PLoS Blogs

Today, we’re pleased to announce the expansion of PLoS Currents with the launch of two new sections, one on Huntington Disease produced with support from CHDI Foundation, Inc., and the other entitled Evidence on Genomic Tests in collaboration with CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). Another section called the Tree of Life (focusing on new phylogenetic analyses) is coming soon.

PLoS Currents was launched in August 2009 with a section on Influenza. In his announcement, PLoS co-founder Harold Varmus heralded PLoS Currents as “a new and experimental website for the rapid communication of research results and ideas. In response to the recent worldwide H1N1 influenza outbreak, the first PLoS Currents research theme is influenza”. More than 60 articles have been published in PLoS Currents: Influenza with many articles posted at the height of concerns about the H1N1 pandemic.

The essential goals of PLoS Currents are to minimize the delay between the generation of data and the publication of new research findings, by providing a publication venue where contributions are reviewed rapidly by experts, can be cited so that authors gain the necessary recognition for their work, and are publicly archived so that interested researchers can effectively build on the work of others.  By accelerating the sharing of new findings in this way, PLoS Currents has the potential to accelerate the research cycle itself.

To achieve these goals, there are two key features that make PLoS Currents different, and much faster, than a conventional journal.  First, each section of PLoS Currents is run by a Board of Reviewers – a group of expert researchers led by the Editors of the section.  This group reviews all submissions and determines as rapidly as possible if the conception, structure, and presentation of the submission indicate that it is a legitimate work of science and does not contain any obvious methodological, ethical, or legal violations. As long as the work passes this test, it is published.  Many contributions are published without significant revision, and experts outside of the Board of Reviewers are only rarely consulted during the review process.

The second key difference from conventional journals is that the submissions to PLoS Currents are written and published using a web-based tool, called Google knol.  Authors are in complete control over the content and appearance of their submission, and once it has passed the review process, articles are published immediately under the Creative Commons Attribution License used by all PLoS Journals. Upon publication they are also archived at PubMed Central, where they are given a unique ID, so that the work can be cited.

The Editors for the new section of PLoS Currents on Huntington Disease are Gill Bates (King’s College London, UK), Mike Levine (University of California, Los Angeles, USA) and Sarah Tabrizi (University College London, UK).  The Editors for the new section focusing on Evidence on Genomic Tests are W. David Dotson and Muin J. Khoury – from the Office of Public Health Genomics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA.  They have written a nice introduction to the site here. Both sets of Editors are supported by outstanding teams of expert researchers who review the new submissions.

Gill Bates indicated that she has taken on a leadership role in the Huntington disease section because “there is an urgent need to facilitate the publication of a wide range of datasets that currently never see the light of day. The concept of PLoS Currents: Huntington disease has received a great deal of enthusiasm from the HD research community.”  Simon Noble (Director, Scientific Communications, CHDI Foundation) said “The rapid publication of data at PLoS Currents: Huntington Disease that otherwise might not be published in traditional journals will, we hope, accelerate the exchange of scientific data and ideas, enabling investigators to plan research programs with more relevant information at hand. CHDI Foundation is delighted to support this publishing platform, which we think will be particularly important as Huntington disease research gets ever closer to the clinic.”

The CDC also see tremendous potential in the PLoS Currents approach for evaluating genomic tests.  Muin Khoury said “we need a strong evidentiary foundation for the integration of genomics into clinical and public health practice. The new PLoS Currents will fill a much needed niche in authorative synthesis of emerging information on genomic tests”.

We welcome feedback on all aspects of this expansion to mpatterson@plos.org.

Today we are pleased to announce the launch of PLoS Blogs a new network for discussing science in public; covering topics in research, culture, and publishing.

PLoS Blogs is different from other blogging networks, because it includes an equal mix of science journalists and scientists. We’re excited to be welcoming our new bloggers, including Pulitzer Prize winner Deborah Blum to the network.

To start things off, we’re delighted that Steve Silberman (a long time writer for Wired, Time, the New Yorker etc) has published a new interview with Oliver Sacks in which for the first time he reveals fascinating details of his personal experience with an ocular melanoma in his right eye and talks about his new book “The Mind’s Eye” which will be published in October and is about vision.

Oliver Sacks, Columbia, 2008

The launch of this network is a natural extension of the support that PLoS has always offered to bloggers in recognition of the excellent work that they do in bridging the gap between scientific and medical articles and mainstream media headlines. For example, we give bloggers access to our Press Releases on exactly the same terms as journalists and we work closely with key figures in the community such as Bora Zivkovic from Blog Around the Clock.

