2020 NAS Award for Scientific Reviewing – Call for Nominations in the Social Sciences

Annual Reviews is pleased to sponsor the 2020 National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Award for Scientific Reviewing presented in the Social Sciences.

The NAS Award for Scientific Reviewing has been presented annually since 1979 to recognize authors, whose reviews have synthesized extensive and difficult material, rendering a significant service to science and influencing the course of scientific thought. The field rotates among biological, physical, and social sciences.

The NAS Award for Scientific Reviewing was established in 1977 by the gift of Annual Reviews and the Institute for Scientific Information in honor of J. Murray Luck (our founder). The award is currently sponsored entirely by Annual Reviews.

The 2020 award recognizes authors who, through their conceptual consideration and review of the field, have both rendered a significant service to science and had a profound influence on the course of scientific thought.

To nominate a review author in the field of the Social Sciences, you must submit your application by October 7tht, 2019.

Annual Reviews is a nonprofit publisher dedicated to synthesizing and integrating knowledge for the progress of science and the benefit of society.

The NAS is a private, nonprofit society of distinguished scholars. Established by an Act of Congress, signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863, the NAS is charged with providing independent, objective advice to the nation on matters related to science and technology. The NAS is committed to furthering science in America, and its members are active contributors to the international scientific community.

Photographing a Black Hole

Using the EHT, scientists obtained an image of the black hole at the center of galaxy M87, outlined by emission from hot gas swirling around it under the influence of strong gravity near its event horizon.
Credit: Event Horizon Telescope collaboration et al.

A team of astronomers published the first photograph of a black hole. The “monster,” as they’ve called it, is 40 million kilometers across (about 3 million times the size of Earth), located at the center of a galaxy known as Messier 87, about 500 million trillion kilometers away.

The image was captured by a network of eight telescopes named Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), and assembled with an algorithm developed by young computer scientist Katie Bouman.

Dr. Eliot Quataert is the Director of the Theoretical Astrophysics Center at UC Berkeley and an Editorial Committee Member of the Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophyics. His research focuses in part on black holes and galaxy formation. He spoke to Annual Reviews about this breakthrough.

What do you make of this announcement?

This is an incredibly exciting result. I was expecting something good but was even more amazed and impressed by the results than I had expected to be. It really is a testament to the hard work of hundreds of people over decades that we have been able to take this first real picture of what it looks like close to a black hole.

What new paths for research do you expect this will open?

The observations will continue to get better as the technology improves and new telescopes are added across the Earth, and maybe even in space. This will enable even better pictures of what the gas looks like close to a black hole. Over time, I think this will allow us to develop a better understanding of what is happening not only near the black holes that EHT can observe, but of all black holes across the Universe. This will impact a huge range of problems in astrophysics, from our understanding of how galaxies form and are affected by black holes to our understanding of the warped strong gravity very close to the event horizon of a black hole.

What articles can you recommend for readers who want to learn more about black hole research?

An older one, but famous, is “Black Hole Models for Active Galactic Nuclei,” by Martin J. Rees, in the 1984 Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics.

Two recent ones on the role of black holes in galaxy formation are “The Coevolution of Galaxies and Supermassive Black Holes: Insights from Surveys of the Contemporary Universe,” by Timothy Heckman and Philip Best, and “Coevolution (Or Not) of Supermassive Black Holes and Host Galaxies,” by John Kormendy and Luis Ho, respectively in the 2014 and the 2013 volumes of the same journal.

We’ve made all three of these articles freely available for 30 days.

A docent tour of Annual Reviews

Welcome Richard Gallagher, President and Editor-In-Chief of nonprofit publisher Annual Reviews, to our news blog. In the coming months Richard, an immunologist, science editor, and publisher, will contribute occasional posts from a personal and professional perspective here and in Annual Reviews’ Twitter stream (tweets signed RG).

On a recent visit to Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco, I spent a fascinating hour being guided around a collection of nineteenth- and twentieth-century garments from diverse Jewish communities by a docent (volunteer guide). She brought to life an exhibit that I would otherwise, in my ignorance, have breezed through in minutes.

It got me thinking that a docent tour of some personal favorites of Annual Reviews articles published in 2018 might be of interest. All articles described are freely available to read through the end of February, 2019. I’d be delighted to have suggestions for articles to include in future guides (simply leave a comment on this post or tweet us @AnnualReviews).

