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347 news posts in Open science

Young Minds

11 Oct 2016

Frontiers for Young Minds is delighted to announce our newest section – Understanding Biodiversity

Frontiers for Young Minds is proud and excited to announce the launch of its newest specialty section, Understanding Biodiversity. This new specialty will be led by the Specialty Chief Editor Chelsea Specht of UC Berkeley and will provide articles that help our curious young readers to better understand the biological diversity that exists on our planet! The Understanding Biodiversity specialty is now open for submissions and will publish articles with the following scope: Biology is the study of life, and what could be more important than that? When scientists study the variety of life – called biodiversity – they can use tools from ecology, evolution, conservation, genetics, and even the management of our natural resources. They find and describe new species, explore uncharted ecosystems, study how and why species change, investigate patterns in where and when species live, and study processes that make it possible for an ecosystem to survive or thrive. This section of Frontiers for Young Minds will include articles that describe, explore, and explain biological diversity on Earth – past, present, and future. From paleontology to botany to zoology (all animals big and small, from elephants to microbes), articles will address how living things adapt, change, and use […]

Open science and peer review

15 Sep 2016

A History of Academic Peer Review

Although peer review is now a fundamental quality control measure implemented during the publishing process, the practice as we know it today is quite different from how it was envisioned almost two centuries ago.   PDF version available here: A Succinct History of Academic Peer Review References Csiszar, A. (2016) Peer review: Troubled from the start. Nature 532:306-8 doi:10.1038/532306a Spier, R. (2002) The history of the peer-review process. Trends in Biotechnology 20(8):357-8 doi: 10.1016/S0167-7799(02)01985-6

Open science and peer review

15 Sep 2016

Podcast: Peer Review Recognition

  Peer review recognition provides transparency and accountability which are key to achieving high quality research. In this Frontiers podcast, guest host Pamela Valdes, President of EPFL’s Postdoc Association and postdoc for EPFL’s Life Sciences Faculty, talks to Frontiers’ Mirjam Curno and Tobias Preuten on what makes Frontiers Peer Review different and what Frontiers is doing to recognize researchers for their peer reviews.

Open science and peer review

14 Sep 2016

Why peer review needs to be recognized

Peer review plays a pivotal role in the advancement of scholarly literature. Around 2 million research papers are currently published every year, all assessed by expert colleagues to analyse the authors’ results and conclusions, provide detailed feedback and help shape the manuscripts. But it is a largely thankless task. In most cases, the hours spent conducting a peer review at the service of the community go unrecognized. The First Step in Peer Review Recognition Frontiers believes in recognizing and rewarding peer review contributions, which we’ve pioneered since 2007. We consider transparency and accountability key to achieving high quality research. For this reason, we list the names of reviewers and handling editors on published articles as a certification of accuracy and validity. Featuring the reviewers’ names alongside the authors not only provides credibility to the quality of the peer review, but is a way of recognizing their dedication and contribution to improving the paper and ensuring its accuracy. Beyond the Paper: Why Volunteer to Peer Review There are many reasons why researchers participate and volunteer to peer review papers. These range from ensuring the rigorous standards of the research published in the field are met, to fulfilling a sense of responsibility to the community […]

Young Minds

23 Aug 2016

Frontiers for Young Minds celebrates its first papers in Understanding Health

Frontiers for Young Minds is growing and we are celebrating the first two papers in our youngest Specialty Section Understanding Health. This new specialty is led by our Specialty Chief Editors, Fulvio D’Acquisto and Jay Giedd. Read the Articles Learn about how Nanotechnology could be the next way to treat cancer by providing an alternative delivery system that is so tiny, yet could be the next solution in targeting cancer cells (Author: Dr. Courtney Thomas). Read full article.   Come and explore what a Biofilm is including how they are formed and how we can try to beat them to treat infections (Authors: Drs. Mira Okshevsky and Rikke Louise Meyer). Read the full article. You can look forward to more articles in this exciting new specialty coming soon. Find Out More More information about participating in Frontiers for Young Minds can be found here. Frontiers for Young Minds is currently accepting submissions in four specialties: Understanding Health Understanding Neuroscience Understanding the Earth and its Resources Understanding Astronomy and Space Science Researchers interested in submitting Frontiers for Young Minds versions of their work can find more information here. Please contact kids@frontiersin.org for any additional questions.

