Nature, an open book?

Open Access (OA) to scientific publications is generally considered to be the desirable standard. In particular publications resulting from publicly funded research should not be obstructed by a (pay)wall and should be accessible easily by researchers, cross-disciplinary, by researchers in the private sector, including SME’s, and by the general public. Sharing scientific information widely is clearly beneficial for science itself, for facilitating applications and for involving and informing the public.

The transition to OA publishing is rather straightforward in principle but the practical implementation requires certain obstacles to be overcome. Publishing is a professional activity concerned with standards of quality control and editorial policies that have led to a body of scientific journals that has an important and recognized role in scholarly communication. This, or such a body of qualified scientific journals should be preserved under the transition to OA. Ideally the important publishers should stay on board by adapting their business models.

The highest standard of excellence is implied when reference is made to articles published in ‘Nature or Science’.  Or in a few other similarly highly ranked journals. Nature and Science are not OA journals, but they have a very strong position and researchers are keen to get their results published in them. So, in a sense, ‘Nature and Science’ are an obstacle to reaching the desired OA standard.

Let us look in somewhat more detail at Nature, as an example. Let me stress from the outset: my purpose is not to question the high quality that is attributed to Nature, my purpose is to understand whether it is possible to make it part of the ‘OA world’.

Nature’s Editor in Chief repeated recently, during a panel discussion at the European Science Open Forum conference in Dublin, that Nature has adhered to the same editorial policy ever since its foundation in 1869. Namely: in order to qualify for acceptance by Nature an article should report on new results, present ‘a first’, not reported on before. I do not find this very helpful, because every research article published in the scientific literature should satisfy such criteria. So what makes Nature so unique? What has changed since 1869 is the intensity and diversity of scientific research: the volume of excellent research has increased by orders of magnitude. The role of research has also changed: from a rather esoteric activity of a rather small elite to a societal necessity for competitiveness and sustainability. The number of manuscripts submitted to Nature for publication has increased enormously during its existence and the fraction of manuscripts actually accepted for publication has plummeted dramatically. This fact alone has contributed considerably to Nature’s almost mythical status. It is not Nature’s fault. Nature employs a staff of full time, professional editors, who, helped by reviewers (scientists, ‘peers’ of the authors submitting articles) do the utmost to select the best manuscripts for publication. But how do you define ‘the best’? There is a danger here of getting caught in a tautological illusion. To find clues I invite you to have a look at a number of recent issues of Nature. A first observation is that only about half of the published pages is dedicated to original scientific results (a small fraction of that half to fully fledged articles, the rest to ‘letters’). The remaining half is filled with news, views, advertisements, announcements, recruitment pages. I now ask myself again: how are ‘the best’ scientific articles defined. ‘The best’ for attracting the right audience for ‘the rest’?

Let us return to the scientific articles, 50% of Nature’s business. It remains a problem that the overly prolific submission of manuscripts to Nature puts a very heavy burden on the editorial staff. It comes at a cost that makes a transition to an Open Access business model for Nature prohibitive. At least, that is what Nature says. But why would that be so? The relatively few articles that are published in Nature can easily be paid for once the ‘author pays’ (means: research funding organization pays) model would be generally accepted. It is perfectly possible to maintain the highest scientific quality standards whilst adopting Open Access publishing as the new standard. This is true in general, this is true for Nature. It requires a critical attitude of the scientists, of the research funders and of those ‘measuring’ the quality of research and its practitioners. Nature should follow the scientific community, not the other way around.

(This 'blog' appeared, translated in Dutch and slightly edited, in 'NRC Handelsblad' of July 31, 2012)

Jos Engelen

July 28, 2012

News

Electrons, the ubiquitous constituents of matter, are very interesting objects of study. The electron was the first elementary particle to be discovered (by J.J. Thomson in 1897)  and today it belongs to the rather exclusive group of the fundamental particles of the Standard Model.

