Life moves pretty fast. If you don't look up once in a while you'll miss it." This worn standard of high school yearbooks holds as true for scientists as for the hero of the 1980s movie, Ferris Bueller's Day Off. The glut of journals and papers can turn a small lapse of attention into a permanent state of catch-up for researchers who try to stay abreast of the latest findings in their fields. "Reading tends to fall by the wayside when people get consumed by their own work," says Kathy Lee, postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics at Cornell University.
To scale these mountains of information, scientists still meet in journal clubs to discuss hot papers in their fields. But these clubs are generally viewed in the same light as a trip to the dentist: No one doubts the inherent benefits, but many still don't want ...