Let’s start with a brief article on “Science as a Culinary Art” from the Annual Review of Biomedical Data Science. It presents a vision for transforming medicine based on sharing the responsibility for collecting data and testing ideas among, essentially, everyone. Author Nicholas Tatonetti of Columbia University, New York, likens the process to cooking. “Today alone,” he writes, “billions will form hypotheses about the right combination of spices, temperatures, and wine pairings. Each of these hypotheses will be tested, evaluated for their success, and accepted or rejected, ultimately contributing to the body of human culinary knowledge.” Why can’t the same be done for biomedical research, he asks, with Big Data as the ingredients? It’s a clear and optimistic idea.  

One group that is already contributing a lot of data to the pursuit of health and well-being is people age 100 years and over, the centenarians. A century ago, life expectancy was 50-55 years. Today, in developed countries, it’s up to 87 years for women and 84 for men, and there are some 434,000 100-year-olds alive right now. I suspect that most of us would sign up for a substantial life extension if we knew we’d be healthy enough to enjoy it, so the factors that impact longevity, covered in this Annual Review of Nutrition article on Nutrition and Inflammation by three researchers from Bologna, Italy, are of more than passing interest. I was surprised (read dismayed) to find that regular timing of meals is critical, in part due to effects on the gut microbiome and on sleeping patterns.

Annual Review of Cancer Biology, Circadian Clock’s Cancer Connections.

The importance of maintaining circadian rhythms isn’t just a key characteristic of healthy aging and longevity; another great review in the Annual Review of Cancer Biology, Circadian Clock’s Cancer Connections, traces the link between circadian dysfunction and cancer risk. If your lifestyle is anything like mine, that is, unregulated eating and sleeping patterns and a lot of travel across time zones, a rethink may be required! I wonder when circadian rhythm gurus will start to appear on YouTube – if they haven’t already.

Annual Review of Anthropology, Industrial Meat Production.

Substantially reducing meat consumption was a personal change I made in 2018 that may provide some positive health impact. My decision was made primarily on environmental grounds, but reading an anthropologist’s take on corporate animal agribusiness (Industrial Meat Production in the Annual Review of Anthropology), offers additional reasons. Some of the statistics quoted by Alex Blanchette (Tufts University, Massachusetts) are grimly impressive, including the fact that “[b]etween 1935 and 1995, the time it took to raise a mature chicken decreased by some 60%, and yet the average size of each grown bird swelled by a stunning 65%.” Other facts, such as the existence of packinghouses where 20,000 pigs are killed every day, are simply grim. I challenge you not to find the “deanimalization” of meat to be grotesque. 

Annual Review of Criminology, Gun Markets.

This article on Gun Markets from the Annual Review of Criminology addresses an even greater social ill, gun violence. While the article is focused on the transactions that arm criminals and the sources of their weapons, it also provides an overview of guns in the United States. “Increasingly, people buy guns not to shoot animals or targets but rather to prepare for a time when they might need to shoot or at least threaten another person,” Philip Cook (Duke University, North Carolina) writes. “Half of gun owners say that self-protection is the reason or primary reason they own a gun.” That’s before he turns his attention to criminal use! Cook describes the underground gun market as “thin and balkanized,” depending on personal connections. Depressingly, after assessing regulation changes to impact this market, the best that he can say is that “[t]here is enough evidence of regulatory effectiveness to rule out the extreme version of the futility argument.” Hmm. Meanwhile, in 2018 there were 35 murders within 5 miles of my house, of which 30 were shootings. As an immigrant here in the United States, I find it unfathomable that we are prepared to live (and die) with the current legal, and consequent illegal, gun cultures.

Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics, Mycofluidics.

And now for something completely different: mycofluidics, which (of course!) is microfluidics in fungi. Cells are the building block of all forms of life. You can think of them as enormously complex over-stuffed bags of chemistry and biochemistry. There must be rules that bring order, direction, and intent to the chaos, and this enthralling article from the Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics (Mycofluidics) describes one such set of rules: the fluid mechanics and engineering that underlie the growth and dispersal of fungi. For example, Marcus Roper (UCLA, California) and Agnese Seminara (Institut de Physique de Nice, France) describe four different approaches by which fungi can relocate by using explosive movement – remember, fungi lack limbs, fins, or wings – that are quite extraordinary. The illustrations are excellent and their writing is wonderfully descriptive; for example, “The unfurling of a mushroom is a feat of reverse origami.”

