Standing up for science

Posted by Mark Staniland | Categories: ,

Dr David Robert Grimes

Dr David Robert Grimes

Guest post by Dr David Robert Grimes

Next week, the winner of the 2016 John Maddox Prize for standing up for science will be announced. The prize is unique in that it rewards not just sound science and evidence, but courage and communication. Living in an era recently pronounced to be “post-truth” recognising those individuals who share their work, even in the face of challenge and personal attacks, feels more relevant than ever.

One of the curious paradoxes of our time is that it has never been easier to access information, yet this same freedom allows misinformation to metastasize ever further at a furious rate. This can make it difficult to parse the sea of claims we encounter every day. If we as a society are to make informed decisions, then scientists have a crucial role to play by lending their expertise to public discussions, and helping people understand what the evidence tells us. And equally, scientists have a lot to learn from this exchange of ideas and views.

One of the major issues with communicating science is that contentious topics are often divided along ideological lines and impervious to the evidence. And when this bias is an issue, one can be attacked for communicating the scientific consensus if it clashes with strongly held beliefs, be it the subject vaccination, genetically-modified organisms or climate change. In these circumstances, threats, smears and personal abuse are not uncommon reactions.

2016 John Maddox prize advert

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This can be deeply unpleasant, and sometimes makes challenging dubious science feel like a Sisyphean task. The John Maddox Prize for standing up for science is a way of rewarding contributions to the public understanding of science, and of honouring those who stand fast when the going gets tough. Past winners have lost their jobs or funding, had their reputation and research challenged. But the best of them go on. The prize is also a timely reminder that we must be guided by evidence and the scientific method rather than the sound and fury of strong ideological convictions or invective rhetoric.

In 2014 I was awarded the prize. It was an honour, and on a personal level it was also a shot in the arm which reminded me that despite the occasional hostility such work may receive, communicating science and advocating for evidence-based policy is truly appreciated and ultimately worthwhile.

I continue to engage in science outreach every day because I firmly believe that scientists can help shape the vital discussions we need to have as a society, on issues that affect everyone — from climate change to geopolitics.  If we are truly to find pragmatic effective solutions to the towering issues facing us today, we will need to encourage evidence in the public sphere, and help facilitate that dialogue.

Yes it’s tempting to give into despair, and embrace the idea we live in a post-truth society where facts simply don’t matter. But this is unduly cynical – the evidence to date strongly suggests the public at large highly value objective evidence in shaping our decision making.

Sir John Maddox, whom this prize commemorates, knew that better than anyone. As his friend Walter Gratzer said: “His forthrightness brought him some enemies, often in high places, but many more friends. He changed attitudes and perceptions, and strove throughout his long working life for a better public understanding and appreciation of science.” We all have a part to play in continuing his legacy and standing up for science every day.

Dr David Robert Grimes is a physicist and cancer researcher, based at University of Oxford. He writes on science and society for a variety of outlets, including The Guardian and Irish Times and contributes frequently to radio and television. He was awarded the John Maddox Prize in 2014. He tweets at @drg1985

The winner of the 2016 John Maddox Prize for standing up to science will be announced on Thursday 17 November at a reception London. Follow @nresearchnews and @senseaboutsci  to hear the news first.

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What makes a great peer reviewer? Tips from Nature Research editors

Posted by Mark Staniland | Categories:

By Leonie Mueck (Senior Editor, Nature), Alicia Newton (Senior Editor, Nature Geoscience) and Sebastien Thuault (Senior Editor, Nature Neuroscience)

Peer review is at the heart of high-quality academic publishing, and every editor at Nature Research is grateful for the service of the reviewers who carefully scrutinise every research paper we publish. While SpotOn – taking place this Saturday 5 November in London – is exploring what peer review might look like in 2030, we recognise that many peer reviewers need advice and training now, too.

Here, we share a few tips for reviewers, novice and seasoned alike, that we collated with the help of other Nature Research editors.

What makes a helpful review?

It’s difficult to generalise what makes reviews particularly helpful, since each manuscript has different strengths and weaknesses. But the best reviews have two things in common:

  1. They substantiate every statement, be it about a weakness in the methodology or about the significance of the result for the scientific community, with detailed arguments.
  2. They maintain a constructive tone, even if there is a lot to criticise about the paper in question.

One core task of the reviewer is to make sure that the manuscript is technically sound and the claims sufficiently supported by the presented data. This includes checking whether the reporting is transparent so that other groups have enough information at hand to – in principle – repeat the experiments or analysis and ensure that the methodology is appropriate.

