key rule: if the number of independent repeats is less than the fingers of one hand, show the actual measurements rather than error bars. If you wish to present error bars, include the actual measurements alongside them.
Finally, please remember that you are interrogating a complex system — be careful not to discard 'outlier' data points on a whim, as they may well be as relevant as clustered measurements. One is naturally inclined to ignore data that does not match the hypothesis tested, but biology is rarely as black and white as we would like. Do not make 'hypothesis driven' research become 'hypothesis forced'!

Posted by Maxine Clarke on June 18, 2009
Categories: Authorship, Data availability, Disciplines, Format | Permalink | Comments (2)

In its June Editorial Encouraging science outreach, Nature Neuroscience (12, 665 ; 2009) responds to US President Obama's recent call for more scientist involvement in education. Science outreach programs are very welcome, states the Editorial, but to be effective, they must include incentives for teachers and better training for scientist volunteers if true change is to be achieved.
According to statistics released by the US Department of Education at the end of 2008, neither US fourth or eighth graders showed any detectable change in science achievement in 2007 compared to 1995; and only 28% of US high school students are well prepared for college-level biology. Initiatives to bring professional scientists into the classroom have assumed that this involvement will provide better science content and allow students to imbibe an inquiry-based learning process. They should also benefit scientists and science, for example by encouraging public discussion of issues such as use of animals in experiments or ethics of stem-cell research.
Scientists are keen to become more involved in these processes.The US Neuroscience Public Education and Communication Committee surveyed members in 2007, finding that 50% of respondents would be interested in participating in educational outreach. The organization has launched the NERVE virtual encycloportal, maintains a list of scientists interested in high-school involvement, and has announced a wiki initiative aimed at making basic neuroscience information more accessible to educators and pupils. Several universities run outreach programmes with their local schools—volunteering scientific expertise at science fairs, running teacher-training programmes or arranging for scientists to visit classrooms.
The Editorial goes on to point out that many schools and teachers lack the resources to reform their science curricula, and that many scientists do not have the skills to educate and communicate effectively with many students. "Reforming how science is taught in schools, and the amount of it that is taught, will ultimately depend heavily on how many teachers think that scientists can contribute something to the primary and secondary education process and who thus incorporate those contributions into their lessons. Given the current burdens on educators, teachers need to be better rewarded for efforts to implement a more inquiry-based culture in their classrooms. For the most part, such changes will have to come from within the education system......to be truly successful at engaging children, scientists must be better trained to teach and communicate with the public. They also should be rewarded for participating in these efforts; one option would be to give young scientists teaching credits for participating in these outreach efforts. Designing training programs that would help young scientists acquire these skills and rewarding young scientists for sacrificing part of their time at the bench to participate in educational outreach would go a long way toward building effective teacher-scientist partnerships. "

Society for Neuroscience core concepts: essential principles of neuroscience.
Nature Neuroscience journal homepage.
About Nature Neuroscience.
Nature Neuroscience guide to authors.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on June 17, 2009
Categories: Education, Public and media, Support | Permalink | Comments (0)

