A few great biologists...

Here's the latest cover from Genetics (Nov 2009 issue):

From the journal:

About the Cover
Some members of the band of geneticists who established and extended the guiding principle of biology.

Here's the key in case there are some you don't recognize:

1 James F. Crow
2 Theodosius Dobzhansky
3 Ronald Aylmer Fisher
4 Motoo Kimura
5 John Burdon Sanderson Haldane
6 Hermann Joseph Muller
7 Sewall Green Wright
8 Carl Erich Correns
9 William Bateson
10 Carl Linnaeus
11 Frederick Sanger
12 Gregor Johann Mendel
13 Alfred Russel Wallace
14 middle-aged Charles Robert Darwin
15 Erasmus Darwin
16 young Charles Robert Darwin
17 old Charles Robert Darwin
18 Alfred Day Hershey
19 Francis Harry Compton Crick
20 James Dewey Watson
21 Oswald Theodore Avery
22 Rosalind Elsie Franklin
23 Max Delbrück
24 Salvador Edward Luria
25 Joshua Lederberg
26 Margaret Oakley Dayhoff
27 Linus Carl Pauling
28 Emile Zuckerkandl
29 Calvin Blackman Bridges
30 Alfred Henry Sturtevant
31 Thomas Hunt Morgan
32 Sydney Brenner
33 Seymour Benzer
34 Barbara McClintock
35 Thomas Henry Huxley
36 George Wells Beadle
37 Edward Lawrie Tatum
38 Edward B. Lewis
39 A bulldog

[H/T: Sandwalk]

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Nature Communications: a new journal from NPG

Nature Communications, a new online-only journal from NPG is now open for business:

Nature Communications is an online-only, multidisciplinary journal dedicated to publishing high-quality research in all areas of the biological, physical and chemical sciences. Papers published by the journal represent important advances of significance to specialists within each field.

Noteworthy is the fact that:

(...) papers published in Nature Communications will be of high quality, without necessarily having the scientific reach of papers published in Nature and the Nature research journals.

The journal will be launched in Spring 2010, but is now accepting submissions.

Learn more at the Journal's home page.

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Silence: a journal of RNA regulation

I was browsing around BioMed Central's website, surfing through different BMC journals when I came across with Silence.

"Silence? What the heck is this?" I thought to myself. So I clicked on it and there it was:

Silence is an online, peer-reviewed open access journal that covers all aspects of genetic and epigenetic control that are mediated by RNA.

Although Silence is presently accepting submissions, it's yet to be launched by BioMed Central.

David Baulcombe and Phil Zamore (Editors in chief) lead a FANTASTIC editorial board:

Victor Ambros (United States)
Rumiana Bakalova (Japan)
David Bartel (United States)
James Carrington (United States)
Richard Carthew (United States)
Xuemei Chen (United States)
Mark E Davis (United States)
Witold Filipowicz (Switzerland)
Klaus Giese (Germany)
Scott Hammond (United States)
Gregory Hannon (United States)
Craig P Hunter (United States)
Elisa Izaurralde (Germany)
Steve Jacobsen (United States)
Richard A Jorgensen (United States)
Mark A Kay (United States)
Anastasia Khvorova (United States)
V Narry Kim (Korea, Republic Of)
Judy Lieberman (United States)
John Mattick (Australia)
Marjori Matzke (Austria)
Peter Mouritzen (Denmark)
Norbert Perrimon (United States)
Nikolaus Rajewsky (Germany)
John J Rossi (United States)
Mikiko C Siomi (Japan)
Frank J Slack (United States)
Erik Sontheimer (United States)
Markus Stoffel (Switzerland)
Thomas Tuschl (United States)
Peter Waterhouse (Australia)

So many great scientists! So many people I'd like to invite to my University! I got to invite John Mattick here last April [see Long overdue post on John Mattick's visit] and now I'm pushing for David Bartel, but most of these scientists were on the same list Mattick was when we decided on him, so we'll just have to see.

Anyway, the journal seems timely and I look forward to its first issue.
Check it out: it's Open Access

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Good bye track I papers: PNAS

There are several ways to get your paper into PNAS (see ¹), which, IMHO, is a great journal.

One of these is the so called "track I" system:

Members are allowed to “communicate” up to two papers each per annum for non-members in their own sphere of expertise via Track I, for which the member procures at least two reviews before submission to the editorial office

Basically, what this means is the following: You (a non-member) send your manuscript directly to a member (i.e not going through the PNAS editorial office). The NAS member then sends it out for review (to whomever he chooses) and, after getting back their reviews, gets them to the PNAS editorial office with a recommendation.

Or, as PNAS puts it:

Before submission to PNAS, the member obtains reviews of the paper from at least 2 qualified referees, each from a different institution and not from the authors' or member's institutions. Referees should be asked to evaluate revised manuscripts to ensure that their concerns have been adequately addressed. The names and contact information, including e-mails, of referees who reviewed the paper, along with the reviews and the authors' response, must be included. Reviews must be submitted on the PNAS review form, and the identity of the referees must not be revealed to the authors. The member must include a brief statement endorsing publication in PNAS along with all of the referee reports received for each round of review. Members should follow National Science Foundation (NSF) guidelines to avoid conflict of interest between referees and authors (see Section iii). Members must verify that referees are free of conflicts of interest, or must disclose any conflicts and explain their choice of referees. These papers are published as “Communicated by" the responsible editor.

The other track, Track II, means submitting your work directly to the PNAS editorial office, where it will follow pretty standard MS handling.

As of 1 July next year, PNAS will force all non-members to submit to the journal directly for blind peer review, that is, through Track II².

Interestingly, over 80% of the Academy Members voted to eliminate Track I, although PNAS Editor-in-chief Randy Schekman mentioned that a “determined minority” opposed the move because they felt the option offered a publication route for innovative and idiosyncratic papers².

I don't have a particular problem with track I papers, but I've heard some people say (both here and in the US, about different papers): "the only reason he got this paper accepted in PNAS is because he submitted it through track I", or making comments about this track leading to a sort of "lite peer review" which could ease the way for a paper, as long as you have a "friend" as a NAS member to send your MS to.

I don't know if this is true, as I don't have any close experience with PNAS.

Does track I have a bad rep? Was this the reason why its elimination was so supported?
What do you think?

--
¹ Fersht A (2005) How and why to publish in PNAS. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A.102(18): 6241–6242.
²The Academy's Journal Becomes Less Friendly to the Academy Members

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New journal from CSHL Press

A new review journal, covering all aspects of molecular biology, has recently been launched.

Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology (CSH Perspectives) is a monthly online publication from CSHL Press, with an outstanding editorial board (featuring renowned scientists like Tom Cech, Mark Estelle, Peter Lawrence, Tom Misteli, Paolo Sassone-Corsi and David Spector just to name a few), analyzing progress in emerging areas of molecular, cell, and developmental biology, genetics, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, cancer biology, and molecular pathology.

Interestingly, articles will be organized as "Subject Collections", which will "gradually accumulate articles as new issues of the journal are published and, when complete, each will represent a comprehensive survey of the field it covers".

This is a very attractive feature and I'm confident, considering its board, that the journal will keep up with the rapidly advancing pace of molecular biology.

Also you can follow the journal on twitter (http://twitter.com/cshperspectives) which is always a great addition.

We'll keep our eyes open.

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