The editor will often recruit reviewers who are experts in a specific method employed in a paper. Hence it’s absolutely fine – even often intended – if a reviewer can only thoroughly assess the technical correctness of one aspect of the study.  Reviewers can explicitly state the limits of their technical expertise in their report.

Reviewers’ second core task is to provide specific context on the significance of the results and interpretations reported in the paper. These comments should be well substantiated and justified so that the editor can assess whether the manuscript meets the editorial criteria of their journal.

peerreviewblog

Getty Images/iStockphoto

Questions to consider are:

  • How is the finding relevant to your community or your field more broadly?
  • Is this going to be one of the most influential papers in the field this year?
  • Does the paper represent a substantial technological achievement or an important community resource?
  • Are there broader implications for public policy, such as climate regulations or public health?

Saying no

When they ask you to review a paper, editors don’t expect you to say yes every time. If you’re busy and don’t think that you’ll do a good job in the allotted time, tell the editor. If possible, suggest a well-qualified colleague who could help. There may also be cases where it would be a conflict of interest for you to take on a review. Reasons to decline reviewing a paper can include: if you’re collaborating with one of the authors, if you have a paper that is in direct competition with this work or if you have financial interests that could be viewed as influencing your report.  If you are unsure if something constitutes a conflict of interest, talk to the editor first.

How can I become a peer reviewer?

With an explosion in the amount of papers published each year, there are plenty of opportunities to become a peer reviewer.

You can contact the editors of a journal that matches your expertise and let them know you are willing to help, or find them at a conference.

As a trainee, you could ask your adviser if you can review a paper under their supervision. And more senior scientists are likewise encouraged to ask their students and postdocs to contribute to a review, after checking with the editor.

Finally, maintaining a clear online record of who you are and what you do is key.  Ensure that your homepage is up to date and includes keywords that describe what you do, ideally in English as well as your institution’s primary language.  Services like Google Scholar and ORCID also help you maintain an easily discoverable record of what you’ve published.

Improving training

SpotOn

Is there training you wish you received early in your career? Interested in ways to make reviewing easier? You can join in the conversation at SpotOn 2016. You can still register here.

Resources that might help you include BioMed Central’s guidance for reviewers assessing papers in medical disciplines and Nature Research’s more general masterclass on peer reviewing.

You can leave comments below, or reach us on Twitter on @LeonieMueck or @g_ruber (Alicia Newton).

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The Power of Data: Notes from the STEM Summit 4.0

Posted by Lillienne Zen | Categories: ,

By James Cola, Communications Manager, Springer Nature

The STEM Summit 4.0 – The Power of Data was held by Scientific American and Macmillan Learning at the New York Academy of Sciences on October 14, 2016. Hosted by Susan Winslow, Managing Director, Macmillan Learning, and Mariette DiChristina, Editor in Chief, Scientific American, the summit aimed to further collaboration between educators, entrepreneurs and public policy leaders, and to highlight how data can impact and transform the way that people teach and learn.

Across the United States, there are kindergartens, schools and colleges that are using data analytics, adaptive learning platforms, apps, video streaming, images, gaming, and more to help inspire student curiosity, tailor content, enable students to work in ways that suit them and change the way students approach STEM subjects.

At the STEM Summit 4.0, real-life stories reinforced the view that using data in teaching and learning is vital — and is already making a huge difference by helping educators to not only just name challenges and problems, but to go underneath to the root of the problems to solve them. Several presenters noted that data will continue to be key in encouraging greater participation in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

The summit championed the increased use of data in education, as well as focusing on specific strengths and weaknesses of data.  Through discussions about different types of data — and interactive breakout sessions that included “How do we get educators past phobias (the fear of teaching STEM)?” and “How Do We Use Technology and STEM to Create Globally Competent Citizens?” — attendees developed strategies to help educators and further encourage students to study STEM topics.

STEM summit image

The day’s highlight, an address from Paul Krugman, the renowned Nobel Laureate and New York Times columnist, captivated the audience. His talk, “Technology, Globalization, and Skills”, discussed how STEM represents 6% of the workforce in the United States (excluding healthcare), and the role that STEM education plays in countries’ ability to compete and succeed globally.

However, speakers were clear that the United States faces challenges.

Dr. Rosemarie Truglio, Senior Vice President, Curriculum and Content, Sesame Workshop, said: “The data are in. We know we have a problem, and students are underperforming in science compared to children in other developed countries.”

Terri McCullough of the Clinton Foundation also noted the fact that there are fewer women studying STEM subjects now compared to 30 years ago.  While Krishanti Vignarajah, Director of Policy and International Affairs, The White House, Office of the First Lady, discussed how a girl’s earning potential increases by 15-20% for every year of secondary school education.