In its June Editorial, Nature Geoscience (2, 371; 2009) discusses the exploding variety of bidirectional online channels for communicating science. The traditional path of scientific discoveries from bench to breakfast table — through scientific journals and newspapers — is diversifying at a staggering rate. Blogs by scientists and non-scientists alike are jostling for public attention; research institutions provide websites, films and press releases; and scientific information is 'Flickring' and 'Twittering' away, accessible to anyone who is interested.
Given this variety of competition, researchers work hard to make their work stand out from the crowd. A session at the General Assembly of the European Geophysical Union in April — 'The Significance of Marine Technology in Science Communication – Challenges and Opportunities' — highlighted an increasingly important selling point for science in the public arena: the volume of publicity that can be generated by stunning images.
But the Editorial goes on to outline how science communication is more than pretty pictures. As science sections in quality newspapers shrink, the role of press and media offices becomes more significant as a portal between the science itself and what the public sees of it, particularly challenging in the face of complicated aspects of science without an immediate application. The Editorial concludes that as the print media is crumbling in the face of cheaper offers online, the need for full-time science reporters is stronger than ever. A society in which science and technology are central must provide the funding to bring the narrative of scientific progress to the public.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on June 16, 2009
Categories: Communication | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is the text of one of the Editorials in the current issue of Nature, The sharing principle (Nature 459, 752; 2009):
Back in 1996, human-genome scientists signed up to the Bermuda agreement to share their data without delay. Since then, the sharing principle has entered the mainstream — it now applies to all genomic data generated using public funding, as well as to all the relevant resources cited in publications.
But this principle is not universally observed for genetically modified mice, designed as vital resources in the quest to unpick basic biological mechanisms or to model human disease. The size of the problem is unclear, but existing surveys, combined with extensive anecdotal evidence, suggest it is substantial. In April 2006, for example, scientists at the US National Institutes of Health found that nearly 4,000 unique mice strains had been created, yet barely 700 had been placed in a repository.
Some scientists say they do not have the time nor money to breed and distribute their mice, or even to send the animals to publicly funded mouse repositories such as the European Mouse Mutant Archive, the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, and RIKEN BioResource Centre in Ibaraki, which would do those chores for them. Others claim that the careers of young and vulnerable researchers (or old and vulnerable researchers) could be harmed if they lost their exclusive access to a resource they made for their own research projects. Or, they say their institution's technology-transfer offices or companies will not let them part with mouse strains that could perhaps be made to turn a profit.
Such attitudes were noted with concern last month at a workshop in Rome hosted by CASIMIR, a European Union project to coordinate and sustain mouse resources internationally (see background documents). The workshop brought together representatives from funding agencies, publishers and the mouse repositories from Europe, the United States and Australasia. They concluded that the sharing problem urgently needs resolution — not least because international projects to systematically generate mouse lines deficient in each gene in the genome will generate thousands of new strains in the next five years or so.
To solve the problem, however, journals and funding agencies must take a tougher line. The Nature journals are among the very few actually requiring that authors use established public repositories wherever possible as a condition of publication. Most journals simply 'encourage' their authors to make mice used in their publications freely available to other laboratories, or 'suggest' that the mice be deposited in repositories. Funding agencies similarly prefer such cajoling terms as 'encourage' in their policies on sharing mouse resources, and rarely police the outcome.
Journals should now require researchers to place their mice in repositories as a condition of publication. And funding agencies should require repository plans to be included in all grant applications that are likely to generate new mouse strains. Part of the grant money should be reserved for this task and final reports or evaluations of the grants should refer to the repository used. The repositories themselves should help the journals and funding agencies by finding a way to generate a unique accession number for each mouse strain.
The sharing principle allows biology to progress efficiently. It avoids duplication of effort and allows different laboratories to use the same tools. It is essential that scientists sign up to it. Sharing mice has never been easier — the repositories around the world are efficient and professional, and they are coordinated. Just a few changes in the modus operandi of key institutions could ensure that the makers of mice will have no possible excuse not to use them.
Nature journals' policy on availability of data and materials.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on June 15, 2009
Categories: Data availability | Permalink | Comments (0)

This weekly Nautilus column highlights some of the online discussion at Nature Network in the preceding week that is of relevance to scientists as authors and communicators. Readers are welcome to join any of these discussions by visiting the links provided. The Nature Network week column is archived here.

Do you deposit your materials and data in a suitable public resource when you write and publish a paper? You should: some of the reasons for doing so are discussed this week by Chris Taylor and Allan Sudlow , in a conversation that contains links to articles explaining why, for those who need convincing.

Gillian Pepper notes that much of the recent House of Lords debate about the contribution of science, technology and engineering to the UK was not about the contribution of these disciplines directly, but about secondary organizations that highlight and facilitate. Would be more interesting, she asks, to discuss specific emerging disciplines and technologies, what they might contribute and how this can be supported?

The United Kingdom is a world leader in measurement, writes Scott Keir – although measurement is not something that’s often talked about. The National Measurement Office is undertaking a consultation exercise looking ahead at the country's needs for measurement infrastructure and standards. What are the priorities for measurement research -- business competitiveness, sustainability, security, other? Should the government invest in new advanced laboratories? What do scientific institutions requirements for measurement technology and expertise? There are other questions at the National Measurement Office website, and there will be a free event on Tuesday 16 June 2009 at the Royal Society, London, to discuss these issues. Futher details are at Scott's post.

Also on the topic of priorities, Branwen Hide posts links to a Foundation for Science and Technology event summary and speeches by Sir Leszek Borysiewicz (Chief Executive of the UK Medical Research Council), Sir John Bell (President of the Academy of Medical Sciences and of the Office for Strategic Coordination of Health Research) and Sir David Cooksey (Chair, Bioscience Innovation and Growth Team,) on the future for medical research in the United Kingdom.

