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There is a post on the Scholarly Kitchen blog this week that asks: “how can we improve the article review and submission process?” For all of us involved in scientific and scholarly publishing, it has long been accepted that peer review is necessary and beneficial in ensuring the quality of scientific communication. But it is also seen by many as an imperfect system: less efficient than it should be and sometimes frustratingly slow.  Read more

Cancer is a disease that inspires dread in many people. Most of us have had some experience of it or, at the very least, have read one of the myriad articles in the press about the latest cause or cure. George Johnson’s The Cancer Chronicles cuts through all of the noise and confusion, and presents a fascinating, often frightening, but ultimately empowering, account of the history of cancer and the human quest to understand it.  Read more

Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity, published nearly 100 years ago, explains the relationship between gravity, space and time. The theory provides “the key to understanding the history of the universe, origin of time, and the evolution of all the stars and galaxies in the cosmos,” according to Pedro G. Ferreira. His book, The Perfect Theory, tells the tale of how the theory was questioned, tested, modified and supported by a range of scientists. It is a book with gravity that pulls you in, describing what the theory has taught us so far, and what we may learn from it in the future.  Read more