“If you were stranded on a desert island,” as the proverbial question goes, “which 10 books would you want to have with you?” The Scientist recently asked itself this question, but with a twist: “Which 10 journals publishing orig nal research reports would a cast-away life scientist wish to have regularly air-dropped to his or her island?” Certainly, the answer depends on the individual scientist, but one method of pursuing a general answer might be to ide

Last issue’s Special Report focused on the research institutions and nations that contributed in greatest measure to the 100 life sciences articles that have been listed during the past year in The Scientist’s ‘Hot Papers” column (See “Life Sciences 100, 1987-1988. Pt. 1: Surveying the Players,” The Scientist, May 1, 1989, page 12). These 100 research reports, originally published in 1987 and 1988, were identified as hot because they were so frequently cited

About one in five of the 100 life sciences articles listed in the past year in The Scientist’s “Hot Papers” column was written by scientists at just three research institutions— Harvard University, Stanford University, and the Salk Insitute in San Diego. These three produced about 22% of this corpus of strong citation getters in the life sciences, papers that were originally published from early 1987 to late 1988 and that within their first year after publication, rece

Recent enactment of the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement has been touted by proponents as a move toward cooperation between the two nations that is without precedent. But on the science front, at least, strong collaboration is hardly a new phenomenon. Indeed, it has been dramatically on the rise throughout this decade. Since 1980, scientific cooperation, as reflected in scientific papers written jointly by Canadian and U.S. scientists, has risen sharply. Canadians have increased by a third,

In the preface to The Double Helix, James Watson wrote of his intuition that DNA's structure would be "simple as well as pretty." While the double-helical molecule turned out to be elegant indeed, its structure poses complex problems. For example, how does DNA undergo replication - which involves unraveling and supercoiling - without tying itself into a mass of knots and tangles? The solution to DNA's topological problems comes in the form of enzymes called topoisomerases that serve as "swivel

U.K. produces more papers than any other European nation, but articles from Switzerland carry more clout For centuries, the nations of Europe have been competing fiercely with one another. They have fought long and bitter battles over mere slivers of land. They have clashed repeatedly in pursuit of new markets. Fortunately, outright warfare over land and markets is largely a thing of the past. But there is one realm in which the competition, although more civilized, is still hotly contested

Last time we looked at a list of a single year’s most-cited papers (The Scientist, June 27, 1988, page 19), the top 10 represented genetics, biochemistry, immunology, superconductivity, theoretical physics, and clinical medicine—and they were published in a variety of journals. That was for the year 1986. For the year 1987, however, one field and one journal dominated the top 10: Superconductivity and Physical Review Letters. The accompanying table lists the papers published in 19

ics The observation that “there’s more to surgery than just a skilled pair of hands” is more accurate now than ever before, given the steady stream of research advances in medical science. Indeed, today’s surgery increasingly requires practitioners to keep abreast of countless scientific developments ranging from new drug therapies used in conjunction with a procedure to new applications of high-tech instruments. Some of these innovative therapies and techniques turned

The number of years that a physicist or chemist waits between the completion of breakthrough research and recognition for that work by the Nobel Committee has been averaging about a dozen years since 1945. This year’s physics prize, however, was awarded for an experiment performed some 26 years ago, while the chemistry prize came for discoveries attained rather recently—between 1982 and 1985. The physics prize was jointly awarded to three Americans: Leon M. Lederman, 66, Fermi N

The names James Black, Gertrude Elion, and George Hitchings probably didn’t ring any bells for the general public when this year’s Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine was announced. But among the scientific community this trio of pioneering pharmacologists is widely recognized. In fact, for decades now scientists have been paying their own kind of tribute to Black, Elion, and Hitchings by consistently citing their papers—and at levels far above average. Sir James W Black,

Growth factors—hormone-like, biologically active polypeptides that control cell growth and differentiation—have become one of the most actively investigated areas of the life sciences in the 1980s. “They offer great potential,” says researcher Richard A. Roth of the Stanford University School of Medicine, “both for wound healing and for better understanding of unregulated growth of cancers.” The increasing interest in growth factors is reflected by the numbe

Traditional high-tech industry rivals IBM and AT&T compete in many spheres—from selling personal computers to garnering Nobel Prizes. But an area of particular fascination for scientists is their ongoing competition in basic and applied research. In 1987, the two titans again went head-to-head. They both, for example, went all out in pursuing high-temperature superconducting ceramic oxides and new technology leading to improved semiconductors. But there were significant differ- ences in