The old question of extrapolating to a general conclusion on the basis of a certain sample size pops up at Raf Aerts's blog. If you want to weigh in, there are a couple of views to choose from - or maybe you will have a different perspective from either.

"Why do we go to conferences?", asks Martin Fenner. Quite a few telling reasons are outlined in the post, along with an update about the Science Online 09 meeting, which Martin is co-organizing.

Further science-related blog reading and online discussion can be enjoyed at:
Planet Nature
Nature.com's science blogs index and tracker
Nature Publishing Group news at Nature Network

Posted by Maxine Clarke on June 12, 2009
Categories: Nature Network round-up | Permalink | Comments (0)

Nature editors and journalists are at the World Science Festival in New York this week (10- 14 June), reporting at In The Field blog, so track them there to see what's happening at this wide-ranging festival of science, culture and society. Among the speakers are Alan Alda, Joshua Bell, John Barrow, Sean Carroll, Glenn Close, Harrison Ford, James Hanson, Margaret Livingstone, Sarah Hrdy, Paul Nurse, Harold Varmus, Frank Wilczek, Edward O. Wilson and a host of others.
Also in New York this summer is the Imagine Science film festival (ISFF) , "fusing science and film", on 26 June. Imagine Science Films aims to encourage collaboration between scientists and filmmakers, and is seeking films that "effectively incorporate science into a compelling narrative while maintaining credible scientific groundings." Nature Publishing Group is supporting the 2009 ISFF Nature Scientific Merit Award, in which a jury panel will select the film from those submitted that exemplifies science in storytelling and narrative filmmaking in a compelling, credible and inspiring manner. Last year's winner was Jessica Sharzer for her film The Wormhole (watch it here). The deadline for submissions for this year's award is the end of July: more details about submission can be found at the Imagine website.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on June 11, 2009
Categories: Awards, Communication, Conferences | Permalink | Comments (1)

The Society of Polymer Science, Japan (SPSJ) and Nature Publishing Group (NPG) are pleased to announce a partnership to publish the society's leading international journal Polymer Journal. From July 2009, articles will be freely available. Further developments will culminate in January 2010 when the full site is launched.
Polymer Journal publishes high-quality peer-reviewed articles spanning all areas of polymer research. The monthly journal was launched in 1970 and is keen to continue its record of facilitating important advances in the field, ensuring rapid publication of papers after they have undergone review. Polymer Journal welcomes submissions across a variety of article types including Original Articles, Notes, Short Communications and Reviews.
Essential polymer research is regularly published in NPG's flagship journal Nature, as well as in a number of other Nature journals including Nature Chemistry, Nature Materials, Nature Physics and Nature Nanotechnology.
The Editor-in-Chief of Polymer Journal, Professor Toshikazu Takata of the Tokyo Institute of Technology leads a first-class, internationally diverse editorial board. The combined knowledge, experience and dedication of the board provides a first-class editorial service across the full spectrum of polymer science.

About Polymer Journal.
Journal aims and scope.
About the Society for Polymer Science, Japan.
Editorial board listing.
Benefits to authors.
Request a sample copy and subscription information.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on June 10, 2009
Categories: Partners, Publications | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here's a summmary of some posts from nature.com staff blogs over the past month or so that might be of interest to scientists as authors, communicators and peer reviewers:

Methagora : Nature Methods announces online methods, in which the journal joins Nature in offering authors much longer methods sections which appear online but are formatted and integrated into the main paper's online PDF.

Indigenus: Celebrating publication of a new book of biographical sketches of 98 Indian women scientists.

Spoonful of Medicine: On the annoyance to authors of having to fill out forms

The Great Beyond: Was marketing material published in the guise of peer-reviewed literature? An update is here, on the same blog, providing the publisher's response.

Free Association: An archive of Nature Genetics Editorials published between 2004 and 2006.

Nascent: Improvements to the machine-readable interface on nature.com. For a less technical report, Nascent also provides a link to Nature Network blogger Martin Fenner's interview with Tony Hammond of NPG.

The Great Beyond: Conflicts of interest are not being declared in some cancer research studies.

Sceptical Chymist: Q/As with Eugenio Conorado and Erin Carlson.

Peer to Peer: Websites encourage direct public funding for research proposals.

The Great Beyond: Historic lectures by Nobel laureates.

Climate Feedback: Biased media reporting of climate change conference.

Sceptical Chymist: What's in the second issue of Nature Chemistry.

