Nature, the world's leading weekly scientific journal, was today named 'journal of the century' by the BioMedical & Life Sciences Division (DBIO) of the Special Libraries Association (SLA). The award was presented at the annual DBIO Business Luncheon during the SLA?s Centennial Conference in Washington D.C.

Accepting the award on behalf of Nature, Senior Editor Alex Witze said, "We are honored to be named the journal of the century by the expert librarians from the BioMedical & Life Sciences Division of the Special Libraries Association. It means a great deal to us to receive this accolade from the international library community. You are our valued customers and essential partners in ensuring that researchers worldwide have access to Nature. We look forward to the next 100 years."

The journal of the century award was voted for by DBIO's 686 members. Runners-up included the New England Journal of Medicine, Science, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), and The Lancet.

In conjunction with SLA's Centennial, DBIO conducted a poll of its members to identify the 100 most influential journals of Biology & Medicine over the last 100 years. The top 100 journals were announced in March 2009 and are available on the SLA website: http://units.sla.org/division/dbio/publications/resources/dbio100.html

Five journals published by NPG featured in the top 100: The EMBO Journal, Nature, Nature Biotechnology, Nature Genetics and Nature Structural & Molecular Biology.

Nature is the flagship journal for Nature Publishing Group (NPG). Published continually since 1869, Nature has earned its reputation as the No1 multidisciplinary science journal, and is the most widely cited weekly science journal in the world.* With over 1.2 million unique users every month Nature is also one of the leading online scientific publications, offering a searchable archive of content dating back to 1869, in addition to innovative multimedia extensions, including the weekly Nature Podcast, and Nature Video.

* 2007 Journal Citation Report (Thomson Reuters, 2008)

Media contact
Grace Baynes (Corporate Public Relations, Nature Publishing Group)
Tel: +44 20 7014 4063; E-mail: g.baynes@nature.com

World Scientific Publishing Company and Nature Publishing Group are pleased to announce their first co-publishing project. Entitled 'Nanoscience and Technology: A Collection of Reviews from NATURE Journals', the publishers will launch the book in October 2009 at Frankfurt Book Fair.

The book is a collection of more than 30 review articles by internationally-renowned researchers working in nanoscience and nanotechnology. The review articles were first published in a variety of Nature-branded journals. Among the topics covered are: nanomaterials and nanostructures; molecular machines and devices; nanoelectronics; nanophotonics; nanobiotechnology and nanomedicine; and applications of nanotechnology.

"World Scientific and Nature Publishing Group should be applauded for publishing this collection of some of the most important papers in nanoscience,? said Dr. Mark Lundstrom, Don and Carol Scifres Distinguished Professor at Purdue University. ?Pulling these papers together in one volume helps put the remarkable advances in this very new field in perspective, and stimulates thinking about future directions in nanoscience and technology. It will be an important resource for the community."

Professor Hongjie Dai, Stanford University added: ?There is a need for a book such as this that provides an introduction to the many areas of nanoscale science and technology.?

Commenting on this collaboration, Mr Max Phua, Executive Director of World Scientific said, ?This is a significant partnership for World Scientific and Nature Publishing Group, with top articles from so many great scientists in a single title. I am certain that the synergy between both leading publishing entities in the scientific, technical and medical fields will greatly benefit the scientific community. We are delighted to partner Nature Publishing Group and look forward to many other collaborations.?

"We are delighted to be working together with World Scientific on this joint book publication project that will bring together a collection of the 'best of the best' review articles on nanotechnology from across all Nature-branded journals," commented David Swinbanks, Publishing Director for Nature Publishing Group.

More information on the book can be found at http://www.worldscibooks.com/nanosci/7439.html

Quotes from other researchers about the book:

?This volume is an important collection of some of the best nanoscience papers from Nature over the last years, making it a valuable reference. The volume covers a broad range of seminal advances, covering topics such as nanoscale electronic and photonic materials, biological and medical applications, fabrication and assembly at the nanoscale, carbon and molecular-scale electronics, nano-optics and plasmonics, and many more. The collection of all these papers in one place makes it a must-have for any student or researcher in nanoscience.?

