BMC Nephrology transplants to section editor model

Hayley Henderson on November 16, 2012 at 10:34 am - 0 Comments

For over a decade, BMC Nephrology has been receiving and publishing an ever increasing number of articles, administered by our in-house editorial team. However, its increasing popularity amongst the nephrology community has not gone unnoticed, and what was once an unassuming journal has now prospered into a successful and important medical research publication.

We now need to look to the future to ensure the journal continues to develop to best serve the needs of its community and for this we have called in the experts. We are very honoured to welcome a prestigious list of world renowned Section and Associate Editors to our editorial board. Together, they will be handling manuscripts covering all aspects of nephrology …

BMC series publishes companion papers to the pig genome sequence

Tim Sands on November 15, 2012 at 3:02 pm - 0 Comments

The BMC series is delighted to host a series of companion articles to the publication of the swine genome.

The articles are published in a number of BMC series journals and the journal GigaScience are gathered on a cross-journal article series page. The papers cover a broad spectrum of subjects related to the pig genome: more details of the content is given in our blog, “Companion articles to the swine genome sequence“.

Image credit: David Merrett on Flickr, CC BY 2.0

Supporting young researchers in their efforts to publish successfully

Natalie Pafitis on November 15, 2012 at 10:12 am - 0 Comments

Guest blog post by Dr Valéry Ridde, an Associate Editor of BMC Health Services Research. Dr Ridde is an Associate Professor at the University of Montreal with research interests in the evaluation of health services organization. In collaboration with Melanie De Souza, Dr Ridde recently hosted a workshop on skills-building in scientific presentation and scientific writing at the Second Global Symposium on Health Systems Research held in Beijing this year.

It is never easy for the youngest to be heard. While in some recent movements, youngsters have gone so far as to bang on pots in the street to express themselves [1], in science, it is often only through publishing …

Final call for entries to the BMC Ecology Image Competition

Simon Harold on November 8, 2012 at 2:06 pm - 0 Comments

There’s now less than 1 month to go to submit your entries to the BMC Ecology Image Competition!

More than 50 images have now been submitted from all over the world, so be sure to send in yours before 1st December to be in with a chance of winning.

The competition is open to everyone affiliated with a research institution, and we consider all images from photos to data visualizations. Entries should be submitted to one of five categories that reflect the editorial sections of the journal. The winner of each category will be chosen by each of the journal’s Section Editors and the categories are:

Behavioural and physiological ecology

Conservation ecology and biodiversity research

Community, population, and macroecology

Landscape ecology and …

Endorsing quality peer review

Emilie Aime on November 1, 2012 at 4:53 pm - 0 Comments

BMC Ophthalmology is delighted to endorse the Cochrane Eyes and Vision Group’s free online peer review course entitled Translating Critical Appraisal of a Manuscript into Meaningful Peer Review. The course has been developed as a resource for health professionals who are serving, or wish to serve as peer reviewers of biomedical literature.

Although the course and its content were designed with ophthalmologists, optometrists, and other vision practitioners in mind, it is applicable and useful to health professionals from all specialities and those who participate in peer review of biomedical literature generally.

Course organiser Kay Dickersin tells us “The Cochrane Eyes and Vision Group online course on meaningful peer review offers clear instruction on how to critique …

Highlights of the BMC-series: October 2012

Emily Crow on October 31, 2012 at 4:14 pm - 1 Comment

October was a busy month for the BMC-series, with the announcement of the Nobel prize winners in Physiology or Medicine, and the highly anticipated Open Access week. To hear more about what we’ve been up to, read on for some exciting highlights from across the series.

Conservation genetics: Koala diversity not affected by hunting
Comparing museum specimens with modern populations reveals little evidence that hunting of koalas in the early 20th century caused the low genetic diversity currently seen in this species, suggesting a more ancient factor is to blame. Author of the study, Professor Alex Greenwood explained “The event which reduced the genetic diversity of koalas must have happened a long time ago, perhaps during …

Seeing sea shells in a new light

Simon Harold on October 19, 2012 at 10:11 am - 0 Comments

Conventional techniques in light microscopy reveal the hidden super-structures of seashells

The hard outer shells of molluscs and gastropods are really remarkable structures. Taken separately, their constituent parts can be soft, brittle and yielding. Yet the protective casings of these creatures, once constructed, have a strength and lightness that belies these individual building blocks.

In a new article published in BMC Biophysics, Andreas Schneider and colleagues from the Leibniz Institute for New Materials, Saarland University, and University of Regensburg in Germany peer into the construction of these shells in astonishing detail using the latest developments in high-resolution microscopy.

Their model organism for this is the wonderfully named “Most Beautiful Abalone” (Haliotis pulcherrima), a marine mollusc that hails from Polynesia. Like …

Nobel prizes, openness, and the cellular circle of life

Simon Harold on October 10, 2012 at 12:23 pm - 0 Comments

It’s been a busy week for the Nobel Committee. All that phoning around, letting people know that they’ve won the most prestigious prize in science.

On Monday, developmental biologists John Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka received their respective calls from the “Physiology or Medicine” committee for their pioneering work on cellular reprogramming. And if you’re wondering how it feels to win such a prize, Yamanaka is reported to have responded to the announcement by stating:

“I don’t know how I am going to celebrate yet. I think I just need a beer.”

It will be well deserved. But what exactly was it for?

The Nobel Assembly has officially awarded the prize “for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become …

BMC-series launches new section to encourage deposition of supporting data

Simon Harold on October 10, 2012 at 10:29 am - 1 Comment

The BMC-series is very pleased to announce a policy change among its biology journals aimed at increasing the visibility of supporting datasets in its articles.

The launch of the new “Availability of supporting data” section is to encourage all authors to deposit their supporting data in publicly accessible databases and repositories, so that greater transparency and accessibility to raw data is facilitated.

Submission of a manuscript to any BioMed Central journal has always implied that “readily reproducible materials described in the manuscript, including all relevant raw data, will be freely available to any scientist wishing to use them for non-commercial purposes.”.

The BMC-series biology journals now join their data-focused sister journals BMC Research Notes and GigaScience in implementing …

Hospital Chaplains and End-of-Life Outcomes

Hayley Henderson on October 8, 2012 at 3:25 pm - 0 Comments

Recently, we spoke to Dr Linda Emanuel, Section Editor for BMC Palliative Care, to discuss her research teams’ work investigating the important implications of hospital chaplaincy services in a palliative care setting, and the findings from their recently published study in BMC Palliative Care by Dr Kevin Flannelly, Dr Linda Emanuel, Rev George Handzo and colleagues at HealthCare Chaplaincy.

In an era emphasizing quality and value in health care, the role that spiritual and chaplaincy care specifically play in improving outcomes (including patient experience and satisfaction, as well as other health-related markers) and costs – especially in end-of-life care – is almost completely untested. Given most people rely on religion and spirituality to cope in such situations …