Last week I threaded my way through the shiny glass buildings at UBC to attend, “Behind the Scenes at Nature,” a seminar by Nicola Jones, Nature’s on-line news editor. Nature is the journal to which scientist bow down and worship. Getting published in this most prestigious of scientific journals means you’ve arrived, you’re part of the scientific elite, you’re in the company of Stephen Hawking.
Well, even if you get rejected, you’re still in the company of Stephen Hawking, since Nature (and a slew of other highly respected scientific journals) rejected his Black Hole Radiation theory at first. According to Nicola Jones, 90 per cent of the scientific papers submitted are rejected.
I never picked up an issue of Nature because I thought it would be filled with high level research that I wouldn’t be able to understand. But Ms. Jones revealed that half of the journal is devoted to news, discussion and even politics as it applies to science. And while Nature is still available in hard copy, Nature on-line has become an ever-expanding nebula of scientific information. You can spend hours and hours on their site, and then you can spend even more time on their blogs. There is also an active on-line discussion forum, Nature Network.
Ms. Jones also spoke about some of the publishing bloopers that have occurred at Nature. She showed us the September 25, 2008 issue (above) featuring head shots of Barak Obama and John McCain, looking in opposite directions. Then she opened up the magazine to reveal the advertisement on the back cover. On it were head shots of two Labrador retrievers, one chocolate and one yellow – looking in opposite directions – mirroring the two politicians on the cover.
After hearing about all that Nature has to offer, Ms. Jones asked us to break up and brainstorm about new directions for Nature. The only suggestion I could come up with was Nature for Dummies, a publication that translates all that academic scientific language into material the average person could understand. My friend picked up on that idea and suggested each issue could contain a centerfold of a famous scientist – now there’s a new idea.
