Monthly Archive for October, 2011

Editing Services Now Available

Published on October 31, 2011 in Journal and Newsletter. 0 Comments

The International Journal of Science in Society is pleased to offer editing services for authors who would like to have their work professionally edited. The services offered can help authors at the point of initial submission or during the revision stage, before the final submission of their paper. Please contact journals@science-society.com for more information.

The editing process

  1. Email journals@science-society.com to express your interest in having your paper edited.
  2. The Commissioning Editor of the Journal will review your paper and provide you with a quote.
  3. Once you accept the quote, the Commissioning Editor will assign a copyeditor to your paper.
  4. Within 7-14 business days of your confirmed payment, you will receive a copy of your edited paper via email.

Disclaimer

Please note that this service is not mandatory for publication in a Common Ground journal. Using this service does not guarantee acceptance for publication, nor are you obliged to submit your edited manuscript to a Common Ground journal.

Request More Information

For more information or to request a quote, please email journals@science-society.com.

Neuroscience vs Philosophy: Taking aim at free will

Published on October 30, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

By Kerri Smith from Naturenews

The experiment helped to change John-Dylan Haynes’s outlook on life. In 2007, Haynes, a neuroscientist at the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience in Berlin, put people into a brain scanner in which a display screen flashed a succession of random letters1. He told them to press a button with either their right or left index fingers whenever they felt the urge, and to remember the letter that was showing on the screen when they made the decision. The experiment used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to reveal brain activity in real time as the volunteers chose to use their right or left hands. The results were quite a surprise.

“The first thought we had was ‘we have to check if this is real’,” says Haynes. “We came up with more sanity checks than I’ve ever seen in any other study before.”

To Read More…

Call for Book Reviewers

Published on October 28, 2011 in Book and Newsletter. 0 Comments Tags: .

Common Ground Publishing is seeking distinguished peer reviewers to evaluate book manuscripts submitted to the Science in Society Book Series.

As part of our commitment to intellectual excellence and a rigorous review process, Common Ground sends book manuscripts that have received initial editorial approval to peer reviewers to further evaluate and provide constructive feedback. The comments and guidance that these reviewers supply is invaluable to our authors and an essential part of the publication process.

Common Ground recognizes the important role of referees by acknowledging book reviewers as members of the Science in Society Book Series Editorial Review Board for a period of at least one year. The list of members of the Editorial Review Board will be posted on our website. In addition, Common Ground also offers a US$200 voucher for each completed review which meets the standards set out by the Commissioning Editor at the commencement of assignment. Vouchers may be used in the Common Ground Bookstore or for registration at one of our international conferences.

If you would like to referee book manuscripts submitted to Science in Society please email:

  1. a brief description of your professional credentials
  2. a list of your areas of interest and expertise
  3. a copy of your CV with current contact details

If we feel you are qualified and we require refereeing for manuscripts within your purview, we will contact you.

ESOcast: Fifty New Exoplanets Discovered by HARPS

Published on October 26, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

 

ESOcast: Episode 35, Fifty New Exoplanets Discovered by HARPS

Planets galore, including super-Earths

Also available at this link.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Emerging global challenges demand rapid responses from the scientific community. This can only be achieved through a reformation of the culture and practice of science—and its relation to the wider world.

Published on October 22, 2011 in News. 0 Comments

From Seed Magazine

“Faster.” Could any other word better capture the reigning paradox of our age? The world today—whether measured in technological or ecological terms—appears to be changing more rapidly than ever before.

Our modern system for generating novelty and prosperity has stretched to encompass the entire planet, growing more complex and expansive, so that now it seems to groan and shudder beneath its own weight. In its service, some things are falling apart: Non-renewable resources are profligately consumed, ecosystems disrupted, and social traditions steadily relinquished. There seems no way to stop or slow these processes without causing immense, cascading catastrophe. The only alternative then is to quicken our pace, to innovate past these growing pains. But where is the center of this innovation, and can it hold?

To Read More…

Lisa Randall on Writing Knocking on Heaven’s Door

Published on October 18, 2011 in News. 0 Comments

By Sean from Discover Magazine

Lisa Randall is a friend and collaborator, as well as a science superstar. She is one of the most highly cited physicists of all time, for a variety of contributions to field theory and particle physics, especially her work with Raman Sundrum on warped extra dimensions. Her first book, Warped Passages, was a major success, which naturally raises the question of what one does next. (Besides writingpapers, I mean.)

