The People vs. NPG

Science publishing is a curious business. Content is provided for free by working scientists. That content is then peer-reviewed, also for free. Publication and dissemination costs are dropping, as paper publishing gives way to electronic distribution. So of course it only makes sense to increase prices. That's what's happening at the University of California. Nature publishing group are pushing for an increase in subscription costs for UC from an average of $4500 per journal to a whopping $17500 each. A 400% increase. Across the 67 Nature group journals, that's a substantial sum. This is prompting UC to drop subscriptions to NPG journals and to boycott their products altogether.

Nature protests, of course, claiming price increases are capped at 7% per year and the large UC increase is due to deep discounts they receive that are no longer tenable. This may be the case, but given the profitability of science publishing and the fact that the consumers of the product also do most of the heavy lifting (writing and reviewing manuscripts) it's a PR battle that Nature can't win.

One great metaphor for the state of science publishing is Fight Club soap: “We were selling their own fat asses back to them.” Considering UC has contributed around 5300 articles to Nature journals over the past 6 years, the phrase that comes to mind is "biting the hand that feeds."

For a good round-up of news and blog posts relating to the UC-Nature dispute (and open access in general) check out Jim Till's blog: "Be openly accessible or be obscure"

Goodbye Nature Podcast!!!

Well I recently got into the iPod game and have been trying to get into the podcast listening thing. Naturally one of the first I subscribed to was the ubiquitous NATURE (tm) podcast. I think I gave it a fair chance. I listened to a few podcasts start to finish with an open mind. But basically it's the least interesting thing on my iPod. Given the choice, I think I'd prefer to check the bus seats with my "A Free Level" app or listen to "Everybody Hurts" on repeat for an equivalent length of time. So with only a couple of GB of free space left, it's time for Darwinian selection to do its thing. Select all....DELETE! Ah that felt good.

I don't know what it is about that podcast that rubs me the wrong way. I mean it's well done and produced and I think they do a great job making the kind of podcast they're aiming for. It reminds me a lot of that science show that used to be on the Discovery channel back when I got cable. Newsy, ridden with catch-phrases that make no scientific sense and science-fiction analogies that get dumb people excited. Much less about how science really works...you know, like experiments and stuff. Something the Metro or CTV news could be proud of, but for the world's best publishing house of REAL SCIENCE, it sucks. I'll stick to browsing the great science on the posted on the Nature website, and save the iPod space for one of the many other great and original quality podcasts out there. Like the Ricky Gervais Podcast...

Come into my parlour...

...said the spider to the

...bat?

...bird?

...snake?

Scientists on drugs

Nature published today the results from a poll about cognitive-enhancing drug use amongst scientists. The results are shocking. 20% of responders have admitted to using drugs for non-medical reasons in order to boost concentration and work. Top amongst these are Ritalin and beta-blockers. I knew kids nowadays used Ritalin to study for tests but I had no idea PI used it too. The scientists who didn't get prescriptions, got their drugs on the internet not surprisingly. I guess coffee is just not enough when it comes to grant deadlines. Is this a reasonable use of drugs? Should we be scared of this. I know I could use beta-blockers when giving talks to large audiences, and I wonder how many do...

Nature Editorial Blasts Canadian Government for Scientific Ignorance

The fact that the Canadian Harper government has so little regard for anything that slows the pace of oil extraction should come as no surprise, but now their ignorance has even managed to catch the attention of the world's most prestigious scientific journal:

"Concerns can only be enhanced by the government's manifest disregard for science. Since prime minister Stephen Harper came to power, his government has been sceptical of the science on climate change and has backed away from Canada's Kyoto commitment. In January, it muzzled Environment Canada's scientists, ordering them to route all media enquires through Ottawa to control the agency's media message. Last week, the prime minister and members of the cabinet failed to attend a ceremony to honour the Canadian scientists who contributed to the international climate-change report that won a share of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

Harper sees himself as the leader of a 'global energy powerhouse' and is committing Canada to a fossil-fuel economy. More than 40 companies have a stake in mining and upgrading the bitumen from the oil sands in Alberta and churning out 1.2 million barrels a day. This activity generates three times as much greenhouse gas as conventional oil drilling. Emissions from Canada's oil and gas industry have risen by 42% since 1990."

These guys are bad news. They need their asses booted out of office before they manage to completely sell off the country and send the rest of us back to the stone age. Luckily, we may soon have the chance to do just that. See south of the border for a preview of where a few years of a Conservative majority is likely to take us.