Dr. Adam Black, Chief Learning Officer, Macmillan Learning, gave a presentation on “The Promises and Pitfalls of Big Data”. He suggested that there is a digital renaissance in education and we can start to measure many things empirically due to the growing use of digital and more touchpoints with the learner. These touchpoints include apps, websites, games, and other interfaces where information is recorded about the learner.

Elsewhere during the summit, a particularly joyous and charming presenter talked about “Tactics to Build Engaged Learners”. Renton Prep School 10th grade student Jennifer Fernandez energized the crowd by showing how she and her classmates benefitted from cutting-edge ideas and innovative teachers who use technology in the classroom.

Ms. Fernandez said that for her and her classmates: “Today, we have faster ways to share with each other and there is a community of other people collaborating. For example, when a CEO of a company responds to your app, no matter how young you are, you are challenged and you have to step up your game.”

For more information, the full list of presenters and to continue the conversation about the STEM Summit, visit www.community.macmillan.com/community/stemsummit.

For STEM resources and to find out how Scientific American engages citizen scientists, children, and adults with STEM topics, visit https://www.scientificamerican.com/education/.

Sharing research in three minutes: A shorter timeframe to see the bigger picture

Posted by Lillienne Zen | Categories: , , ,

Joshua Chu-Tan

Joshua Chu-Tan

Jane Duong

Joshua Chu-Tan is a second-year PhD student in the Provis Group at the John Curtin School of Medical Research at the Australian National University (ANU).

His presentation of his thesis, “Targeting the Root of Vision Loss”, won him top prize at the ANU’s Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition. This event challenges PhD students to present their research in three minutes to a non-specialist audience. Joshua also went on to win the 2016 Asia-Pacific 3MT, which drew 50 contestants from six countries.

We ask him about his research and his experience competing in the 3MT.

1. Tell us about your research. What is its significance and what are your main findings?

Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of blindness in developed countries with a global cost of over US$340 billion per year. Our group looks at the dry form of AMD, which accounts for 90% of all AMD cases. This happens when light-sensitive cells deteriorate, causing a loss in central vision. There is currently no cure.

We work on gene therapies for dry AMD using microRNA. These molecules are masters in gene regulation: a single microRNA molecule can bind to multiple targets, all of which often work within the same cellular pathway. In this way, we can theoretically regulate entire pathways, rather than single genes. This could prove fruitful for complex, multifactorial diseases such as AMD.

I’ve been able to characterise a number of microRNA in our AMD model and through injections of a specific anti-inflammatory microRNA into the eye, we’ve seen a decrease in inflammation, as well as a slowing in the damage progression of the retina, which has been very promising.

Joshua Chu-Tan speaking at the 2016 Asia-Pacific 3MT competition

Joshua Chu-Tan speaking at the 2016 Asia-Pacific 3MT competition

University of Queensland

2. How did you hear about the Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition and why did you choose to enter?

In 2015, I went to watch the ANU 3MT finals. The experience was phenomenal: hundreds of people came to watch students from all departments and faculties condense years of work into a three minute pitch. The interest that people outside of academia showed was inspiring and as I listened to all these brilliant students talk about the bigger impact of their work, I was enthralled. The whole time I was there, I kept thinking of ideas for my own 3MT—I knew I had to give it a crack.

3. Why do you think events like the 3MT are important? What did you gain from your involvement?

I believe the value of science communication is often overlooked in research, especially medical research. As researchers, we’re often invested in a single aspect of a holistic problem, which can result in tunnel vision within our niche. The work we publish uses highly specialised jargon, which is necessary for us to discuss specific problems, but isn’t very accessible for the general public.

Participating in events like the 3MT give us an avenue to convey our work to people outside of our field. We can take a step back and look at the bigger picture: Why should people outside of this field care about our work? What’s the real goal? Even the process of writing a speech for something like the 3MT is rewarding in that it gets us to consider these questions.

The ANU and Asia-Pacific events were also incredible opportunities for me to find out about other people’s research from around the world and consider new ways of looking at a problem. I really think the future of research will be interdisciplinary. We’re all trained to look at a problem in our particular way, but there’s only so much we can achieve within our specialties. Having experts from different fields approach a challenge together will greatly benefit research.

Winning the Asia-Pacific 3MT

Winning first prize at the Asia-Pacific 3MT

Joshua Chu-Tan

4. Do you have advice for other students preparing for a 3MT event?

  1. Enjoy it! It’s not an easy task and there will be nerves but really enjoy the moment, be confident in yourself, and take pride in your research.
  2. Only mention the key points of your work and make the audience relate to it. Write it like a story with a beginning, middle and end, and be true to yourself and how you would like to present it.
  3. At the events, truly listen to everyone’s work. Soak in all the amazing research that’s being conducted by your peers. This journey wouldn’t have been as rewarding if it wasn’t for everyone I met along the way.

