I was out at the pub last night with a few other editors, and one of my colleagues mentioned that an editor from Nature Materials is leaving the company (and the country) – while she’ll be definitely be missed by all, this means that Nature Materials is searching for a new associate editor to join their team:

We are particularly interested in applicants with expertise in bio-inspired, biomedical and biomolecular materials, but we would welcome applications from outstanding candidates in any area of materials science.

The ideal candidate should have a PhD and preferably postdoctoral experience with a strong research record. The successful candidate will play an important role in determining the representation of their field in the journal, and will work closely with the other editors on all aspects of the editorial process, including manuscript selection, commissioning and editing of Reviews and News & Views, and writing for the journal. A key aspect of the job is liaising with the scientific community through laboratory visits and international conferences.

If you’re interested in the position (which will be based in the London office – with Stuart and Andy), you’ll need to apply soon – applications need to be in by June 4th…

Joshua

Joshua Finkelstein (Senior Editor, Nature)

Every six months or so, I pop over to England to catch up with my colleagues in our London office (NPG’s largest office). I love visiting this city, and it’s not just because I get to use words like ‘skint’ and eat fantastic Indian food every night…

But I was thinking about how difficult it must be for people who move to a new country to start their Ph.D.s/post-docs/jobs – in addition to adjusting to a new lab/co-workers (which can be difficult even if you’re working in a familiar city/country), you have to learn how things are done/how things work in your new environment. As trite as it sounds, so many things can be so different.

For example, I lived in London for two months when I started at Nature, and I’m embarrassed to say that I had to dig out the manual for my combo washer/dryer to figure out how to operate it. (I thought I was doing something wrong because my clothes never came out 100% dry – it turns out that the machine in my apartment didn’t use heat to dry the clothes, just an extended spin cycle…) Even going to the pub can be problematic: we had a German post-doc in our lab who frequently forgot to bring his passport when we went out for drinks. Despite the fact that he was in his mid-30s (and clearly looked old enough to drink in the U.S.), he had a difficult time convincing waiters/waitresses to serve him without ID…

For those of you who changed countries when starting your Ph.D./post-doc/job, I was wondering what little differences were the most frustrating for you? And for those of you who are living in a city/country you know well, how do you help your new co-workers adjust to their new environment? (For example, I’ve heard that some schools/labs distriubte packets that contain local information, FAQs, etc. – are these useful/helpful?)

Joshua

Joshua Finkelstein (Senior Editor, Nature)

The office coffee machine broke down this morning, so I’ve been using Coca-Cola to fight off the postprandial dip. I rarely drink soda (aside from the occasional Cuba Libre), so I’m usually the last to know about (crazy) new kinds of soda. But there’s a case of Diet Coke Plus in our office refrigerator – you might not have seen it in your local supermarket, but it’s a new version of Diet Coke that contains several vitamins and minerals:

Great news, no? Now you don’t have to take that pesky multi-vitamin every day. Just have a few cans of Diet Coke Plus and you’ll be all set…

Not a fan of Diet Coke? Not a problem: PepsiCo is responding with the launch of Tava this fall, which will contain “”https://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/07/business/soda.php?page=1">vitamins B3, B6 and E, and chromium." (Chromium?)

I’m just waiting for them to combine soft drinks with OTC medication: “have a hangover and can’t stay awake at your morning meeting? Try new Coke NSAID – it comes in two flavors: cherry aspirin and vanilla ibuprofen…” Yum…

Joshua

Joshua Finkelstein (Senior Editor, Nature)

In this week’s issue of Nature, there’s an Insight – a special collection of six or seven related review articles – on Glycochemistry & Glycobiology. In this particular Insight, there are seven review articles:

Chemical glycosylation in the synthesis of glycoconjugate antitumour vaccines from Galonic & Gin

Unusual sugar biosynthesis and natural product glycodiversification from Thibodeaux, Melancon, & Liu

Cycling of O-linked beta-N-acetylglucosamine on nucleocytoplasmic proteins from Hart, Housley, & Slawson

Glycan-based interactions involving vertebrate sialic-acid-recognizing proteins from Varki

Heparan sulphate proteoglycans fine-tune mammalian physiology from Bishop, Schuksz, & Esko

Exploiting the defensive sugars of HIV-1 for drug and vaccine design from Scanlan, Offer, Zitzmann, & Dwek

Synthesis and medical applications of oligosaccharides from Seeberger & Werz

There’s also a paper from van Kasteren et al. (with a News & Views from Grotenbreg & Ploegh) describing a new chemical tagging approach that can be used to add multiple sugars to bare protein scaffolds (i.e., proteins that were over-expressed and purified from bacteria). (You may have also noticed Wang et al‘s paper in last week’s Nature, so it looks like April may be the sweetest – and not the cruelest – month after all…)

As I wrote in the editorial that accompanies the Insight, scientists generally shy away from carbohydrates – I barely remember learning about them in my undergraduate years and spent little time thinking about them during graduate school. But now it seems like the field is exploding: everywhere you look there’s an interesting paper about carbohydrate chemistry and biology.

So with that in mind, we’ve put together this collection of review articles to celebrate chemists and biologists working with carbohydrates… We hope you enjoy them!

Joshua

Joshua Finkelstein (Senior Editor, Nature)

You may have already seen this news story in C&EN about a recent trial in Philadelphia: Merisant (the company that produces Equal and NutraSweet) has sued McNeil Nutritionals (the company that makes Splenda) because Merisant doesn’t think it’s fair that Splenda’s marketing campaign includes the phrase “made from sugar, so it tastes like sugar.”

This is the kind of advertising campaign that makes most chemists cringe, and – though this may sound like a petty dispute between two rival companies – I think we need to hold companies accountable for exploiting the general public’s lack of scientific knowledge. Unfortunately many people will think: Splenda is not sugar, but it is made from sugar – so it must be safe, right? (Wasn’t palytoxin made from sugar?) Though this sort of ad campaign wouldn’t work on many scientists, it certainly worked on the general public: “”https://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/85/i16/8516notw5.html">sales of Splenda were weak in 2001, when McNeil launched an ad campaign saying the sweetener is made from sugar and including the phrase ‘but it’s not sugar.‘" Since then, “Splenda has eclipsed Equal in the lucrative artificial sweeteners market” – and it’s not like Merisant can counter with an ad campaign, saying that Aspartame’s “made from phenylalanine, so it tastes like phenylalanine”…

It should be an interesting trial, as it’s bound to have “”https://www.boston.com/business/articles/2007/04/09/sweet_like_sugar____but_its_not_sugar/“>phalanxes of neurobiologists and chemists as expert witnesses.” (As an aside, I guess that the answer to Stuart’s question is ‘a phalanx of chemists’…) And the best part is that it’s a jury trial, so anything can happen…

Do you think they’ll use voir dire to exclude people who prefer natural sugar or are loyal to one of the two brands? Maybe I should offer my services, as I’m pretty indiscriminant when it comes to sweetening my coffee…

Joshua

Joshua Finkelstein (Senior Editor, Nature)