- Mark Reed
Harold Hodgkinson Professor of Engineering and Applied Science Professor of Electrical Engineering, Professor of Applied Physics Yale University

"This collection of papers consists of some of the latest and most advanced reports in the field of nano-science and nano-technology. Topics covered include all aspects of the field: nano-optics, nano-electronics, nano-fabrication, DNA manipulation and nano-bio. In each case the papers represent ground breaking research, reported by some of the most prominent leaders in science and technology. This is a useful volume of value to all involved in today's research in nano-science and nano-technology."

Leonard C. Feldman
Director, Rutgers Institute of Advanced Materials, Devices and Nanotechnology

?This is a remarkable assemblage ? surveying many forefronts of contemporary nanoscience and nanotechnology.?

Professor Michael Roukes
California Institute of Technology.

About World Scientific Publishing Co. World Scientific Publishing is a leading independent publisher of books and journals for the scholarly, research and professional communities. The company publishes about 500 books annually and more than 120 journals in various fields. World Scientific collaborates with prestigious organisations like the Nobel Foundation, US National Academies Press and its subsidiary, Imperial College Press amongst others, to bring high quality academic and professional content to researchers and academics worldwide. To find out more about World Scientific, please visit www.worldscientific.com.

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Jason Lim, Marketing Executive
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Email: cjlim@wspc.com

About Nature Publishing Group (NPG): Nature Publishing Group (NPG) is a publisher of high impact scientific and medical information in print and online. NPG publishes journals, online databases and services across the life, physical, chemical and applied sciences and clinical medicine.

Focusing on the needs of scientists, Nature (founded in 1869) is the leading weekly, international scientific journal. In addition, for this audience, NPG publishes a range of Nature research journals and Nature Reviews journals, plus a range of prestigious academic journals including society-owned publications. Online, nature.com provides over 5 million visitors per month with access to NPG publications and online databases and services, including Nature News and NatureJobs plus access to Nature Network and Nature Education?s Scitable.com.

Scientific American is at the heart of NPG?s newly-formed consumer media division, meeting the needs of the general public. Founded in 1845, Scientific American is the oldest continuously published magazine in the US and the leading authoritative publication for science in the general media. Together with scientificamerican.com and 16 local language editions around the world it reaches over 3 million consumers and scientists. Other titles include Scientific American Mind and Spektrum der Wissenschaft in Germany.

It is with great sadness that we at Macmillan and the Nature Publishing Group learned of the death on Sunday of Sir John Maddox.

John was a towering figure in the world of science communication and in the history of Nature, the prestigious international science journal on which much of our science publishing is founded.

He became the editor of Nature in 1966 and rapidly transformed it into a leading vehicle not only for peer-reviewed research (he instigated a system of peer review soon after his arrival) but also for opinionated, incisive journalism. After a period of absence in the 1970s, he returned to the helm in 1980 and retired in 1995, having served a total of 22 years as editor, receiving a knighthood for services to science.

Michael Barnard, deputy chairman of Macmillan who worked with John for many years, remembers him fondly, saying: "John was a great editor of Nature and could generate excitement and drive staff to exercise imagination about the way news and research could be published, while retaining the integrity of Nature's reputation. He was a rapid and fluent writer and expected equally high professional journalistic standards to complement the essential scientific skills and experience.

"John never lost his journalistic approach to science, and the Nature offices during his editorship always seemed to me to have something of the daily newspaper newsroom about them. He worked hard and late, and pushed every deadline to its limits, straining the nerves of printers and production staff with frequently unreasonable demands, but always winning over frazzled colleagues with his charm and enthusiasm.

"His knowledge was truly comprehensive and he was ever-inquisitive about innovation, and concerned about ethical questions.

"As a colleague he was persuasive, humorous, supportive and terrific fun. I worked with him for over 30 years and enjoyed every moment. He was a great editor and a great character, and I know I speak on behalf of everyone at Nature and Macmillan, when I say how much he will be missed."

Nature will be publishing tributes this week and next. John's successor and the current Editor-in-Chief of Nature, Philip Campbell, said: "John was above all a seeker of the fun (in a serious sense) to be found in and around the science that he loved. It was always an exciting challenge for his colleagues as well as his competitors to keep up with him."

