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Rediscover your Nature

Rediscover your Nature

A message from Dr Philip Campbell, Editor in Chief of Nature: From today, Nature has a new look, a clearer structure, and contains new types of content. Above all, our underlying goal is greater clarity in the reading experience, and this blog post describes a few of the changes we’ve made to this end. More details are given in the official press release. For authors of original research and commissioned articles we provide an improved online template for the full-text version of articles (an example is here, free to access online). We’ve also updated and clarified Nature‘s guide to authors,  … Read more

Comment articles on genetics and genomics research

Comment articles on genetics and genomics research

From the Editors of Nature Reviews Genetics ( 11, 309; 2010): Since the launch of Nature Reviews Genetics almost a decade ago, we have used a variety of ways to communicate the most important advances in genetics and genomics. As well as the classic Review format, our Perspective, Analysis and Progress articles have enabled authors to tackle topics in a range of useful and interesting ways. This month’s issue (May) sees our first Comment article, a new format that we hope you will find engaging and informative. As the name suggests, Comment articles allow authors to provide a commentary on  … Read more

NSMB’s tips for revising your paper in response to reviewers

NSMB's tips for revising your paper in response to reviewers

From: Nature Structural & Molecular Biology 17, 389 (2010) Your paper went out to review, and after anxious waiting, you receive the letter asking for a revised paper. However, those ever-demanding editors and reviewers want more. One of the most important elements of a revision is the point-by-point response. Here are some tips for making it more effective. Keep to the point. We [the NSMB editors] internally call this a point-by-point rather than a rebuttal, implying that it makes a series of points in response to each point raised by the reviewers. We will, and indeed have, read through 17-page  … Read more

Nature Communications, a new multidisciplinary journal

Nature Communications, a new multidisciplinary journal

From Nature 464, 958 ( 2010): This month sees the launch of the seventeenth Nature journal, Nature Communications. All the previous Nature research journals have focused on a particular discipline or community of research interests. Their aim is to publish the most original and scientifically impact-making research appropriate to those particular audiences. Their high ranking in the citation league tables would suggest that this goal is generally being fulfilled. Nature Communications differs in being multidisciplinary. It aims not to compete with the established Nature journals, but to publish rigorous and comprehensive papers that represent advances of significance to specialists within  … Read more

The human genome ten years on, and introducing the News&Views forum

The human genome ten years on, and introducing the News&Views forum

The draft human genome sequence, announced with much fanfare in 2000, promised great insights into human biology, medicine and evolution. In a special in this week’s issue, whose content is free to read online, Nature asks whether the sequence has delivered the insights that were anticipated, and what lessons have been learned from the first post-genome decade. Human genetics in 2010 looks infinitely more complex, and questions about how to make sense of the explosion in biological data are only becoming more pressing. Read articles in Editorial, Features, Opinion (including articles by Robert Weinberg, by Craig Venter and by Francis  … Read more

Content rules, but commenting can add value

Content rules, but commenting can add value

Content rules, writes Nature in an Editorial in the current issue (464, 466; 2010), in which Nature ’s new online commenting facility opens up the entire magazine for discussion. The Editorial is reproduced here: ‘Conversation is king’, according to a mantra frequently repeated by enthusiasts of online social media. But we editors and writers tend to give our first allegiance to content — not least because of our labours to research, commission, select, create and otherwise add value to content, and to do so in a way that informs and stimulates our readers: the people who pay for it. But,  … Read more

Nature Chemistry celebrates its first birthday

Nature Chemistry celebrates its first birthday

April 2010 marks the first anniversary of the launch of Nature Chemistry. To celebrate, the editors have put together a compilation of their favourite articles from the first 12 issues. The selection, from ‘Chemistry goes global in the virtual world’ by Jeffrey S. Moore and Philip A. Janowicz last April, to ‘Single-molecule spectroscopy: Caught in a trap’, a News and Views article by Peter Dedecker and Johan Hofkens in the March 2010 issue, reflects the breadth of topics covered by Nature Chemistry. The collection is free to read online until the end of June 2010. Nature Chemistry first year highlights.  Read more

Nature’s collection on biodiversity

Nature's collection on biodiversity

Nature presents a supplement on biodiversity, in this International Year of Biodiversity. As nations come together to reduce the alarming loss of species taking place worldwide, we hope that these features, opinion pieces, News & Views articles and original research papers will provide a useful snapshot of the problems faced and solutions proposed. All the articles in this supplement are free to read online for six months from the publication date, and a free print copy can be requested. From the supplement’s Editorial: “The rich variety of the natural world that Charles Darwin memorably imagined as an “entangled bank”, and  … Read more

Levels of editing at Nature

Levels of editing at Nature

Q: Is editing support given to manuscripts published in Nature? What level of editing is done? Is this editing done in house or outsourced? Are you and the authors pleased with the level of editing? A: When a manuscript is submitted to Nature it goes through several rounds of peer review – the manuscript as accepted is very different from the version submitted. The peer-reviewers (typically 2 or 3) and the editors provide substantial structural (developmental) editing suggestions. All manuscripts accepted in principle for publication go through a detailed checklist procedure to guide the author both in matters of clarity  … Read more

Special focus on genome instability

Special focus on genome instability

The March issue of Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology presents a web focus on genome instability. The integrity of the genome is crucial for tumour suppression and for the propagation of genomic information to subsequent generations. DNA damage can result from cellular metabolism, exogenous genotoxic agents or routine errors in DNA replication and recombination. To combat these attacks and maintain genome integrity, cells have evolved a response system that induces cell cycle arrest, allowing sufficient time for DNA repair by specialized proteins. The DNA damage response system activates the appropriate DNA repair pathway or, in the case of irreparable damage,  … Read more