5. What’s next for you?

With the Asia-Pacific win, I now have the incredible opportunity to attend and present at the Falling Walls Lab/Conference in Berlin. It’s a chance to rub shoulders with the world’s brightest minds so I intend to make the most of it.

After this remarkable 3MT journey ends, it’s full steam ahead to complete my PhD with a bang. I intend to stay in the field and attain fellowships that will allow me to complete my postdoctoral training overseas. Hopefully I can then return to Australia to contribute towards the strong research environment here.

You can watch Joshua’s winning 3MT speech, “Targeting the Root of Vision Loss”, here.

Founded by the University of Queensland in 2008, 3MT events are now hosted by over 400 institutions across six continents. The 2016 Asia-Pacific 3MT was sponsored by Springer Nature.

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Ada Lovelace Day: The women in science who inspire us – Part 2

Posted by Mark Staniland | Categories: ,

Ada Lovelace Day aims to raise the profile of women in science, technology, engineering and maths by encouraging people around the world to talk about the women whose work they admire. We asked staff from across Nature Research who has inspired them.

This is the second of two blogs we’re posting today to mark this milestone (the first part is here). You can read more about Ada Lovelace’s legacy here.

Mariette DiChristina, Director, Editorial and Publishing, Nature Research Magazines, and Editor in Chief of Scientific American

Mariette

Journalists aren’t supposed to be partial. But I have to say I’m inspired by Elizabeth Blackburn of the University of California, San Francisco. For starters, in 2009 she shared Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology with Carol Greider and Jack Szostak for pioneering the understanding of telomeres and telomerase, which affect so many aspects of human health.

Dr. Blackburn tells wonderful stories about growing up with a love of science, and how her Nobel Prize-winning research began in studies of an organism that lives in the scum of ponds (“it’s very cute,” she says).

She’s supported women in science throughout her career. As a woman with more than a touch of imposter syndrome myself, I’ve been grateful to experience that encouragement first-hand.

Back in our Manhattan offices, one of the conference rooms is named Blackburn after her. I always smile when I enter it, happy to be reminded of one of the amazing women of science.

Francesca Cesari, Chief Biological Sciences Editor, Nature

Fran

Rita Levi Montalcini has been a great influence in my decision to become a scientist – as a student, before even deciding to study biology, I read her book “Elogio dell’imperfezione” (in English “In praise of imperfection”) over and over.

Forced out of university in 1938 by fascist race laws due to her Jewish background, she endured great hardship, but persevered in her scientific endeavours. She worked from her home ‘laboratory’ in Turin and then Florence, carrying out research on neurodevelopment.

In 1986, she was jointly-awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with fellow biochemist Stanley Cohen for their discovery of nerve growth factor. At the time of her death in 2012, aged 103, she was the oldest living Nobel Laureate. She has been a great inspiration for many women in science.

Andrea Taroni, Chief Editor, Nature Physics

Andrea

Chien-Shiung Wu was a Chinese-American nuclear scientist who performed one of the most spectacular physics experiments of the past century. In 1956, she showed that the weak nuclear interaction – the force that is responsible for radioactive decay – does not obey parity symmetry. In other words, the laws of nature are not completely symmetrical.

Wu’s experiment confirmed a theoretical prediction made by Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen-Ning Yang, and caused a sensation at the time – the laws of nature had widely been assumed to be symmetric. Lee and Yang were awarded the Nobel Prize the very next year, in 1957. Even at the time, the fact that Wu did not receive a share of the prize was widely viewed as a gross injustice. Nevertheless, what I find truly inspiring about her is her insight into the inner workings of nature.

Helen Pearson, Chief Features Editor, Nature

Helen

Margaret Llewelyn Davies was an early campaigner for women’s rights and a social scientist of her time. Her deeply moving book, called Maternity Letters from Working Women, revealed the shocking conditions in which working women gave birth just over one hundred years ago.

Her work laid the groundwork for the maternity leave and benefits that women receive today. I came across it when I was researching my own book, The Life Project, published earlier this year. I’m indebted to her, and many other campaigning women, for creating a society in which I can combine children, born healthily and safely, with a job in science and writing – even if we still have a very long way to go to find full equality between men and women in our lives and careers.

David Barnstone, Press Officer, US, Nature Research

David

Alexandra Horowitz and Lisa Guernsey and are two outstanding women in the sciences. They are both social scientists who have progressed our understanding of the minds of two different species: dogs and children.

Horowitz studies canine cognition at Barnard College, one of the world’s oldest women’s colleges and affiliated with Columbia University. It was founded in 1889 because of Columbia’s refusal to admit women at the time.

