Nature paper! I AM NOW A BIG DEAL. - by Vivian
faetal on 25/4/2013 at 10:30
Yeah, but don't they only get published in really low-grade journals?
I've not heard of any routine back-handers going on to get into reputable journals. But then I am only 3.5 years onto my postgraduate career, so I may be naive.
[EDIT] One thing I really love about
(http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12492603) THIS PAPER is the sheer exasperated tone of the title. For me, the sub-text is basically "right, enough - shut up already". (sorry to de-rail your thread Vivian)
[EDIT 2] Journals do definitely charge for printing. One of my supervisors had to pay £600 to publish in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology because there were a lot of colour images.
Muzman on 25/4/2013 at 10:43
(well you've got to keep studying this until proponents get the answer they want. So systematic review of the systematic review of the systematic review will be along shortly)
Yeah, but the thing is that no one knows what a reputable journal is. (some) academics might, but the public and journalists and politicians haven't a clue often enough. So we're going to be hearing about scientists publishing in peer reviewed journals that nanothermite explosive was found at ground zero for a while (instead of BS artists maybe finding aluminium in dirt of dubious origin and publishing in some rag who also publishes Time Cube-esque stuff on a regular basis and the peer review is whether or not the cheque clears).
It's a growth industry.
jay pettitt on 25/4/2013 at 10:46
Jay remembers that the point of scientific publishing first and foremost is to put your research under the noses of other experts so they can benefit from or critique your efforts, not so you can put an 'as seen on TV' sticker on your new hair restorative compound.
A journal's impact score ~ a measure of how well read it is ~ matters.
Vivian on 25/4/2013 at 16:26
@Al - basically, what we found was that the size of the forelimbs (which in dinosaurs were for prey/food manipulation and then for flight) affects the way the hindlimbs (which were for walking, running jumping etc) work. This is because the functioning of the hindlimbs is very strongly affected by the position of the whole-body centre of mass (AKA centre of gravity, which can be thought of as the balance point of the animal, and so will obviously affect how the limbs function to move the animal forwards and keep it balanced, etc), and the position of the whole-body centre of mass is strongly affected by the size of the forearms. That is interesting because it shows that the evolution of forelimb-powered flight and the evolution of hindlimb-powered running/walking are not independent.
One of the more interesting questions in natural history is, IMO, why so many dinosaurs were bipeds, when hardly any mammals are, and why the modern dinosaur version of walking around on two legs is so different to the way we do it. So our work suggests that one aspect of that difference - the very crouched postures employed by birds - may be due to their greatly enlarged forelimbs for flight. Which seems bloody obvious when you look at it. But we put some actual numbers on it. Boom.
Hewer on 25/4/2013 at 17:02
Awesome- Congratulations!
I was reading this the other day: (
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/04/24/crouching-bird-hidden-dinosaur/)
and when I came across this quote: “This paper means a lot to me because of that perseverance,” says Hutchinson. “I’m happy Viv stuck with it and believed it could be done, when many colleagues, even in our own lab, would scoff at the audacity!” you crossed my mind, but I just thought "What are the chances?" and kept reading.
Happy to hear that it was you.
Tannar on 25/4/2013 at 18:22
Congratulations! Getting published in Nature is huge! Well done!
pavlovscat on 25/4/2013 at 18:30
Congrats! Fascinating article. Oh for a time machine so we could go back & see them with our own eyes!
Shayde on 26/4/2013 at 06:11
Woah, impressive stuff!
Also, Scots won the thread.
Mr.Duck on 26/4/2013 at 09:09
That'll do, Viv. That'll do. :)
Cheers!
Chade on 27/4/2013 at 11:03
Wow, congratulations, Vivian. :)
Getting published in TTLG counts too, right?