The Great Beyond: Science writer sued for libel. A related Nautilus post provides a link to an online petition at the Sense About Science website .

Nascent: Wolfram Alpha has potential but I can't see scientists using it yet, writes Euan Adie.

Spoonful of Medicine: Good writing makes a boring healthcare topic come alive

The Great Beyond: The first science experiment on Twitter.

Methagora: Problems of reproducibility in proteomics experiments.

Nascent: Which web 2.0 services do scientists use?

The Niche: Round-up of stem cell articles in NPG journals this month.

Previous nature.com blogs round-ups.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on June 09, 2009
Categories: nature.com blogs | Permalink | Comments (0)

The June Editorial of Nature Chemistry looks beyond the printed page at online services for authors and readers. Now that most people read journal articles that they have downloaded from the web, rather than taken down from a shelf, the article itself — not just its delivery — is on the verge of major changes. Rather than the HTML (full-text online) version of the article being a narrow reflection of the printed page, it can offer enhancements beyond clicking to bring up figures or reference.
Enhancements that further enrich articles are already being offered by other publishers, including the Royal Society of Chemistry with Project Prospect which, among other services, highlights words that are terms in the IUPAC Gold Book and links to their definitions. Apart from the fledgling ChemSpider of the Journal of Chemistry, there are few other publishers exploiting the full potential of their online articles. Although the American Chemical Society are testing several interesting and useful innovations on the JACS website, such as downloadable PowerPoint and ChemDraw files, none of these so far enriches the text of the articles.
NPG's newest Nature journal, Nature Chemistry, also offers online enhancements. For most numbered chemical compounds in research articles, a separate compound information web page is available (an example can be found here) that can be accessed by clicking on the bold compound number. These compound pages include information such as molecular weight and synonyms, as well as an interactive three-dimensional model of the molecular structure that readers can manipulate. Chemical identifiers, such as InChIs6 and SMILES7 strings, are also included on these pages. These alphanumeric identifiers are machine-readable and can be used in databases and by publishers and chemists to identify and search for chemical compounds. Each numbered chemical compound for any given article is also deposited in the National Institutes of Health PubChem database and a link to the relevant record is included on the compound information page.
Downloadable ChemDraw files for the structures are available for each individual compound, and the compound pages are grouped together on an article-by-article and issue-by-issue basis. A single ChemDraw file containing all of the structures from a particular paper can be downloaded; see here, for example. An example of a compound round-up page for an issue can be found here. As with Supplementary Information, the chemical compound pages are freely available on the journal's website.
The Editorial describes several other online enhancements in Nature Chemistry, inviting reader feedback at the journal's blog, The Sceptical Chymist in a post that contains the entire text of the Editorial.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on June 08, 2009
Categories: Communication | Permalink | Comments (0)

This weekly Nautilus column highlights some of the online discussion at Nature Network in the preceding week that is of relevance to scientists as authors and communicators. Readers are welcome to join any of these discussions by visiting the links provided. The Nature Network week column is archived here.

Scientific findings in a digital world: what is the genuine article? A Nature Network forum has been set up to discuss this question in advance of the next British Library Talk Science evening on 22 July 2009, where John Willbanks of Science Commons will speak. Some of the discussion topics include: looking good on paper; video killed the methods section; share and share alike; and on common ground. Please join the forum to contribute your views.

Larry Brownstein presents a fascinating post about Temple Grandin, an animal behavourist who is autistic, a condition which she believes enables her to understand more clearly how animals "see" the world. A film about her life and work is due out later this year.

Suggestions are pouring in for speakers and sessions at the Science Online London conference in August this year. The deadline for you to make yours is 19 June.

Terminologies are in the frame this week, from the sublime to the ridiculous. In the former camp is Jennifer Rohn's post on the convolutions of the geneticist's mindset (Dara Sozulski has some useful names at the ready for any new discoveries, incidentally), and at the opposite end of the spectrum is Cath Ennis's discovery of strange definitions of the word "other". More scientifically, Henry Gee investigates the origins of the inadvisible term "missing link". The use of language, particularly in letters of application, is deconstructed by Research Assistant Audra McKinzie.

Martin Fenner has been looking at the newly announced Google Wave communication tool (not yet available), letting readers know why scientists should be interested in it and how they might use it, with the appropriate extensions.

Two new opportunites were announced on Nature Network during the week, the nature.com Open Innovation Pavilion and the Eppendorf young European investigator of the year award, in partnership with Nature.

