In the space of a week, the results from two manuscript submissions have come back. And there is good news, and actually pretty good news. So we’re a bit chuffed, at the moment.

Both manuscripts come out of work done when I was in Cambridge. One is something that we’ve been trying to publish for two years at least, now, and although I play a minor part in the story it’s a potentially very exciting piece of work. Formally, PNAS have rejected it, but unlike what Nature and Science told us, the most recent comments are eminently addressable. Indeed, the reviewers seemed to like the paper, which probably means they understood it.

I don’t mean to sound bitter or whiny here, but we know that the work is unusual, and our conclusions need to be far more rigorously tested by people cleverer than us, but that is why we’re trying to get it published, to see if our idea is right. When a biologist says “The biology is good, but the biophysics is poor” and a biophysicist says “The biophysics is good, but the biology stinks” then it is clear that both fail to understand the whole story. And when you submit to another journal and one reviewer loves the paper, says that it is important and should be published, but another says that it’s all tosh, you have to wonder about vested interests and just what the reviewing editor is playing at when he merely sends it out to a 3rd reviewer instead of saying “Hang on, there’s something up here”.

After all, not even the hostile reviewers criticized us on technical grounds.

As I say, that paper has been formally rejected, but with the words

“The editor has decided that the article in its present form is not acceptable for PNAS. However, the editor felt you should have an opportunity to submit a revised manuscript that constructively addresses the concerns of the reviewers. . . Please let the PNAS office know whether you plan to submit a revision”.

Informally, the editor says

Both of our referees are fascinated by the novel proposal in this manuscript but both feel that additional efforts is required to put the work into proper historical context and to justify the assumptions and conclusions. The referees make reasonable suggestions for revision of the manuscript that I commend to the authors.

which, actually, sounds like good news . We might even get it out before the rest of the world do some obvious experiments in their model system and beat us to it.

The second manuscript has had a much easier time. It’s going to a good, solid journal (I have to say that; one of the editors has an office next door to mine), and came back with

I would like to invite you to revise your manuscript in light of the referees’ comments. Your manuscript needs minor revisions. . .

None of the revisions require experiments, and I’m first author. Woo hoo!