Science is an academic magazine published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). 1880, new york journalist John Michael founded Science magazine, which was successively funded by Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell. Since then, due to financial difficulties, Science was closed on March 1882. A year later, Samuel H. Scudder, an entomologist, revived it and achieved some success. However, in 1894, science fell into financial crisis again and was subsequently transferred to psychologist James McCann Cutler for $500. 1900, Cattell reached an agreement with Leland O. Howard, secretary of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and Science became the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. 1944 After the death of Cattell, AAAS became the new owner of science. This magazine mainly publishes the latest scientific research results. At the same time, Science also publishes news about science, views on science and technology policies and things that scientists are interested in. Science publishes original papers in various disciplines. At present, Science is one of the most authoritative academic magazines in the world, and its main competitor is Nature published in Britain. Science magazine, like Nature, is also a weekly magazine, and its academic level and manuscript quality are equivalent to that of Nature. The difference is that Science does not have a series of sub-periodicals, and there is no periodical that regularly publishes reviews like Nature. Because of this, the influence of Science magazine is not as good as that of Nature magazine.
In the field of life science, Cell is another peer-reviewed scientific journal, which mainly publishes the latest research results in the field of experimental biology. Cell is a journal with high academic reputation, which has published many important research progress in life science. Like Nature and Science, it is one of the most authoritative academic magazines in the world. Judging from its influencing factors alone, it has always been higher than nature and science, which shows that its articles are widely cited.
Cell is published by Cell Press under Elsevier Publishing Company. Cell magazine is mainly based in Boston, an academic town in the eastern United States, backed by life scientists from Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Benjamin Lewin, the former editor-in-chief of Cell magazine, not only led the most important magazine in biology, but also personally edited the textbook Gene, which was widely praised after publication and was listed as the first choice textbook for biogenetics by European and American universities. Mr. Levin's knowledge has also been updated quickly. This book is reprinted almost every two years, and now it has been published in the eighth edition. Professor Watson, the discoverer of DNA double helix, also wrote a book Molecular Biology of Genes, but it was not as popular as Mr. Levin's book. Cell magazine also has many sub-journals, such as cancer cells, stem cells, immunity, neurons and molecular cells, which are all heavyweight journals in life science. Together with a large number of other publications owned by Elsevier Publishing Company, Elsevier Publishing Company is also a publishing company that can make a difference in the field of life science literature.
My personal feeling about these three magazines is that scientists all over the world are a little more interested in nature, and naturally they are more friendly to contributions from developing countries. Editors will revise and improve contributions from English-speaking countries in English. The editorial principle is that science comes first and language comes second. Nature has a wide coverage and should be the leader. Science magazine may always keep its own style, that is, it will compete with Nature on the academic level, but there is no sign of expansion.
Science is the opponent of nature. Together with nature, it leads and reports the progress and development of human science and technology. For example, after the most expensive human gene sequencing in human history was completed, Nature published the results of human gene evaluation led by Dr. Landers. Science, on the other hand, published the sequencing results of human genes in the industry led by Dr. Venter, which is a fly with me, showing the leading position of English in the world scientific community. Cell magazine is unique in the field of life science. Different from the breakthrough and progress of scientific research in the form of short reports in Nature and Science, each article in Cell requires a long story, and the article must describe a complete research process and results. The total number of articles in each issue of Cell generally does not exceed 15. In addition, Cell, as its name implies, focuses on the means and methods of cell biology and molecular biology, relatively speaking, less on molecular genetics, population genetics and chemical biology.
These three kinds of DJ academic journals are not only compulsory journals of universities and research institutes, but also many professors and researchers in European and American universities subscribe to these journals themselves, among which the scientific individual subscription price is 140 USD, and the natural individual subscription price is 199 USD a year. Like many other magazines, the practice of European and American magazines is that the fees paid by subscribers are only vouchers. Magazines mainly rely on advertising fees brought by fame and circulation to make a living. The more famous the magazine, the greater the circulation, and the easier it is to survive. However, publishing companies like Elsevier, which have many magazines, often show strong file-breaking behavior. Once upon a time, the subscription fees of schools and research institutes of the New England School Cell magazine, represented by Harvard Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston (often the subscription fees of libraries, and all teachers and students can download articles) were so expensive that even public universities in the United States found it unbearable. Dozens of public universities, led by the University of Michigan, went on strike to express their dissatisfaction. The struggle between the two sides made the bullish Cell magazine lower its posture to accept the manuscripts of scientists from developing countries, and China also had the memorabilia of returning to Cell magazine every 20 years!
The monopolistic behavior and expensive subscription fees of these awesome DJs have also caused some scientists' troubles. Finally, someone came forward, determined to create a truly free life science magazine. Plos (Public Library of Science) is the product of this birth. It is completely open and can be read and printed freely! Only the publication fee is charged. What a perfect idea! I remember a few years ago, when I was a doctoral student at the University of California, San Francisco, I gave a lecture one day about Plos magazine. The theme is to introduce a brand-new magazine Plos- Science Magazine. At that time, there were not many people attending lectures, which were really few compared with general academic lectures. The host introduced the opening remarks-the speaker is also an excellent scientific and technological worker. She published seven papers during her postdoctoral period. Articles include Nature, Gene Development, JBC, Molecular Cell, etc. Later, she joined the editing industry of Nature magazine. She said that when she was an editor, she felt that many universities in developing countries could not subscribe to the magazines of the whole natural family. Because of the high manuscript fee, some excellent manuscripts were not sent to DJ publications like Nature. This situation is also known by Dr. He, former president of the National Institutes of Health, Nobel Prize winner and professor of biochemistry at Stanford University. Dr. Patrick O. Brown, one of the founders of gene chip technology, and Dr. Michael B. Eisen, a professor of genetics at the University of California, Berkeley, initiated the establishment of a scientific magazine belonging to the public, a truly free magazine! In this way, Plos was finally born in June 2000. If you can take a closer look at the core principle of Plos magazine, you will understand that it is a 100% popular science book magazine! For developing countries, Plos gives the most selfless preferential policies:
Fortunately, Plos magazine has become a very influential publication after Nature, Science and Cell, and has become a big family with Plos-one and Plos biology, medicine, genetics, computational biology, etiology and tropical medicine. Although PNAS and some magazines are also free, they are not as cited and influential as the Public Library of Science.
The success and contribution of Plos magazine tells us once again that there must be a system to develop science and technology, from the establishment and management of scientific research funds to the establishment of world-class universities and research institutes, especially the last link-the platform and media for publishing scientific and technological achievements-science and technology magazine, everything is extremely important! Behind China is a large number of scientific and technological talents, with a huge overseas talent pool of western education and a rapidly developing economy. It is only a matter of time before China becomes a world power in science and technology. If you want to avoid detours on this issue, you can achieve this goal as soon as possible. It is essential and absolutely necessary to establish a successful sci-tech magazine like Nature or Public Library of Science.