In 1927 Paul Dirac discovered the equation that describes the propagation (in space and time) of electrons. This was a great achievement: his equation incorporated Einstein’s theory of relativity and the principles of quantum mechanics (Bohr, Heisenberg, Schrödinger) at the same time. The Dirac equation had a very remarkable feature. It predicted, in fact it required, that if electrons exist, which is obviously the case, also the anti-particle of the electron should exist, but no such particle was known. Initially this was a problem for Dirac but when the positron was discovered (Anderson, 1933) this problem was solved.

The electron and the positron are distinctly different particles as they have opposite charge. Neutrinos are fundamental particles in many respects similar to electrons and positrons, with one distinct difference: they carry no electrical charge, they are neutral. And this opens the possibility that neutrinos and their

anti-particles, the anti-neutrino’s, are in fact the same particles. This possibility was suggested by Majorana (in a publication of 1937).  In somewhat technical terms, Majorana found a representation of the Dirac equation with real (as opposed to complex) wave functions as a solution. For a particle described by a real wave function the distinction between particle and anti-particle vanishes.

Both electrons and neutrinos carry a quantity called ‘spin’, angular momentum. They carry a spin of ½ unit. Such particles are called fermions. (All fundamental constituents of matter are fermions.) Their quantum-mechanical properties are very different from particles with ‘integer’ spin (bosons). This difference is expressed by the Pauli exclusion principle, it leads for example to electron orbits in atoms and explains the structure and stability of matter.

Whether neutrinos are ‘Dirac particles’ or ‘Majorana particles’ is a valid physics question that has not been answered to date. It is experimentally very difficult to answer this question, but experiments are ongoing. If neutrinos are Majorana particles this has profound consequences for our understanding of the nature of fundamental particles as encoded in the Standard Model.

Whether Majorana particles exist or not in nature remains an open question. Apart from neutrinos, so called neutralinos are candidates as well. Neutralinos appear in extensions of the Standard Model (invoking ‘super symmetry’ between fermions and bosons) but whether Supersymmetry is realized in nature is not at all sure. This is one of the questions the Large Hadron Collider at CERN is trying to answer.

Nature News of February 28, 2012 announces:  ‘Quest for quirky quantum particles may have struck gold’ , Evidence for elusive Majorana fermions raises possibilities for quantum computers. The scientific quality of this news article is rather poor. Although it is published by Nature. But it is a news article. Sensational, that sells. The achievement it describes is impressive, however. Leo Kouwenhoven and his group of Delft University have created a setup to demonstrate, for the first time, the existence of quantum states in a nano-device that are mathematically equivalent to Majorana ferminos as described above. Moreover such devices may be used as ‘quantum bits’ of futuristic quantum computers. Leo Kouwenhoven has produced a scientific result that ranks in a rare category: that of breakthroughs. We will hear more from him!

The question whether neutrinos are Majorana particles or Dirac particles continues to need an answer. Elementary particle physicists will have to continue their experiments to find out. The question whether neutralinos are realized in nature: high energy physics experiments will have to tell.

Meanwhile I will find out more about Majorana states in condensed matter and as soon as Kouwenhoven’s results are available in the Open Access literature I will read more about them with great interest!

Jos Engelen
March 2, 2012

Nature's laws lay hid in night...

Onze aarde is lekker warm vanbinnen. De totale warmte die ze afgeeft aan de ruimte bedraagt 44 Terawatt. Alsof 440 miljard ouderwetse gloeilampen van 100 Watt voortdurend branden. Ongeveer 70 van die gloeilampen per persoon op aarde. Continu. Waar komt die warmte vandaan?

Uranium, Thorium, Kalium: elementen die in onze aarde voorkomen, sinds het ontstaan ervan, zijn radioactief. Ze vervallen spontaan in lichtere elementen en daarbij komt warmte vrij. Hoe weten we dat dit gebeurt? Door het te meten. De metingen zijn niet eenvoudig en technisch zijn de onderzoekers die hiermee bezig zijn pas een paar jaar zo ver dat deze metingen ook daadwerkelijk mogelijk zijn. Karakteristiek voor radioactief verval zijn de neutrino's die daarbij vrijkomen.