Guernsey is deputy director of the Education Policy program and director of the Learning Technologies project at the New America Foundation, where she translates the latest research into policies to give all children the opportunity to lead happy and productive lives in an ever-changing world.

I admire both Horowitz’s and Guernsey’s ability to make research accessible and compelling to the general public, which inspired me to pursue science communication.

Smriti Mallapaty, Science Writer and Associate Editor, Partnership and Custom Media

Smriti

Before Elinor Ostrom challenged the idea, shared natural resources were seen as ‘tragedies’, and would always lead to their destruction. In a persuasive essay published in Science in 1968, American ecologist Garret Hardin argued that “freedom in a commons brings ruin to all”. The only way to save these limited resources from destruction was through privatisation or government regulation.

Ostrom offered an alternative account, in which communities did a better job than governments, companies or private individuals in sustainably managing shared resources. She proved this over several decades of fieldwork, studying farmer-managed irrigation systems and community forestry in Nepal, as well as fishers, pastoralists and foresters throughout the world.

In 2009, she became the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. The award recognised her achievements, but also drew attention to the success of decentralised forest governance in Nepal. It also inspired many stories on agriculture, land tenure and community forests in Nepal, especially for science and environment journalists like myself. Ostrom died of pancreatic cancer in 2012.

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Ada Lovelace Day: The women in science who inspire us – Part 1

Posted by Mark Staniland | Categories: ,

Ada Lovelace Day aims to raise the profile of women in science, technology, engineering and maths by encouraging people around the world to talk about the women whose work they admire. We asked staff from across Nature Research who has inspired them.

 This is the first of two blogs we’re posting today to mark this milestone.  You can read more about Ada Lovelace’s legacy here.

Abigail Klopper, Senior Editor, Nature Physics

Abigail

Ewa Paluch is the sort of scientist I would have liked to have been. Her work on cell shape changes has led to a deeper understanding of how intracellular mechanics impacts cell migration and division.

But more than the work she does, I admire the way that she does it. Her lab is a healthy blend of biologists, chemists, physicists and computer scientists — and what she lacks in house she happily seeks through collaboration.

Ewa actually trained as a physicist, so she understands that physiology can’t be decoupled from physics. But her immersive approach means that she’s also sensitive to the questions that her fellow biologists want answered — something that tends to get lost in translation in interdisciplinary research. She subscribes to a new school of biophysics that capitalises on quantitative techniques and theory, and blurs the boundary between disciplines.

Sir Philip Campbell, Editor in Chief, Nature

Phil

 For several years, we at Nature Research have run annual awards for outstanding scientific mentoring – two prizes per year, for lifetime achievement and for mid-career achievement. The nominations have been inspiring – there are people out there who are not only exceptional researchers but also exceptional sources of nurturing and inspiration for subsequent generations.

To celebrate Ada Lovelace Day, I want to highlight the past winners who are women. They inspire me but, above all, they have evidently provided great critically-minded guidance and inspiration to their graduate students and postdocs, who have themselves gone on to do fine things inside science and beyond.

Happily, this year’s competition has provided yet further female sources of inspiration, with some exceptional female nominees. Unfortunately, I cannot reveal the winners until the announcement in late November.

So congratulations – again! – to previous winners: Cliona O’Farrelly, Michela Matteoli, Barbara Demeneix and Rachel Webster.

Erika Pastrana, Team Leader, Nature Communications

Erika

Cori Bargmann is an outstanding scientist and an inspirational leader. She has made seminal contributions through her work in the genetic and neural mechanisms that control behavior in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. Bargmann and her colleagues have identified genes that affect animals’ responses to specific odors and discovered the circuits responsible for their chemosensory behavior.

Bargmann has received many awards and honors for her work, and more recently, has been one of the key leaders of the advisory committee for the NIH’s BRAIN Initiative. Here she has shown a unique capacity to bring scientist together, to develop a vision and to lead. Last month it was announced that Bargmann had been appointed the incoming president of science at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI).

I have met Cori several times, and seen her in discussions that set the framework of the BRAIN Initiative. I believe she is an inspiration for women – and for all scientists around the world.

Liesbet Lieben — Senior Editor, Nature Reviews Disease Primers

Liesbet Lieben_picture

When being asked to write about inspirational female scientists, Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier immediately come to mind.

By combining their strengths in microbiology and structural biology, they both have had an instrumental role in the discovery of the CRISPR-Cas9 system — a tool that can be used to change genetic material (DNA) with extreme precision and speed.

I’ve seen first-hand how the CRISPR-Cas9 system has transformed the way we do scientific experiments in the lab, and I can’t wait to see how it will revolutionise medicine.

