Making science (part X): What open access journals have in common with premium wine
Open access journals charge fees to their authors for publication of accepted articles. Some of those fees can be quite significant. Cell Reports, a new journal from Cell Press, charges $5,000 per article, the highest among open access research periodicals. There is currently a debate as to whether the journals that charge the most are the most influential. A recent survey appears to indicate that price doesn’t always buy prestige in open access. My friend and colleague M.F. has recently made a prescient comment in this context: “…but apart from the commercial desire to maximize profits, the pricing is probably designed as part of the brand signal, to make the point that this should be in the very top tier of journals. Similar to launching a new “premium” wine to the market, if price on release is low, the consumers will never perceive it as a premium wine… . Time will tell if this self-fulfilling prophecy is indeed true, or if journals like Open Biology or eLife can completely break that model.“
Depth Of Field
Brown capuchin monkey in Iguazu National Park, Argentina. Photographed with EF 100-400mm lens (1/320 f/5.6 ISO1600) and the Canon EOS 7D.
Making science (part IX): The process of acceptance of scientific theories
Novel scientific propositions are initially taken with skepticism. Eventually, they become accepted –at least some of them. The transition between heressy and main stream has been debated ad nauseam. British geneticist J.B.S. Haldane (1892-1964) has been famous for many things, one among them was his incisive sarcasm. Haldane was an assiduous contributor to the Journal of Gentics, not only of scientific articles, but often many book reviews. One of those reviews, published in 1963 (Journal of Genetics Vol. 58, page 464), is perhaps the best known among the lot, not because of the book being reviewed, but because of Haldane’s now famous description of the stages in the process of acceptance of scientific theories. In Haldane’s words, theories invariably pass through “the “usual four stages”:
Hidden from view…
Wild life comes out in the early hours of the morning at Iguazu National Park, Argentina (Canon EOS 7D with EF 100-400L at 400mm).
Food photography VI: Restaurant Umberto, Naples
Restaurant Umberto, in Naples, is truly an institution in the south Italian city. Here a few dishes from a recent visit photographed using available light on the 5D3 and the 40mm pancake.
Pasta with octopus:
Pasta with vongole:
La pizza:
Making science (part VIII): A more specialized journal
“Dear Author,
Thank you for sending us your paper “Downregulation of HlpxE-mediated transcription doubles median life-span expectancy in humans”, but I am afraid we cannot offer to publish it in The Current Biologist.
We appreciate the interest in the issue you are addressing, and your results sound potentially significant for the field, but our feeling is that at this stage your paper would be better suited to a somewhat more specialised journal.
I am sorry that we cannot give you a more positive response, but thank you for your interest in The Current Biologist.
Regards,
Geoffrey South
Editor”
Many of us —professional scientists writing research articles— have had to confront this type of letters from journal editors. We have grown accustomed to them. A standard cut-and-paste piece of text used knee-jerkedly by editors without much thought or consideration. We file them promptly, and move on. After all, there are plenty of journals around, both general and specialized. No big deal, right?
Making science (part VII): On the utility of science
In a recent interview for the podcast series of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, Ira Mellman of Genentech expressed his views on the utility of science practiced at academic institutions. After an academic career at Rockefeller and Yale University, Mellman joined Genentech in 2007 where he is Vice President of Research Oncology. Mellman is a member of the National Academy of Sciences since 2011. The interview is about current challenges in the field of cancer immunotherapy. But things get a bit more controversial at the end. Scroll the audio featured below to -0:35 and you’ll hear this:
PNAS: “I asked Mellman whether his move from academia to industry has brought him closer to his goal of practicing people-centered science.”
Food photography V: NOBU Hong Kong, avantgarde Japanese cuisine
The NOBU restaurant in Hong Kong functions in the Intercontinental hotel and has magnificent views overlooking the harbor. Main chef Nobu Matushisa received classical training as a sushi chef in Tokyo, and lived in Peru and Argentina. One of the 25 NOBU restaurants all over the world, NOBU Hong Kong showcases Nobu’s signature dishes, as well as new creations using local ingredients with emphasis on freshness and surprise.
Here is the NOBU crew in action:
And here is one of the two dinner set menus offered by NOBU Hong Kong. Outstanding, sublime japanase delicacies from the ocean and the land, prepared in a superb cross-over, modern style. All photographs taken with the Canon EOS 5D Mark III and EF 24mm f/1.4 L II lens with available light.
Making science (part VI): Ignorance
“There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”
— D. Rumsfeld, 2002
The scientific literature increases exponentially with thousands of papers added daily. As the day has only 24 hours, what this means is that every time we sit down to read a paper, we have —consciously or unconsciously— decided to neglect thousands of others which we will most likely never read, ever. Agonizing as this may sound to some, it is equally inevitable. The assurance that we feel when moving a paper to our “to-read” list can be self deceptive, however, and so it is crucial that we choose which papers to read with great care. Or rather, that we carefully decide which papers not to read. In fact, better to do this consciously than as a default consequence of the limited number of hours in the day. The art of selectively ignoring sets of facts has been called “controlled neglect” and it is a crucial tactic to cope with the vast mountain of facts that keeps growing by the day.