Open science and peer review

16 Aug 2016

Reject or publish? Kids discuss peer-review

Is the paper fact or fiction? Is the paper boring? These are all things this panel of children look for when reviewing a paper for our journal for kids, Frontiers for Young Minds. Watch the panel of kids explain  what criteria should be used when deciding whether a paper should be accepted or not. Learn how to submit your paper to Frontiers for Young Minds.  The open-access journal for kids is free to access and free to publish, which means that there are no publishing fees.

Young Minds

02 Aug 2016

Measuring the Methane Leaks to the Air from Three Large Natural Gas Production Regions

In the coming years, humans will have choices to make about where we get the fuel that powers our lights for us to see at night, our stoves for our hot meals, our water heaters for our warm baths, and even our cars. These choices will affect the air we breathe: burning fuel often causes pollution, like the smog found in cities, and almost always leads to more greenhouse gases in the air. Smog and greenhouse gases affect the way the Earth cools itself. One choice we have today is: which fuel should we use for our power plants, coal or natural gas? In a recent study, my colleagues and I measured the greenhouse gas emissions from three of the largest natural gas fields in the United States. We found that using natural gas instead of coal to fuel power plants could lead to fewer greenhouse gases in the air. Click here for the full article.

Young Minds

01 Aug 2016

Autoimmunity: Why the Body Attacks Itself 2

The human body is made up of 37 trillion cells and billions of these die every single day. The body has special cells, called macrophages, which consume dying cells to prevent them from building up in your body. Macrophages are also able to eat any cell that is infected by a bacterium or virus. This helps your body to remain as healthy as possible. Sometimes, the macrophages are given the wrong signals and they attack healthy cells. When this happens, your body develops an allergic reaction or inflammation that can lead to something called autoimmunity. Click here for the full article.

Young Minds

01 Jun 2016

What do “yellowballs” have to do with the birth of new stars?

Where do stars come from? Human beings have thought about this question for thousands of years and have proposed many different explanations, but scientists have only had the technology to observe the places where stars are forming for a few decades. This is because stars form inside cold “dusty” clouds in space that are invisible to our eyes and invisible to telescopes that study visible light. Fortunately, we have many instruments today that can record light that our eyes cannot see, and we can use familiar colors to represent this light. Even very cold objects give off infrared light, so we can use this type of light to explore how the dusty clouds produce stars. People from around the world have helped scientists identify an early stage in the development of stars, called “yellowballs,” by searching infrared images in an important science project called the Milky Way Project. Click here for the full article.

Open science policy

31 May 2016

Open Access to science papers will be default by 2020, say European ministers

By Emily Barker, Communications Strategist at Frontiers There was a breakthrough for open-access publishing on Friday 27 May, as EU research ministers published a commitment to make open access to scientific publications as the default option by 2020. “It’s a major step forward,” said EU Research Commissioner Carlos Moedas. “You cannot stop the movement. Publishers will have to change their business models.” What does this mean for science publishing? The open-access movement isn’t new. Already over 30% of peer-reviewed papers are now published in some form of Open Access, which means the tipping point for disruption has already come and gone. Frontiers, born digital in 2007, was the first open-access publisher to develop its own publishing platform that has not only revolutionized the peer-review process by making it more transparent, but has also helped advance research by publishing sound science rapidly while making it openly accessible to all. Unlike traditional publishing, the costs for open-access publishers are far lower as they have no costs for paper or printing distribution. However, that does not mean they are free. Open-access journals need editors and editorial support staff to maintain quality and a complex, scalable technological backbone for storage and to ensure the research they publish is always […]