Although there are still hurdles to overcome, this gene-editing tool shows great promise to cure diseases caused by mutations in DNA, such as cystic fibrosis. 

Elisa De Ranieri – Head of Editorial Services, Nature branded journals

Elisa

Dame Athene Donald springs to mind whenever someone mentions women in science. Throughout my studies she has inspired me and many others by being a champion of equality and diversity, in an area (physics) that is traditionally male-dominated.

Athene’s research bridges physics, biology and medicine. She and her eclectic team apply a range of concepts and techniques of soft matter physics to understand biological materials. Her career achievements stand out both for her scientific contributions as well as for her involvement in gender issues.

She is a Fellow of the Royal Society and was awarded the L’Oreal UNESCO for Women in Science award for Europe in 2009. Athene was also the Director of the University of Cambridge’s Women in Science, Engineering and Technology Initiative, and the University’s Gender Equality Champion, as well as a member of the European Research Council’s Working Group on Gender Balance.

Jill Adie, Science Communication Product Manager, Researcher Services

Jill

When I finally read the dog-eared copy of Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin’s biography a friend gave to me – foolishly not until after my PhD – I found myself in awe of her vibrant intellect, drive and resilience.

Her work laid the foundations for my own research. Dorothy studied the structure of biological molecules using a technique called X-ray crystallography, which was in its infancy at that time. She was incredibly passionate about what she did, and is credited with discovering the structures of penicillin, vitamin B12 and insulin. This led to a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1964.

Her aptitude and track record in determining 3D structures meant that during her career Dorothy worked alongside and mentored eminent scientists – she had a stellar academic career, but it was hard won. Even with the advent of World War Two, the demands of a busy family life, and the inherent difficulties of working in male-dominated academia, Dorothy continued to work on the subject she loved, and she remained scientifically active into her old age.

Part 2 of this series will be published today (11 Oct) at 17:00 BST / 12:00 EDT. 

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Winners of the Scientific American Innovators Award Turn Trash into Water Filters [Video]

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Guest post by Andrea Gawrylewski, collections editor at Scientific American

After 50 hours in a lab, three Ohio eighth graders convert Styrofoam food containers into a patent-worthy new water filter

SA-innovators-award

Scientific American Innovators Award winners (from left to right) Julia Bray, Luke Clay and Ashton Cofer
Credit: Andrew Weeks

World-changing ideas may just come from our youngest scientists. This year’s winners of the annual Google Science Fair—including the winners of the Scientific American Innovators Award—were announced this week at Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. The event is the largest online science fair in the world, and since its inception in 2011 more than 30,000 teenagers have submitted projects in almost every country.

“Kids are born scientists,” says Scientific American Editor in Chief Mariette DiChristina, who served as head judge at the fair. “They ask great questions and we should foster their efforts to learn the answers firsthand.”

For the past five years Scientific American has partnered with Google to award the Scientific American Innovator Award, which honors an experimental project that addresses a question regarding the natural world. This year’s award went to three eighth graders from Ohio who were particularly disgusted with the amount of Styrofoam (polystyrene foam) trash they saw in their everyday lives—the material accounts for 25 percent of landfill space, and is exceptionally difficult to recycle or reprocess.

The team of Julia Bray, Luke Clay and Ashton Coffer, all age 14, analyzed the chemical structure of Styrofoam and determined that it is composed of over 92 percent carbon. This sparked their idea: They hypothesized that they could use heat to convert the Styrofoam into activated carbon—which could then be used to filter water. After 50 hours of experimental work, the team successfully converted the polystyrene into carbon with over 75 percent efficiency by heating the material to 120 degrees C. They then treated the carbon with a set of chemicals to increase the surface area of the material, and tested it against commercially available water filters. Their results showed that their carbon successfully filtered many of the same compounds that commercials filters remove from water.

“Styro-Filter is just the beginning of an innovation to take dirty waste and make clean water,” Bray explains in her team’s video summary of the project. The team has filed for a provisional patent for its filter-making process.

The winners of the Scientific American Innovators Award share a $15,000 cash prize. The grand prize of the Google Science Fair went to Kiara Nirghin, a 16-year-old from South Africa who used orange peels and avocado skins to devise a superabsorbent material that can absorb and hold 300 times its weight in water. She hopes that the nontoxic material can be used to boost agriculture in water-scarce regions.

“All of the finalists produced inspiring work,” DiChristina says. “It’s thrilling that the judges chose such exciting candidates from all around the globe.”

This article originally appeared at Scientific American on 28 September 2016 and was republished with permission.