In Japan staat de KamLAND detector die neutrino’s detecteert. Duizend ton doorzichtige vloeistof, ‘bekeken’ door fotobuizen. De meeste voorbij schietende neutrino’s trekken zich niets van de detector aan, maar een enkel botst met de vloeistof. Daarbij komen karakteristieke lichtsignaaltjes vrij die door de fotobuizen geregistreerd worden. KamLAND is ontworpen voor het bestuderen van ‘neutrino oscillaties’ een verschijnsel dat een heel intrigerende kijk biedt voorbij de grenzen van het Standaard Model van elementaire deeltjes en hun wisselwerkingen. Maar KamLAND is ook bij uitstek geschikt om de ‘geoneutrino’s’ afkomstig van radioactief verval in aardkorst en mantel te meten. Zeer onlangs zijn de resultaten gepubliceerd van metingen die in de periode maart 2002 tot november 2009 gedaan werden. Wie neutrino’s bestudeert moet dus niet uit zijn op ‘quick wins’. Complexe en loeizware detectoren, complexe data-analyse, maar dan: unieke resultaten. Als we de gemeten neutrino-flux terugrekenen naar radioactiviteit in de aarde vinden we dat de helft van de aardwarmte, 22 Terawatt dus, is toe te schrijven aan radioactief verval. Dat is een fenomenaal inzicht: de helft van de aardwarmte verklaard! Aardwarmte die leidt tot aardbevingen en tsunami’s. Maar ook: de helft van de aardwarmte nog niet verklaard. Zou het de ‘restwarmte’ zijn van het ontstaan van de aarde? Om stil van te worden...

Dit nodigt uit tot verder lezen, tot meer willen weten. Het artikel dat hier bedoeld wordt werd gepubliceerd in Nature Geoscience. Online gezet op 17 juli 2011. Online, maar niet zomaar beschikbaar. Twee-en-dertig, 32, dollar moet het kosten. Natuurlijk, publiceren en beschikbaar maken van informatie kost geld. Dus ook als de onderzoeksresultaten met publieke financiering verkregen zijn, moet de toegevoegde waarde van het publiceren betaald worden.

Een veel beter verdienmodel dan dat van Nature zou zijn ‘auteur betaalt’ voor ‘open toegankelijkheid’  (Author pays, Open Access). Een beter model voor de toegankelijkheid van de resultaten, maar niet voor de winstgevendheid van Nature natuurlijk.

Nature staat voor kwaliteit. We willen er allemaal graag in publiceren. In Nature zelf, in Nature Physics, Nature Materials, Nature Nanotechnology, Nature Photonics, Nature Chemistry, Nature Climate Change, Nature Geoscience, Nature Biotechnology, Nature Chemical Biology, Nature Genetics, Nature Immunology, Nature Medicine, Nature Neuroscience, etcetera, etcetera.

Nature publiceert artikelen van hoge kwaliteit, ‘peer review’, de kritische beoordeling door experts staat daar garant voor. Maar Nature verdient ook aan advertenties. Nature publiceert ook ‘editorials’. Nieuws. Gezichtspunten. Nature is tevens een krant en een opinieblad. Het is heel onbevredigend dat het publiceren van wetenschappelijke artikelen gemengd wordt met allerlei andere informatie die, op de een of andere manier geheel ‘onverdiend’ ook status ontleent aan de kwaliteit van de onderzoeksartikelen. Deze wirwar deugt niet, maar als betalende abonnee maken we ons medeschuldig aan het in standhouden ervan.

Er zijn grote verschillen, maar er zijn ook onrustig makende overeenkomsten: de macht van Murdoch en de onaantastbare positie van Nature. Kwaliteitsbewaking en kwaliteitscontrole, daar gaat het om. Transparantie. Objectiviteit. Waken voor belangenverstrengeling. Zodra we als abonnees daar niet meer kritisch op letten bepalen anderen wat goed voor ons is. Als Nature zich blijft richten op het vergroten van zijn imperium vanuit zijn vesting van beslotenheid zal het, vroeger of later, News of the World achterna gaan. News of the World verscheen voor het eerst in 1843, Nature in 1869.