The Scientist Expands its Horizons

A new year often brings about change. If you are reading this from the print version, you already see a smaller, more convenient, size. With this first issue in a new design and format, we are happy to welcome 25,000 new subscribers in Europe and Canada. We hope you will find The Scientist as enlightening, valuable, and entertaining as the 50,000 US life scientist subscribers have. The start of a new year also prompts people to reflect on what they can do to improve their lives and the lives of others. This kind of thinking, however, began much earlier in 2001. The horrible events of Sept. 11 sent us spiraling into deep thought. How could such things happen, and why? Since then, scientists have been considering more seriously than ever what they do, how they do it, and, particularly, how they communicate with nonscientists. In recent issues of The Scientist, we've reported on this effort in a number of articles, and we continue to do so in this issue. A common theme pervades: Scientists have the ability to change the world. Our cover story by Ricki Lewis sets the stage. Recent studies of single nucleotide polymorphisms, the single-base sequence variants that make one person different from another, provide further evidence of how little genetic variation exists among humans. We're all "virtual identical twins," as Craig Venter puts it. And we all descended from humans that came out of Africa starting about 100,000 years ago, according to both the Lewis story and A.J.S. Rayl's report on the recent annual meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics. The rapidly growing field of genomics that produced these research findings has virtually an unlimited potential to discover ways to treat or cure disease as well, as the technology develops and human knowledge advances on how to interpret the vast amount of data being generated. The scale of biological research has expanded tremendously to meet these challenges. Then again, change can often come from the work of individuals in small labs: As posed by Gregory A. Petsko in "A Piece of the Action", who knows what individual scientists could accomplish if adequate funding was assured during the budding years of their careers? What scientists do and how they do it, however, is often clouded by a lack of understanding by the public and by the mainstream media. As has been suggested in previous issues of The Scientist, and on these pages as well, scientists can and should take an active role in discussing their work with nonscientists. This theme echoes in Steve Bunk's article on prevention research A.J.S. Rayl's feature on the Vega Science Trust, in "Of Scientists, by Scientists, for the People", and in Myrna E. Watanabe's Profession article on how some scientists handle the spotlight. With this issue, we are also pleased to inaugurate our working relationship with Current Science Ltd. and to highlight that organization's innovations in the communication of science. The Faculty of 1000, will become a regular feature in The Scientist, offering a unique community-based assessment of what is important in life science research. Last month we promised changes in The Scientist. We've begun to deliver: a new format, new features, and a sense of where the life sciences fit into today's world. As always, we'd like to hear from readers; E-mail us at editorial@the-scientist.com. Larry Hand(lhand@the-scientist.com) is editorial director. Alexander M. Grimwade (agrimwade@the-scientist.com)is publisher.

The Scientist Expands its Horizons

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