Another mind-expanding article covers our new-found ability to explore evolution through the analysis of ancient biomolecules. In Ancient Biomolecules and Evolutionary Inference from the Annual Review of Biochemistry, a distinguished group of European experts describe the preservation of ancient DNA, proteins, and lipids; how they are extracted and analyzed; and the unique processes developed for their sequencing and analysis. The second half of the article sheds new light on everything from the origins of early life forms to the domestication of plants and animals. Analyzing ancient biomolecules “profoundly deepened our understanding of the origin of early life forms, adaptation and extinction processes, and past migrations and admixtures that gave rise to present-day biological diversity, including in our own species,” the authors say. And this is just the beginning; their extensive “Future Directions” section points to even more profound insights to come.

As a keen-but-crummy chess player, I took some pleasure in reading that championship chess, attained by only the most gifted minds, is actually easier than moving the pieces. Dubious? In Toward Robotic Manipulation from the Annual Review of Control, Robotics, and Autonomous Systems, Matthew Mason (Carnegie Mellon University, Pennsylvania) explains that while there are world-champion-level chess computers, they “still need human beings to do the actual moving of the chess pieces.” Manipulation of objects (control of the environment through selective contact) is a routine but extraordinary talent that animals in general, and especially humans, excel at, but that presents an array of challenges to robots. Mason contrasts animals’ manipulative breadth, robustness, and adaptability on the one hand, with specialization and performance advantages on the other gripper. He describes how machine learning will improve robotic manipulation, but it will be a while before a robot team competes in baseball’s World Series. 

Science is a pursuit of excellence that has parallels in art, athletics, cooking, and even comedy. But, while we have ready access to the deepest thoughts and the daily doings of rock stars, football players, chefs, and funnymen, similar treatment of researchers is rare; unfortunately so, because it could help reduce the gap between science and mainstream culture. Many of the Annual Reviews journals do include autobiographical profiles, which present scientists as, well, real people. A case in point is Fred Ausubel’s Tracing My Roots: How I Became a Plant Biologist from the Annual Review of Genetics. Ausubel’s early earnestness, influenced by C.S. Lewis and Zhou Enlai; curiosity; collegiality; and, ultimately, flexibility on what he wanted to study shine through in this description of evolving research on plant-microbe interactions over a 20-year period between the mid-1960s and mid-1980s.

I hope you’ll dip in to some of these articles. None of them are a quick, relaxing read, but they’ll leave you with the natural high that a little insight provides and a positive feeling about humankind’s abilities to explore our external and internal worlds.

Annual Reviews is a nonprofit publisher dedicated to synthesizing and integrating knowledge for the progress of science and the benefit of society.

Annual Reviews of Astronomy and Astrophysics Co-Editor Ewine van Dishoeck Wins Kavli Prize, NAS Medal

Screen Shot 2018-06-04 at 11.13.24.pngCongratulations to Ewine van Dishoeck, of Leiden University, who won the 2018 Kavli Prize in Astrophysics and the National Academy of Science James Craig Watson Medal.

The Co-Editor of the Annual Review of Astrophysics received the Kavli Prize “for her combined contributions to observational, theoretical, and laboratory astrochemistry, elucidating the life cycle of interstellar clouds and the formation of stars and planets.”

The James Craig Watson Medal was awarded to her “for improving our understanding of how molecules, stars, and planets form.”

Dr. van Dishoeck has co-edited the journal with Sandra Faber since 2010. You can find her articles about planet, star, and molecule formation here.

Professor Karen S. Cook elected as new Chair of the Annual Reviews Board of Directors

Karen S. Cook, the Ray Lyman Wilbur Professor of Sociology; Director of the Institute for Research in the Social Sciences; Vice-Provost for Faculty Development and Diversity at Stanford University; and Class V Secretary, National Academy of Sciences, has been unanimously elected to the role of Chair of the Board at Annual Reviews, effective June 1, 2018.

Dr. Cook has served as Co-Editor of the Annual Review of Sociology since 1998, and as Vice-Chair of the Annual Reviews Board of Directors since 2010, a position also held by Dr. Sandra M. Faber, Professor and Astronomer, University of California, Santa Cruz. Dr. Cook conducts research on social interaction, social networks, social exchange, and trust. She has authored and co-authored numerous reviews and papers, as well as edited a number of books in the Russell Sage Foundation Trust Series.

