The answer is yes. It is now searchable on PubMed and Medline.

Is/Are there specific paper(s) within this list or elsewhere in the previous issues of Nature Nanotechnology that you have enjoyed reading?

Do let us know why…

Hope I will see some entries soon…..

This question has been in my mind for quite awhile now. I think this forum is perhaps the best place to ask this burning question, “How does one become a reviewer for Nature journals?”

Although it is logical to assume that senior faculties are invited to review, most graduate students or postdoctoral fellows have had experiences reviewing papers on behalf of their supervisors. In order to make the next jump, from the “subcontracted” to a “designated” reviewer status, what is the correct way to accomplish this?

Wen

Every week, each editor reads a list of journals in their area. We scan through all the articles published within the past week and pick out the most interesting two articles. A picking session occurs mid-week and we spend about 1-2 hours to read and write about the selected article. See our April editorial on further matters concerning writing and credit.

The question is which two articles?

There are no strict rules. In general, we pick the most interesting articles. The criteria for Research Highlights are not as stringent as selecting papers for publication. They are meant to highlight a new idea or interesting preliminary findings published in other journals.

Sometimes they are papers that we would publish and sometimes they are not.

So, if you want to get into our radars, post your most recent publications on our network group. We will most definitely see it!

Questions? Please post them here.

If you’d like to see new local hubs for Asian cities, countries or regions, there’s now a way to vote for this.

• Log in, head to your profile page and click ‘edit your profile’.
• At the top, click ‘change your location’.
• Enter the city or town in which you work. This will set your location.
• Nature Network will then suggest three potential ‘hubs’—regions (not necessarily cities) that may become full-fledged hubs like Boston and London once enough people from that area sign up. Click the one that you belong to.

If you don’t see an option you like, feel free to get in touch with me. We can add to or tweak the proposed hubs according to the wishes of users.

Due to some interest and requests, I’m writing to share with you what happens when I jump out of bed every morning…

I wake up around 730am each day and prepare to go to my office cubicle in Ichigaya. Usually, I’m in the office at about 9am and begin to turn on the computer, fill up my steel mug with some plain warm water from our dispenser and look through my inbox to pick out about 3-4 manuscripts for the day.

I have a 5-10 min chat with our wonderful cleaning lady, Takada-san, in the kitchen. As she speaks only Japanese, I struggle through the conversations but somehow we understand each other and as the days go by, I’m beginning to feel like a pro! In just under 2 years, we’ve become friends. She brings me fruits and ‘senbei’ (Japanese rice crackers) every now and then and so our early morning chats extend to swapping food. At this hour, the office is still empty and therefore peaceful…

I start reading some manuscripts and as the computer starts up, Outlook downloads all the emails…averaging about 20-30 emails per day. Emails come from other editors, authors, referees, kind emails, rude emails, happy and upset emails, enquiries, etc. etc. I respond to them in order of priority…

By 10am, everyone else arrives at the office and it starts to become noisy and delirious. I put on my ear plugs and continue reading the manuscripts.

After reading each manuscript from beginning to end, I write a short report which includes my understanding of the paper and initial feelings about the work. If it is clearly something that we wish to send out for review, I begin my research…

The research includes looking into the databases to see if any similar work has been done before and to fish out suitable referees. This obviously takes a bit of time and care…

Referees are contacted and I proceed with the next manuscript…On average, I process about 3 manuscripts per day apart from all the other things I’m engaged in such as writing Research Highlights, commisioning and editing News & Views articles or front half content for the journal, scheduling to visit labs or attend conferences etc.

Like everyone else, we break for lunch at about 1pm. In Japan, a ‘bento’ (or rice set box) man chimes in at about 10 mins before the hour. Most people purchase these bento boxes and eat at their desks. I’m guilty of this on some days but do try every effort to take a short stroll in the neighbourhood to grab lunch outside…on a fine spring day, I eat with our Marketing/Sales colleagues by the moat or under the cherry blossom trees – a very typical scene in Tokyo.

The search for fine articles continues after lunch…By 6pm, I start to feel burned out for the day and begin to pack and go home.

I scavenge for dinner on my way home. Typically a bowl of udon noodles is what I have for dinner and off I go for a short run. Our jobs are very interesting but also very sedentary. The daily run is to keep me fit for my weekend travels, hikes, cycling and other adventures.

By 10pm or so, I’m back in my home. Work starts again for another 2 hours until I retire at midnight…

On Thursdays, I attend Japanese lessons to learn new grammar and practice speaking in Japanese with my lovely teacher.

It sounds rather routine but the main thing that keeps me ticking is the new manuscripts and the wonderful and exciting work everyone has done. I enjoy reading them and do feel sad some days when we have to return pieces that do not meet our selection criteria.

Living in Japan has been a tough but interesting experience for me. Juggling work while keeping some time for yourself is a challenge in a fast paced society where people work more than 12hr some days…

I’ve been missing recently because of conferences and travels. Now back in the office.

During my recent trip, I had the opportunity to meet and speak with the first author of our March cover story, Dr. Ennio Tasciotti, a native Italian.

It was very enjoyable hearing his road to the success of this paper – from the planning of the experiments all the way to the writing. I’ve invited him to post his experience here and he has kindly agreed to share them with us. So, if you have any questions, please feel free to pose them to him on the forum.

Now, over to Ennio…

I noticed quite a number of network members from India recently and I’d like to take this opportunity to welcome everyone!