Further science-related blog reading and online discussion can be enjoyed at:
Planet Nature
Nature.com's science blogs index and tracker
Nature Publishing Group news at Nature Network

Posted by Maxine Clarke on June 05, 2009
Categories: Nature Network round-up | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is the text of an online petition on the Sense About Science website:
The law has no place in scientific disputes
We the undersigned believe that it is inappropriate to use the English libel laws to silence critical discussion of medical practice and scientific evidence.
The British Chiropractic Association has sued Simon Singh for libel. The scientific community would have preferred that it had defended its position about chiropractic for various children's ailments through an open discussion of the peer reviewed medical literature or through debate in the mainstream media.
Singh holds that chiropractic treatments for asthma, ear infections and other infant conditions are not evidence-based. Where medical claims to cure or treat do not appear to be supported by evidence, we should be able to criticise assertions robustly and the public should have access to these views.
English libel law, though, can serve to punish this kind of scrutiny and can severely curtail the right to free speech on a matter of public interest. It is already widely recognised that the law is weighted heavily against writers: among other things, the costs are so high that few defendants can afford to make their case. The ease and success of bringing cases under the English law, including against overseas writers, has led to London being viewed as the "libel capital" of the world.
Freedom to criticise and question in strong terms and without malice is the cornerstone of scientific argument and debate, whether in peer-reviewed journals, on websites or in newspapers, which have a right of reply for complainants. However, the libel laws and cases such as BCA v Singh have a chilling effect, which deters scientists, journalists and science writers from engaging in important disputes about the evidential base supporting products and practices. The libel laws discourage argument and debate and merely encourage the use of the courts to silence critics.
The English law of libel has no place in scientific disputes about evidence; the BCA should discuss the evidence outside of a courtroom. Moreover, the BCA v Singh case shows a wider problem: we urgently need a full review of the way that English libel law affects discussions about scientific and medical evidence.

If you would like to find out more, and sign the petition, please visit Sense About Science.
Comments from some of the signatories can be found here.

Related articles:
Nature News 3 June 2009: Science writer will appeal libel case ruling.
Nature Network: Using the law to stifle scientific debate.
Reciprocal Space blog: Keep the libel laws out of science.
Nature Network bloggers' forum: A message to Nature Network users.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on June 04, 2009
Categories: Communication, Ethics, Public and media | Permalink | Comments (0)

In its June Editorial, Nature Chemical Biology (5, 365; 2009) calls for mechanisms to initiate, develop and support emerging research communities that cross traditional scientific and geographical boundaries.
Some extracts from the Editorial:
Over time, scientific societies, journals, conferences and funding mechanisms are formed to disseminate new findings, to provide forums for recommending standards and nomenclature, and to facilitate collaborations. However, establishing this research infrastructure typically requires significant time and resources. As science becomes increasingly dynamic and interdisciplinary, new and more effective ways to nucleate and support emerging communities are required.
In practice, bringing together scientists from diverse backgrounds may not be so easy. In a commentary in this issue, Peter Seeberger outlines the challenges in bringing together carbohydrate researchers (p. 368). In particular, the diversity and complexities of these molecules, the difficulty in accessing synthetic samples, and the different languages used to describe the compounds in the chemical and biological communities have hindered communication and scientific progress. As Seeberger discusses, the most important initial steps in bringing together carbohydrate researchers included the creation of a shared set of technological resources and a shared vision for priorities in advancing the field.
The creation of an organized community was enabled in part by taking advantage of a focused funding initiative—a US National Institutes of Health (NIH) Glue Grant. Taking a page from the earlier proteomics and genomics efforts, these grants provide short-term funding for large-scale collaborative projects, offering services and resources that individual scientists can use to advance their own research at a scale that would not be possible for an individual laboratory or even a single university or institute.
Beyond financial support for research, communities need forums for sharing information and results and for discussing community standards. The publication of Essentials of Glycobiology in 1999, the first comprehensive book in the field, was an important step in uniting the carbohydrate community. The second edition of the book, reviewed by Nicola Pohl (p. 373), is freely available online through the US National Center for Biotechnology Information at the request of the authors and with agreement from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press. Online communities are now a particularly effective way for scientists to communicate in real time without geographical barriers.
The Editorial describes some further research communities, and some online partnerships with Nature Publishing Group which help to foster these interactions.
Nature Chemical Biology website.
Functional Glycomics gateway.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on June 04, 2009
Categories: Careers, Support | Permalink | Comments (0)

On Monday 8 June, Nature is hosting The Big Science Debate: A Biological Century? The event starts at 7 p.m. at Kings Place 90 York Way, London NI. Physics, biology and chemistry have all helped define the twentieth century. Many world-changing innovations from physics include electric power, the microchip and the internal combustion engine. In biology and chemistry, an agricultural revolution has helped to feed a growing population. But some of these advances have also helped to create climate change and a rate of species-loss not seen since the last mass extinction. What will physics and biology look like 50 years from now? And what might the impacts be?