So we’re very happy to welcome Lisa aboard to guest blog about her new book, just out today: Knocking on Heaven’s Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World. (Among other virtues, this book has the single most impressive collection of blurbers of any book ever written, from Bill Clinton to Carlton Cuse.) From personal experience I can verify that writing a book doesn’t just happen; it’s a tremendous commitment over an extended period of time, and once it’s done there’s not much chance to go back and change it. So deciding to write a book at all, and more importantly how exactly to target the writing, is a delicate and critical process.

To Read More…

Madame Curie’s Passion

Published on October 15, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

By Julie Des Jardins from Smithsonian Magazine

When Marie Curie came to the United States for the first time, in May 1921, she had already discovered the elements radium and polonium, coined the term “radio-active” and won the Nobel Prize—twice. But the Polish-born scientist, almost pathologically shy and accustomed to spending most of her time in her Paris laboratory, was stunned by the fanfare that greeted her.

She attended a luncheon on her first day at the house of Mrs. Andrew Carnegie before receptions at the Waldorf Astoria and Carnegie Hall. She would later appear at the American Museum of Natural History, where an exhibit commemorated her discovery of radium. The American Chemical Society, the New York Mineralogical Club, cancer research facilities and the Bureau of Mines held events in her honor. Later that week, 2,000 Smith College students sang Curie’s praises in a choral concert before bestowing her with an honorary degree. Dozens more colleges and universities, including Yale, Wellesley and the University of Chicago, conferred honors on her.

Is Myth more Comforting than Reality?

Published on October 11, 2011 in News. 0 Comments

By Quinn O’Neil from 3 Quarks Daily

For parents wishing to introduce their children to a scientific worldview, two new books may make the job a bit easier. Daniel Loxton’s book “Evolution: How We and All Living Things Came to Be” recently won the 2010 Lane Anderson Award in the young reader category. It was also a finalist for the Silver Birch Award and is in the running for a third Canadian book award for children’s nonfiction. For the curious, the National Center for Science Education offers an excerpt here. The other book, Richard Dawkins latest, “The Magic of Reality: How We Know What’s Really True,” makes a clear distinction between myth and reality while explaining a range of natural phenomena. Both books are aimed at kids in the 8- to 13-year-old range but could certainly be understood and enjoyed by those much older.

To Read More…

Yeast Thrives with Partially Synthetic Genome

Published on October 7, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

Yeast cells can live quite happily with a partially synthetic chromosome. Photo courtesy of Power and Syred/Science Photo Library

By Roberta Kwok from Naturenews

Researchers have equipped yeast cells with semi-synthetic chromosomes. It is the first such achievement in eukaryotic, or complex-celled, organisms, and marks a step towards large-scale genome engineering in these cells.

The team publishes its results today in Nature1. The study suggests that the engineered yeast strains are as healthy as natural yeast.

“It appears to be fantastically stable,” says Andy Ellington, a biochemist at The University of Texas at Austin, who was not involved in the work. “At least some of us thought that it would fall flat on its face or would mutate quite readily.”

The engineered strains also have a built-in ‘scrambling’ system that deletes and shuffles random genes on demand — a feature that could prove useful for developing yeast optimized for the production of fuel, drugs or other valuable chemicals. The team’s eventual goal is to synthesize the entire yeast genome.

To Read More…

Can Darwinism Improve Binghamton?

Published on October 3, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

By Jerry A Coyne from The New York Times

My undergraduate students, especially those bound for medical school, often ask why they have to study evolution. It won’t cure disease, and really, how useful is evolution to the average person? My response is that while evolutionary biology can explain, for example, the origin of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, we shouldn’t see evolution as a cure for human woes. Its value is explanatory: to tell us how, when and why we got here (by “we,” I mean “every organism”) and to show us how all species are related. In the end, evolution is the greatest tale of all, for it’s true.

David Sloan Wilson, on the other hand, sees evolutionary biology as a panacea for the world’s ills. By understanding “human nature” — that is, the behaviors and attitudes instilled in our ancestors by natural selection — we will, he claims, finally be able to solve problems like poor education, dysfunctional cities, bad economics, mental illness and ethnic cleansing. “Evolutionary science,” Wilson argues, “will eventually prove so useful on a daily basis that we will wonder how we survived without it. I’m here to make that day come sooner rather than later, starting with my own city of Binghamton.”

To Read More…