Blogs
Where else to begin this week other than with this excellent video from Stephen Curry (and children) explaining why science is not just for geniuses? It’s a trailer for the film he’d like to make if he wins the current I’m A Scientist Get Me Out Of Here! contest. And it involves cheese.
Jennifer Rohn picks up the theme, continuing her appeal for metrics that reward the ‘foot soldiers’ of science, the researchers whose efforts produce the lower-tier papers, upon whose midget shoulders stand the giants of science. Similarly, Mike Fowler compares the flow of research to an ecological food pyramid, with the mass of research at the bottom supporting those few who make the ‘giant leaps for mankind’.
Whether you’re a minnow or a major star is largely correlated to the number of high impact journals you’ve published in. The flaws of impact factors is a common discussion point on Nature Network, and this week saw a couple of posts on the theme. Richard Grant takes up the idea:
I was forcibly reminded at a conference in Charleston last year, people have been whinging about the Impact Factor for thirty years. And still we’re stuck with it. Still people are using it…Back at the day job I’m writing a paper on alternatives—well, one in particular. And I know, I know that isn’t the answer. I’m not sure what the answer is. I just know that the current system, as we’re all saying, is unfair; and it’ll take a concerted effort to change things.
Tom Webb carries on the criticism, turning to the pros and cons of the Hirsch Index (h) as an alternative, and suggesting a tweak:
Anyway, I’ve not kept up with the bibliometrics literature, but wonder if anyone has proposed the following modification of h: what is your h score per paper published? In other words, have you achieved an h of 20 due to 20 brilliant papers, or 200 mostly mediocre ones?
The ongoing World Cup has also excited a couple of Nature Network bloggers. Nicolau Werneck examines the unusual geometry of the tournament ball. Andreas Trabesinger, meanwhile, reminisces about previous World Cups, and how the regular Lindau meetings close to his home town punctuated his memories in a similar way to the football tournament.
Elsewhere, Vishal Kalel talks about the louse genome, Eva Amsen announces an impressive new resource for developmental biologists, and Lei Xu makes a welcome return to Nature Network.
Forums
A final call to join the discussion on three conferences:
The Lindau conference, which runs next week, has its own forum on Nature Network. Use this to introduce yourself to delegates, ask questions and follow the conference as it takes place. Also, don’t forget to check out the recent editorials on how the Nobel Prizes have inspired Nature Network’s bloggers over the years. We’ve had posts on the Inspiration, Science, People and Culture behind the prizes. Martin Fenner and Lou Woodley will also be blogging on the official Lindau blog next week, which you can check out on the aggregation site for the event
The Tomorrow’s Giants meeting also takes place next week. If you have any opinions on the future of UK science, please comment on the Tomorrow’s Giants forum. Your opinions may be raised by panel members in an afternoon debate at the conference.
Finally, session planning for Science Online London 2010 is now in the advanced stages. Check out the forum if you’re interested in the communication and collaboration of researchers online.
As mentioned last week, Nature Network stories are now being featured regularly on Nature’s Facebook page, which has over 11,000 fans. We’ll be highlighting the more opinionated, discussion-provoking or otherwise cool content, so this is your chance to reach a wider audience via blog posts and forum topics. Don’t forget to check if we’ve included you or if anyone’s left feedback about your blog there!
And finally…
This week sees some changes to the Nature Network team. Ian Mulvany who has worked on both Connotea and Nature Network in his time at NPG is moving to Mendeley. Anyone who’s ever had the pleasure of working with Ian will know what a great mix of humour and enthusiasm he brings to any project and he’ll be much missed in the Nature offices. To “sort-of” replace Ian we warmly welcome Marta Rolak, the new Product Manager for Connotea and the Workbench section of Nature Network. Having a more editorial/commercial focus, she will work on the user-oriented aspects of the site’s new features and we look forward to a new pair of hands in the team.