The first issue of Nature Chemistry goes live today at www.nature.com/naturechemistry. The latest physical sciences journal from Nature Publishing Group (NPG), Nature Chemistry's inaugural issue covers the breadth of chemistry, from inorganic microtubes to theoretical studies of how water behaves in detonations.

"With Nature Chemistry we are reinventing how we at NPG publish chemistry," says Jason Wilde, NPG's Publisher for the Physical Sciences. Nature Chemistry has evolved its production processes, including redrawing compound structures submitted by authors to be machine-readable and converting these structures to International Chemical Identifiers (InChIs). "Our aim is to make the research article the hub of science once more," says Wilde. "The features we have introduced to Nature Chemistry make the research article an integral part of our reader's workflow, as they link data-sources together, all from the full text," says Wilde.

An open source initiative, InChIs are an alpha-numeric way of representing a chemical structure, are unique to the compound they describe and can encode absolute stereochemistry. Machine-readable, InChIs enable data-mining and detailed linking between articles, databases and other information sources.

Nature Chemistry articles are annotated to identify all of the chemical compounds mentioned throughout the text. Users can choose to view the article with all of the compounds highlighted, and find out more about those compounds by linking out to other information resources including PubChem and ChemSpider.

Articles published in Nature Chemistry include other innovative online features. Pop-up images of chemical structures are associated with the bold compound numbers, used to reference compounds, in article text. Users can click on the bold compound number to view enhanced compound pages, created by the Nature Chemistry team. These compound pages provide Chemdraw files, 3-D structures, elemental analysis, links to external databases and other information.

A monthly journal, Nature Chemistry publishes high-quality papers that describe the most significant and cutting-edge research in all areas of chemistry. "The launch of Nature Chemistry offers authors from all of the sub-fields within chemistry a choice for where they wish their most significant work to be considered for publication," says Stuart Cantrill, Chief Editor of Nature Chemistry. The first Nature Chemistry articles have already attracted media attention, including Chemical & Engineering News, Chemistry World, New York Times and MIT Technology Review.

The Nature Chemistry team consulted with the chemistry community on the journal's development, including through the Nature Chemistry Facebook group and the Sceptical Chymist blog. The Nature Chemistry team is on Twitter, and you can keep up with the latest chemistry news from across NPG with the chemistry podcast, ChemPod.

Nature Chemistry will celebrate the launch of its first issue at the American Chemical Society (ACS) spring meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah, this weekend (March 22-26). Copies of the April print issue will be available from the Nature Publishing Group booth (#1508) in the exhibition hall.

Useful Links

Nature Chemistry: http://www.nature.com/naturechemistry Blog: the Sceptical Chymist: http://http://blogs.nature.com/thescepticalchymist/ Podcast: ChemPod: www.nature.com/chemistry/podcast.html Nature Chemistry on Twitter: http://twitter.com/NatureChemistry

Press releases for the first articles published in Nature Chemistry are available at: www.nature.com/nchem/press_releases/index.html

About Nature Publishing Group (NPG): Nature Publishing Group is a division of Macmillan Publishers Ltd, dedicated to serving the academic and professional scientific and medical communities. NPG's flagship title, Nature, was first published in 1869. Other publications include Nature research journals, Nature Reviews and a range of prestigious academic journals including society-owned publications. NPG also provides news content through Nature News. Scientific career information and free job postings are offered on Naturejobs.

NPG is a global company with principal offices in London, New York and Tokyo and offices in Basingstoke, Boston, Buenos Aires, Delhi, Hong Kong, Madrid, Melbourne, Munich, Paris, San Francisco, Seoul and Washington DC. For more information, please go to www.nature.com.

Professor Russ B Altman's bioinformatics blog has cinched the Nature Network Science Blogging Challenge 2008 prize. Graduate student Shirley Wu convinced Professor Altman to start his blog, Building Confidence, (http://rbaltman.wordpress.com/) in response to a call to get a senior scientist blogging.

The Science Blogging Challenge was launched at Nature Network's Science Blogging Conference in London in August 2008. "The ultimate aim is to help scientific blogging gain more momentum and credibility," says Timo Hannay, Publishing Director of Nature.com and one of the Challenge judges. "We hope to inspire senior scientists, like Professor Altman, to blog regularly about their research and views on science."