As you probably know, I work out of our Tokyo office and my responsibilities extend throughout the Asia-Pacific in addition to handling manuscripts in my area of expertise.

I’m writing today to ask who do you think are the best and most accomplished nanotech scientist in India. Please tell me their name, affiliation (include a website if it exists), their research interest and why you like/respect them.

Thanks and I’m looking forward to learning more about the nanotech scientists in India…

Just to let everyone know that from tomorrow, nano tech 2008 will be taking place at Tokyo Big Site!

This event will take place between the 13-15th Feb 2008.

There will be 522 Companies attending with 884 Booths! They expect 50,000 visitors during this 3 day event. Make no mistake, this is a huge event for nanotechnology.

We, Nature Publishing Group, will have a booth(booth A-27 in the Nano Bio area) for all 3 days and as well as being able to ask questions to our Editors and NPG Nature Asia-Pacific team, we will be giving out free copies of our Nature journals (including Nature, Nature Nanotechnology, Nature Materials and all other related titles) and some novelty items such as pens and post-it notes.

Please visit us to have a look at the wide variety of journals available, to ask questions or just to have a chat.

We look forward to your visit.

For more information about the conference, please visit their home page:
http://www.ics-inc.co.jp/nanotech/en/index.html

Nanomedicine papers often struggle at Nature Nano for these concerns and other reasons, often resulting in difficult editorial decisions.

The main criteria for consideration/publication at Nature journals (Nature Nano included) as stated in our documents are:

a) originality
b) technically solid & a substantial advance
c) conceptual novelty/unexpected discovery
d) broad interest/practical applicability

One of the criticisms has been: publishing innovative papers may please the nanotech community but lose credibility with the medical community.

Any thoughts/comments on this?

Sorry for being away for a while. Like everyone else, I was home visiting my parents and returned to a huge backlog of manuscripts and emails after the holidays.

As you have probably seen the editorial Which Wei Wang? by Gene Sprouse (Editor-in-Chief of the American Physical Society), APS journals now offer an option to present your name in your own language. At present only for Chinese, Japanese and Korean names that become confusing when transliterated.

From an editorial point of view, the initiative seems to be a positive one:

a) might be easier to find some of you out there
b) narrows down the specific person we’re looking for
c) gives ownership to the paper

Native and non-native speakers of the language, what do you think of this initiative?

Should Nature Nano offer such a facility too?

They asked the editor how a balanced work and life is achieved given we receive such a high volume of submissions, emails, etc every day at Nature Nano.

My response was quite long but here’s the meat:

Try to clear as many emails, cases etc as possible whenever they arrive; keep a steady pace, do as much as you can possibly swallow and then call it a day; set goals for the week and try to accomplish them; do not forget to get your fair share of rest and weekends off to recharge.

It all sounds logical and straighforward to do. But just how many of us put this in practice or can/choose to do so? We continue to feel overwhelmed and perpetually fatigued.

Any other suggestions, thoughts or your own experience, post them here.

These would be helpful to keep us all reminded and maybe in time to make New Year resolutions as we ring in 2008!

Where are we headed?

What are the hot topics?

1) At Nature Nano at least, I’ve processed a steady flow of papers in targeted drug delivery mainly for cancer treatment, diagnosis or imaging.

If one looks in the literature, there are numerous reports on various ways to use different targeting molecules to deliver drugs, imaging agents etc.

What makes one targeting molecule better than others? Is it time for a paradigm change?

2) There has also been a rise in submissions in nanotoxicology but these have struggled in the review process for various reasons.

Any other predictions/thoughts/opinions/questions? Post them here.

1) Complete your profile (include a picture)

2) Add yourself to the network group

3) Participate in the forum (post topics/replies; ask questions)

4) Read the notice board

5) Post your newest publications to the group profile for increased visibility. This will also appear in the main Nature Network homepage.

6) Set your account to receive at least one email per week to keep up to date on latest events/postings.

Further questions/comments? Post them below.

Tip #2 of 6 is Avoid lazy phrases.

These are phrases that make the writing wordy and uninteresting because they add nothing to the meaning of the sentence.

Examples and ways to replace them:

LAZY PHRASE —> BETTER PHRASE

1) at this point in time—> now

2) prior to—> before

3) afford an opportunity to —> allow, permit

4) in the event that —> if

5) in the proximity of—> near

Any other examples that you can think of? Add them them here as #6 and etc. so we can all remember not to use lazy phrases!

In our November issue, the progress article
discusses the use of nanocarriers to scavenge toxic drugs/agents as a way to manage the overdose of drugs or accidental exposures to toxic chemicals.

Liposomes were first proposed for treating poisoning almost 35 years ago…but only one system so far has reached the clinical stage partly because combining properties such as biocompatibility, long circulation time, stability and high extraction efficiency is not trivial.

How can the advances in nanotechnology be used to progress this field forward?

Thoughts/comments on this topic? Post them here and start a discussion.

In the past year, a few people have ask ‘how do I referee a paper?’. It took me by surprise the first time I heard it mainly because it’s not something that has occurred to me before. It is clearly a valid question given it is not a subject taught in graduate school.

Over time, we all seemed to have “learned” how to referee a paper by doing one for our supervisor(s) at some point.

Should we be formally taught how to referee a paper? Or are we happy with the way things are?

Comments/thoughts?