Join three distinguished panellists -- a physicist, a biologist and a historian -- as they cast their gaze into the future of science, and its possible impacts. Will we resolve the riddle of dark matter and dark energy, and will string theory remain the best candidate for unifying the forces of nature? Will stem cells have fulfilled their promise and what of the potential of genetically modified crops in agriculture?
Panellists:
• David Edgerton, Professor of the History of Science, Imperial College London
• Lewis Wolpert, Professor of Biology as Applied to Medicine, University College London
• Alison Wright, Chief Editor of Nature Physics
Chair: Ehsan Masood, Acting Chief Commissioning Editor, Nature
Host: Nick Campbell, Managing Editor, Nature
For more info on The Nature Debate series, please email the organizers.
Tickets are available online, by email or via the King's Place Box Office on +44 (0)20 7520 1490.
Kings Place, and how to get there.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on June 03, 2009
Categories: Communication, Partners, Public and media | Permalink | Comments (0)

Plastic Fantastic: How the Biggest Fraud in Physics Shook the Scientific World is the title of a new book by Eugenie Samuel Reich. The book tells the story of Jan Hendrick Schön 's discovery of a plastic that worked as a superconductor - hailed as a scientific triumph before revelations that his discoveries were fake. (See here for Nature's editorial about the journal's retraction of seven papers by Schön.) This book analyses the fraud and considers pressures that force unscrupulous behaviour from science's rising stars.
Comments from some reviews of the book:
'…Reich’s journalistic persistence and technical thoroughness yield a largely complete, often dramatic account of Schön’s roguery and downfall.' - Booklist
'Eugenie Samuel Reich unpicks the tale with meticulous care.' - Philip Ball, Sunday Times
‘…a wonderful piece of forensic writing.’ - Clive Cookson, Financial Times
'It is gripping stuff: a surprising page-turner that is well worth reading.' - New Scientist
The book is published by Palgrave Macmillan and costs £15.99. For more details and to order, see the Palgrave website.

World Scientific Publishing Company and Nature Publishing Group have just announced that they are co-publishing a book called Nanoscience and Technology. This collection of Reviews from Nature journals will be launched in October 2009 at Frankfurt Book Fair. The book is a collection of more than 30 review articles by internationally renowned researchers working in nanoscience and nanotechnology, first published in various Nature journals. Topics covered include nanomaterials and nanostructures; molecular machines and devices; nanoelectronics; nanophotonics; nanobiotechnology and nanomedicine; and applications of nanotechnology.
"World Scientific and Nature Publishing Group should be applauded for publishing this collection of some of the most important papers in nanoscience," said Dr. Mark Lundstrom, Don and Carol Scifres Distinguished Professor at Purdue University. "Pulling these papers together in one volume helps put the remarkable advances in this very new field in perspective, and stimulates thinking about future directions in nanoscience and technology. It will be an important resource for the community."
More information on Nanoscience and Technology.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on June 02, 2009
Categories: Communication, Partners, Publications | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Eppendorf Award for Young European Investigators is presented to young scientists for outstanding achievements in the field of biomedical research based on methods of molecular biology. The award is presented in partnership with the scientific journal Nature. Last year's winner was Simon Boulton of Cancer Research UK's London Research Institute, for his work on genome instability and cancer. A list of previous winners is available here. The deadline for applications for the 2009 award is 30 June, and details of how to apply can be found at Eppendorf's website. Applications must include a title summarizing the submitted work, a curriculum vitae, a publication list, PDFs of up to three of the candidate's published papers, and a 300-word (maximum) essay summarizing the submitted papers. The prize will be awarded by a committee of four experts, chaired by Professor Kai Simons of the Max-Planck Institute for Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Dresden. Neither Eppendorf nor Nature has any influence on deciding on the winner.
More about Nature awards.
Nature awards for mentoring in science.
Nature Publishing Group's programmes and awards for developing countries.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on June 01, 2009
Categories: Awards, Partners | Permalink | Comments (0)