Russ Altman and Shirley Wu win an invitation to Science Foo Camp 2009 (Sci Foo), the annual invitation-only scientific 'unconference' organized by Nature Publishing Group and O'Reilly and hosted by Google at their headquarters in California. Since Russ and Shirley live nearby, the travel expenses included in their prize will be used to help other deserving individuals, such as attendees from developing countries, to attend Sci Foo '09.

Professor Altman's blog post 'One of my first post-genomic moments' was also selected for Open Lab 08, an anthology of the best scientific blog content of 2008.

Russ Biagio Altman, MD, PhD, is a professor at Stanford University Medical School, where he is chair of the department of Bioengineering and director of the program in Biomedical Informatics. He is a founding member and past president of the International Society for Computational Biology, and has published over 100 journal articles. Shirley Wu is a graduate student in Altman's lab, and has her own blog, I Was Lost But Now I Live Here, at http://shirleywho.wordpress.com/.

Professor Altman calls Shirley Wu his "blogging angel" who is constantly feeding me excellent ideas". While admitting "blogs are hard!" Altman has blogged at least once a month since starting his Building Confidence blog in September 2008. Posts range from why funding science could help the economy, to the ever-decreasing cost of genotyping and what it could mean for working scientists.

The Science Blogging Challenge was judged by Peter Murray-Rust (University of Cambridge, UK), Cameron Neylon (University of Southampton, UK), Richard P Grant (University of Sydney, Australia) and Timo Hannay of Nature Publishing Group Judging criteria included frequency and quality of posts, and the seniority of the scientist. Nature Network's Senior Editor Corie Lok says, "We thank everyone who entered the Science Blogging Challenge. When scientists share their ideas openly in this way, everyone wins."

Nature Network (http://network.nature.com) is Nature Publishing Group's community website to help scientists meet, communicate and collaborate. Nature Network has over 40 active bloggers, who authored 6 of the 50 blog posts selected for Open Lab 08.

For further details of the Science Blogging Challenge see: http://blogs.nature.com/wp/nascent/2008/09/science_blogging_challenge.html.

Nature Education today launches Scitable www.nature.com/scitable), a free, online educational resource for undergraduate biology students and educators. Currently focussed on genetics, Scitable combines authoritative scientific information with social media functionality. Scitable is the first product launch from Nature Education, a division of Nature Publishing Group formed in January 2007 to develop innovative education resources and tools for college science students and educators.

"Research supports the fact that while science students are still using textbooks and library resources for their science classes, they are now depending increasingly on the internet. However, reliability of information is a concern," says Vikram Savkar, publishing director of Nature Education. "Our goal is to provide an authoritative and compelling science resource on the internet for students and faculty anywhere in the world."

Scitable provides students with free online access to more than 180 overviews of key genetics concepts. The overviews are evidence-based and have been vetted by Nature Publishing Group staff. By connecting with other Scitable users via groups, chat functionality and other social media features, students can collaborate online with classmates, or with a wider community of experts, researchers and fellow students.

Scitable is also intended as a teaching tool for faculty. Educators can set up public or private groups for their students, providing reading lists, course-packs of Scitable articles and group discussions. Scitable is flexible and easy to use, and can be incorporated into courseware services such as Blackboard.

Nature Education introduced the Scitable beta site in October 2008 and invited faculty and students to provide feedback. Of 31 faculty who beta-tested Scitable, 97% would recommend it to other teaching faculty and 100% would recommend Scitable as a study resource to students.

"I am looking forward to using Scitable's resources for my genetics class," said Clare O'Connor, Associate Professor of Biology at Boston College. "The articles are written expressly for undergraduates in a way that helps students to understand how our current genetic concepts rest firmly upon experimental evidence. The availability of a large number of articles in different areas of genetics allows instructors to construct instructional paths tailored for their own students."

Scitable currently contains content in the field of genetics, specifically: chromosomes and cytogenetics, evolutionary genetics, gene expression and regulation, gene inheritance and transmission, genes and disease, genetics and society, genomics, nucleic acid structure and function, and population and quantitative genetics. Nature Education plan to expand the service to other subject areas in future.