Dr. Miguel Nicolelis’s cyber-monkeys will appear in the new Public Library of Science Biology, a free, on-line scientific journal, described in New Scientific Journal Challenges Establishment:
A new scientific journal that challenges the expensive heavyweights that have dominated the world of research hits the Internet on Monday.The journal, called the Public Library of Science Biology, is backed by leading scientists such as Dr. Harold Varmus, former director of the National Institutes of Health and now chief executive officer of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.
They want to speed up the pace at which research is published, and also make it accessible to even the poorest of graduate students.
It will be available on the Internet at http://www.plosbiology.org. The non-profit group that backs PLoS is based in San Francisco and will launch a second journal, PLoS Medicine, next year.
The scientific journals that now control the world of scholarly publishing can cost tens of thousands of dollars a year. They usually require a lengthy ‘peer review’ process in which experts raise questions about studies and suggest changes to written reports.
I have to wonder about getting rid of that pesky peer-review process…
I found this amusing:
Authors of articles in PLoS pay $1,500 to cover the costs of carrying out peer review, editing, and managing production.“Science thrives on the free flow of information,” said Dr. Patrick O. Brown of Stanford University in California, a co-founder of the new journal.
Vanity-press science? You too can support the free flow of information — for just $1,500!