The three existing PLoS blogs: PLoS.org, everyONE and Speaking of Medicine (the PLoS ONE and PLoS Medicine community blogs respectively) can also now be found on this new network. If you are wondering where we got the beautiful image for the PLoS blog header it came from the September 2009 cover of PLoS Biology and is a virtual bead breaking out of its shell – credit is due to: Mark J. Dayel, University of California Berkeley.

Here’s a run down of all the blogs and the excellent people who are working with us:

Our scientists:

Take As Directed:

David Kroll, Ph.D. is a cancer pharmacologist who investigates natural anticancer drugs and is best known under his blog pseudonym, “Abel Pharmboy”. He has appeared regularly on NPR and ABC News Now.

Neuroanthropology:

Daniel Lende, Ph.D. is a medical, psychological, and biological anthropologist.  He worked as an assistant professor in anthropology at the University of Notre Dame and is now associate professor at the University of South Florida. Daniel co-founded Neuroanthropology.net in 2007.

Greg Downey is currently a Senior Lecturer in Anthropology at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia.  He has published extensively on capoeira (an Afro-Brazilian art form), no-holds-barred fighting, coaching, dance, music etc.

Obesity Panacea:

Peter Janiszewski has a PhD in clinical exercise physiology from Queen’s University in Canada. He’s a science writer/editor, a published obesity researcher, university lecturer, and an advocate of new media.

Travis Saunders is a PhD student in health physiology at the University of Ottawa, who investigates sedentary lifestyles and chronic disease risk in children.

Gobbledygook:

Martin Fenner, M.D. works as a medical doctor and cancer researcher in the Hannover Medical School Cancer Center in Germany.  Since 2007, he has regularly written about how the internet is changing scholarly communication.

GenomeBoy:

Misha Angrist, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor of the Practice at the Duke University Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy. In 2009 he had his full genome sequenced at Duke.

The Language of Bad Physics:

Sarah Kavassalis has a B.S. in physics and mathematics and is currently a graduate student at the University of Toronto. She discusses semi-popular papers that lack an accurate basis in math and physics.

Our science journalists:

Speakeasy Science:

Deborah Blum is a Pulitzer prize-winning science writer and is a Professor of Journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  Her latest book, The Poisoner’s Handbook, was published in February 2010.

NeuroTribes:

Steve Silberman is a long-time writer whose articles have appeared in Wired, the New Yorker, Salon, Time, and many other national publications all with a Neurological slant.

The Gleaming Retort:

John Rennie is an adjunct professor in graduate Science, Health and Environmental Reporting at New York University.  John was the editor in chief of Scientific American and has appeared on PBS, NPR, ABC etc

Body Politic:

Melinda Wenner Moyer is an award-winning science writer focusing on health and policy, and has a master’s degree in science journalism from New York University. Her work has appeared in Scientific American, Slate, The Oprah Magazine etc.

Wonderland:

Emily Anthes is a freelance science writer and has a master’s degree in science writing from MIT. Her work has appeared in Scientific American Mind, Psychology Today, Popular Mechanics, Discover and elsewhere.

All these excellent bloggers are supported by PLoS Community Manager Brian Mossop. Here’s what he had to say about the launch of this new network (you can read more from him here):

Blogging is generally a force for good because it brings science and medicine to life for a broad audience. PLoS Blogs aims to take scientific and medical communication one step further by doing two things: 1) creating a network that an equal number of science writers/journalists and scientists call home, and 2) building a collaborative environment – both within our blogger network and across the web by featuring content from other blog networks – to make science and medicine more inclusive, and fun

PLoS is built on the principle that the public deserves access to information, which is the heart of the open access movement.  PLoS Blogs will follow suit, not only making its content open access, but by opening up the discussion, and debate, on science and medicine.

We suggest that you review our community guidelines before participating in the debate and we welcome your feedback on all aspects of our new service to bmossop@plos.org.

We are pleased to announce that we will not be raising the publication fees for any of the PLoS Journals this year. The main reasons for this decision are as follows.

One of key goals at PLoS is to show how open access publishing can be financially sustainable, and PLoS has made substantial progress towards this goal over the past two years in particular. This year, we are on target to achieve modest operating surplus for the first time without any need to adjust publication pricing.

At the same time, we are committed to minimizing the financial burden associated with publishing for all parties involved in the process – including funders, institutions, libraries and the research community. As a not-for-profit organization, we are not in the business of maximizing profits for shareholders or investors. Our broader mission is to drive a comprehensive shift in publishing towards more open and effective research communication.

While we cannot guarantee that we will not need to raise publication fees in the future it is our hope that advances in technology and continued refinement of our cost models will enable us to identify ways to make publishing more cost-effective.

For further information about our general progress, the 2009 PLoS Progress Update covers the highlights of the 2009 fiscal year and includes some details on our current projects.