Nurture vs. Nature

Twin studies can be an invaluable tool for scientists who are interested in studying whether aspects of human behavior are influenced by genes or environment (ie learned). Generally, this means tracking down adult identical twins who happen to have been separated at birth, getting their consent, and enrolling them in a study. Psychiatrist Peter Neubauer took things to a new level when he initiated a program that split up adopted twins at birth and then followed the differences and similarities that emerged during their lifetimes. Apparently the results of the study will be sealed in a library at Yale until 2066, however one pair of these twins has since found out about the study and they speak about the experience in the video below. Neubauer discussed the general topic of genetics and behavior in a 1996 book, Nature's Thumbprint: The New Genetics of Personality, which I haven't read but you can find here.

Nature Futures

A feature that I thought was canceled, Nature Futures, is for short science fiction stories. Indeed the achieves have a gap and the intro mentions that this is the return of Futures. I just really like the idea that research scientists who read Nature are often also sci-fi fans.
Nature is also selling a stand alone collection of Futures. Sweet. (found on Boingboing)

Questioning the Church of Cellular Determinism: The Trials and Tribulations of a Stem-Cell Denier

Sean Morrison, author of a recent Nature paper disproving the dogma of asymmetric hematopoietic stem cell chromosomes segregation, now discusses the challenges of challenging a prevailing theory in the peer-reviewed literature:

"One reviewer moved to reject the paper because of its foundation on negative results, he recalls."

"Morrison and colleagues grew individual HSCs on plates, stopping cultures after one or two divisions and probing all the colonies to see whether there were any in which all the newly synthesized chromosomes moved together into new daughter cells. None turned up, but the reviewers pushed Morrison to look for smaller and smaller subsets."

"He says the work was held to a higher standard than usual. "Papers that present evidence in favour of an idea don't show that most stem cells do something, only that some stem cells do something."

Of course as we already know, this scientific Cinderella story has a happy ending. Morrison and his group jumped through all of the reviewers' hoops, the paper was strengthened, and published in the world's greatest scientific journal in the history of the universe. Not to mention a great blow struck on behalf of stem cell atheists everywhere.

Bayman is A God: Nature.com

A recent bayblab discussion on the topic of open publishing apparently caught the attention of our friends over at the Nature Publishing Group. First, Hilary from Nature Precedings jumped in with excellent commentary and discussion on this post. Now, in a post on NPG's blog Nascent (Nature's blog on web technology and science), Timo Hannay firsts blasts PRISM (as did we) and then goes on to cite one of my more provocative comments on the topic and has this to say about it:

"Some people are just too quick to assume base motives, and employ words like "boycott" as if they were punctuation marks. Also, let's be honest, sometimes open access publishers have stoked these flames to their own PR ends. For me, this cynical and wrongheaded mindset reached its apotheosis (so far) in a comment on this blog post, which suggested that — wait for it — scientists should boycott NPG for having set up the free preprint server and document-sharing site, Nature Precedings:

'[G]ood call on Nature preceedings being designed to fail - I totally agree, had the same thought. I think it's Nature's effort to sandbag open publishing. Scientists and open publishing supporters should be crying bloody murder on this. I suggest a boycott of Nature preceedings. Hell maybe even the rest of Nature journals...'

Yeah, right, that would be good for open access..."

My gut reaction was that I just got bitch-slapped by someone at Nature, but I wasn't totally sure because so many big words were used (damn those writers and their big dictionaries). Naturally I immediately dictionary.com-ed the hell out of his post to figure out what he was saying:

a·poth·e·o·sis /əˌpɒθiˈoʊsɪs, ˌæpəˈθiəsɪs/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[uh-poth-ee-oh-sis, ap-uh-thee-uh-sis] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation –noun, plural -ses /-siz, -ˌsiz/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[-seez, -seez] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation.

1.	the elevation or exaltation of a person to the rank of a god.

2.	the ideal example; epitome; quintessence: This poem is the apotheosis of lyric expression.

Hmmm. Elevation to the rank of a god. Ok, I can take that. Now let's look at the context, I seem to remember something from high school about meaning and context. Hmmm...

"cynical and wrongheaded mindset reached its apotheosis"

So, I'm the god of cynical wrongheadedness. Ok maybe not the best god if one had one's choice, but still, a god's a god.

Seriously though, I thank Timo for taking the time to clarify his position and respond to our provocations. Whether or not one believes the the NPG is seriously dedicated to open publishing as a corporate entity, he and others (see Hilary from NPG Precedings' comments on this post) demonstrate that some individuals within the organization are very dedicated to modernizing scientific publishing. His post and is worth reading. Hopefully I will muster up a more challenging response to his arguments in the future...