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Peer review: Nature’s variations

Posted by Lillienne Zen | Categories:

Heike-LangenbergBy Heike Langenberg, Chief Editor, Nature Geoscience

The week from 19 to 25 September 2016 marks the second round of Peer Review Week with the theme of “Recognition for Review”. The topic is obviously close to our hearts at Nature Research: after all, peer review is much of what we do.

We greatly appreciate the role our reviewers play in the publication process, and we try to help them to convert the time and effort they spend on scrutinising and often improving our authors’ papers into professional recognition.

For their personal use—for example in job applications or career negotiations—reviewers have been able to download a certified record of all their reviewing activities across the Nature-branded titles for several years now. We hope that this information is helpful in our reviewers’ career development.

We also offer a free online subscription to a Nature-branded journal for one year to those who have either reviewed three or more manuscripts across all Nature-branded titles in a year, or to referees who have been nominated by our editors for the outstanding quality of their reviews.

Peer Review Week Recognition for Review

But we are always looking into making peer review better, and offering more choice. In response to popular demand in reader surveys, we have introduced the option of double-blind peer review. Initiated at Nature Geoscience and Nature Climate Change in June 2013, authors are now able to opt to be anonymous to referees—just as referees are usually anonymous to authors—at all the Nature-branded journals since February 2015. Providing this option is now part of our routine workflow.

Uptake has been essentially stable since this option was extended to all Nature-branded journals. It seems that ignorance of the double-blind option is not the reason that the proportion of authors who choose it for their own manuscript is substantially lower than those who support the idea in reader surveys. In the social sciences, double-blind peer review is more widespread, and we note that in journals with a significant social science component, such as Nature Climate Change, Nature Energy and Nature Human Behaviour, acceptance is higher than in most journals.

The next step in this particular direction could be triple-blind peer review: in this version, editors, too, do not know the authors’ identities when they record their initial impression of a paper. This offering is but a glimpse in our eye at this stage, largely for administrative reasons, but we are thinking about it. Unconscious biases may lurk in everyone’s brain, even in the most conscientious editors, and they shouldn’t make a difference. We would like to make sure that papers submitted to the Nature-branded journals are judged by their scientific content only. Nothing else.

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Celebrating Peer Review Week at Springer Nature

Posted by Lillienne Zen | Categories: ,

By Steven Inchcoombe, Chief Publishing Officer, Springer Nature

Peer review is at the heart of the research process. Academics generously dedicate hours of their week, to examine each other’s work, offer much-valued constructive criticism and improve the published science (or maths, or social science, etc.). Reviews take time, but peer review is mostly anonymous, meaning it is difficult for reviewers’ colleagues, publishers, institutions or funders to recognise it properly.

Of course, peer review has its faults. Regardless, it is the best system we have right now for maintaining high standards and accuracy. In an age when information is everywhere, plagiarism is sadly too common and a stamp of quality is highly valued, peer review is still celebrated as a kitemark for rigor.

peer-review-week

To celebrate peer review, a group of organizations including Springer Nature is working collaboratively to plan a week of activities and events. Today marks the first day of Peer Review Week 2016. This year’s theme is Recognition for Review, exploring all aspects of how those participating in review activity – in publishing, grant review, conference submissions, promotion and tenure, and more – could be better recognized for their contribution.

At Springer Nature we’re constantly looking to improve our peer review systems, and to find new and better ways of recognizing peer reviewers for their hard work. Our existing methods of recognition might take the form of monetary reward in the case of monographs, or incentives such as free subscriptions or discounts on Article Processing Charges. The methods of recognition researchers most commonly ask for are those which simply acknowledge the name of the reviewer, as the process is so often anonymous.

In a recent survey completed by 3886 of our reviewers, only 26% of reviewers agreed that they would like to be paid. Many expressed concerns that a monetary reward would introduce bias into the process. 67% of reviewers believed they should receive non-monetary compensation, and, rather inspirationally, 68% agreed that the knowledge of the contribution they have made to the body of scientific research is enough compensation for their time as a reviewer, confirming what we’ve always thought: academics are a generous lot.

We believe their work shouldn’t go unnoticed. Many of our journals publish lists celebrating our most frequent reviewers. At BioMed Central, 70 of our journals offer open peer review, encouraging transparency. Open peer review is also a valuable educational resource for training future peer reviewers. In the last year, BioMed Central have published over 40,000 open peer review reports, allowing 24,000 peer reviewers to be recognized for their contribution to research.

Nature Editor-in-Chief Philip Campbell writes a letter of thanks to anyone that has peer-reviewed three papers or more for the combined Nature Research portfolio. Since 2015 all of the Nature-branded research journals have offered authors the option to choose double-blind peer review. In 2016 we have additionally piloted the following initiatives: optional publication of peer-reviewer reports in Nature Communications; optional publication of peer-reviewer identities in Nature; optional transfer of peer-reviewer reports and identities from Nature Communications to other selected Springer Nature academic journals.