She succeeds Professor Richard N. Zare, the Marguerite Blake Wilbur Professor in Natural Science, Department of Chemistry, Stanford University, who has led the Board for 23 years, from 1995 to 2018. Professor Zare also served as the Co-Editor of the Annual Review of Analytical Chemistry from 2006 to 2010. He has co-authored numerous reviews, including two autobiographies. Professor Zare is renowned for his research in the area of laser chemistry, which has led to numerous awards and honors.

During his tenure, in partnership with Dr. Samuel Gubins, President and Editor-in-Chief Emeritus of Annual Reviews (1995 to 2015), Professor Zare expanded Annual Reviews to many fields while maintaining the highest standards. Annual Reviews continues to be a unique and impactful publisher as a result of his guidance and leadership.

Dr. Richard Gallagher, President and Editor-in-Chief of Annual Reviews, said,

“Passing the baton from Dick to Karen offers a seamless progression of leadership for our Board. Dick’s long-lasting passion for and contributions to our mission—to synthesize scientific knowledge so that investigators can plan new and impactful research directions—will continue through a new lecture series named in his honor and his ongoing participation in the Board. The role of Board Chair is now in another pair of excellent hands. On behalf of the Board, Editorial Committees, and staff of Annual Reviews, I congratulate Karen and look forward to continuing our working relationship for many years to come.” 

Annual Reviews is a nonprofit publisher dedicated to synthesizing and integrating knowledge to stimulate the progress of science and benefit society. For more than 85 years, Annual Reviews has offered expert review journals which today span 50 titles across the biomedical, life, physical, and social sciences.  Annual Reviews launched Knowable Magazine in 2017, an open access digital magazine to explore the real-world significance of this highly cited scholarship and make it accessible to broad audiences.

 

 

The Annual Review of Public Health is now freely available to read, reuse, and share.

We are pleased to announce that the 2017 volume of the Annual Review of Public Health, online today, is published open access under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) license. This influential content is now freely available to read, reuse, and share. Additionally, all 37 back volumes (1980-2016) are now free to read. Support for this initiative to increase openness and transparency in research is provided by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

“Thanks to the generous support of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the public health community will now be able to freely access expert reviews which critically summarize what is known about the most important health problems affecting our populations and gain insight into what can be done to improve collective outcomes,” said the journal’s Editor, Dr. Jonathan Fielding, Distinguished Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, in the Fielding School of Public Health and the Geffen School of Medicine.

He added, “All Annual Review of Public Health articles summarize research findings, draw together and integrate strands of knowledge, assess practical applications, and point to unanswered questions. Expanding the availability of these articles and increasing the dissemination of the actionable information they contain has the potential to accelerate research and the speed at which new findings are assessed and implemented.

The Foundation’s support for the Annual Review of Public Health covers the costs of open access for one year, plus the exploration of sustainable funding mechanisms for future years.

“The opportunity to work with Annual Reviews is an exciting one for the Foundation. Reviews are important contributions to the evidence base for a Culture of Health and it’s important that they reach the widest audience possible,” said Dr. Brian Quinn, Associate Vice President for Research-Evaluation-Learning at the Foundation.

The focus of the open access movement to date has been on primary research papers and data sets; the public benefit of converting high-quality review journals to sustainable open access has yet to be assessed.

“I am confident that converting to open access will significantly benefit readers and researchers in the field of public health and beyond,” said President and Editor-in-Chief of Annual Reviews, Richard Gallagher. “We track downloads, citations, and altmetrics article by article, so we will be able to compare data before and after the switch to open access.”

Annual Reviews is establishing a collective fund to support the publication costs for the journal to sustain long-term open access. Customers who have paid a 2017 subscription for this journal will be asked permission to assign this payment to the collective fund. Our team will be in touch with current online subscribers to discuss this and other options available for those who do not wish to participate which include receiving a credit towards their 2018 subscriptions, selecting another 2017 Annual Review volume or receiving a full refund.

About the Annual Review of Public Health: The Annual Review of Public Health, in publication since 1980, covers significant developments in the field of public health, including key developments in epidemiology and biostatistics, environmental and occupational health, issues related to social environment and behavior, health services, and public health practice and policy. For further information about this post please email us.