Another way we’re experimenting is through partnering with Publons, a network of over 75,000 experts showing their commitment to speeding up science through superior peer review. Publons is a free service for academics that lets you effortlessly track, verify and showcase your peer review activity across the world’s journals. This month we’ve started a Publons pilot across 13 of our journals. We’re also proud sponsors of their Sentinels of Science Awards which celebrate frequent peer reviewers.

We have two more pilots launching this week, experimenting with two very different types of peer review; one from BioMed Central is exploring removing potential bias from the system, the other from Springer experimenting with a new type of recognition. Watch this space for more information!

And finally, to all our reviewers around the world: in case we haven’t said it recently, thank you from the team at Springer Nature.

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Journal metrics: handle with care

Posted by Lillienne Zen | Categories: ,

We have recently updated the journal metrics page for Nature Research to include an array of additional bibliometric data (www.nature.com/npg_/company_info/journal_metrics.html).  In addition to the traditional 2-year impact factor, we are now providing the 5-year impact factor, the immediacy index, the Eigenfactor score and the Article Influence Score. Whilst it is a measure that reflects a journal’s citations, the 2-year impact factor as an arithmetic mean of the citations per article can be disproportionately skewed by a minority of highly cited outliers.

For Nature, the Nature-branded research and reviews journals, and Scientific Reports, we have also provided the 2-year median, defined as the “the median number of citations received in 2015 for articles published in in 2013 and 2014.” Although the median citation is not subject to distortion by outliers like the 2-year impact factor, it should be noted that the median does not address another concern: that for multidisciplinary journals, such indicators measure across a broad swath of disciplines which have their own distinct citation rates. Nevertheless, we consider it to be a useful complement to the 2-year impact factor.

Given that this citation median is not a standard indicator, it is important to explain its derivation. To calculate the median, datasets for individual journals were downloaded from Web of Science in the third quarter of 2016.

  • For Nature and the Nature-branded research journals, articles published in 2013 and 2014 and categorized as “Article” or “Review” in Web of Science were selected.
  • For Nature Reviews journals, articles published in 2013 and 2014 and categorized as “Review” in Web of Science were selected. In addition, a small number of review articles that are categorized as “Article” in Web of Science were also included.
  • For Scientific Reports, articles published in 2013 and 2014 and categorized as “Article” in Web of Science were selected. In addition, a small number of research articles that are categorized as “Review” in Web of Science were also included.

For each dataset, (1) duplicated items were removed, (2) items that were not genuine Articles or Reviews were removed and  (3) items that were published outside the 2013-2014 timeframe as determined by issue date (for Nature and Nature-branded journals with issues) or date of online publication (for Nature Communications and Scientific Reports) were also removed. For each curated dataset (i.e. following steps 1-3 outlined above), the number of citations in 2015 to each item was taken from Web of Science and the median value calculated accordingly.

Thus, the median represents the midpoint number of citations that articles published in 2013 and 2014 received during 2015.

We believe that a broader array of citation-based metrics including the 2-year median citation will provide a more balanced perspective on journal performance and will be helpful to authors, readers and the community at large in assessing the quality of our journals.  At the article level, we have provided article-level metrics and Altmetric data since October 2012 for Nature journals. Our ambition for the future is to add alternative metrics at a journal level, to complement the citation-based metrics and the article level metrics.

We would emphasise that although this wider suite of metrics at the journal and article-level might provide interest and context, there can be no substitute for assessing each article on its own merits.

The Nature journals have a long record of publishing editorials on the limitations of the traditional journal impact factor.  The journal metrics page also provides links to a selection of these editorials from Nature journals and to the Nature special collection on Metrics (Nature 2010).

For better or worse, in survey upon survey, our authors cite impact factor as a primary consideration in driving decisions about where to publish their work, and whether to write for a journal.  This is despite  increasing calls for due caution in using the journal impact factor and a growing recognition that the over-reliance on the journal impact factor as an indicator for the quality of individual articles is damaging to the practice of science. There is no question that decreasing a reliance on the impact factor as an assessment metric is proving to be exceedingly challenging for journals, publishers, funders, research institutions and researchers.

Nevertheless, we hope to see increasing efforts from the community at large to develop mechanisms that  credit best practice in reproducible, robust research, putting the attention squarely where it belongs: on the researchers and their contributions to their fields.

Philip Campbell, Editor-in-Chief, Nature and Nature Research
Sowmya Swaminathan, Head of Editorial Policy, Nature Research