Interview: Brian Beatty, on PalArch (Part 2)

This two-part series (part 1 is here) focuses on the open access journal, PalArch's Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. We're talking with its managing editor, Brian Beatty (who also blogs at The Aquatic Amniote).

As a managing editor, what sort of things do you do?
As a small outfit with relatively few submissions, I find I spend most of my time requesting suggestions for reviewers from the editorial board, asking reviewers to review papers directly, and passing manuscripts and revisions back and forth between the authors and reviewers. I consider myself lucky to be able to learn so much from these contributions and from the editing and review process itself, though I must admit that it saddens me to think that there are probably plenty of people that think poorly of me because I've had to request revisions, or even reject their papers. I try to be gentle and constructive, as that's my only intention, but it never seems to be enough. I also try to be fast, even though I am a full-time professor and researcher, as well as a father of two young children, which also rarely seems to satisfy anyone. I don't mean to whine, especially because I understand why authors want things to move quickly (I do and feel the same way for my own papers).

So, ultimately, as managing editor I basically have to deal with running the whole review process, even though I have help from the editorial board. Andre Veldmeijer and Ilja Nieuwland are tremendously helpful and talented with copyediting, formatting, and reviewing, and none of this would be possible without them. That isn't to suggest that is all they do, and their roles in the board of PalArch and as editors themselves is integral to the function of the journals published by the PalArch Foundation. Recently my father passed away, and Andre and Ilja were there to back me up and shoulder some of the burden while I was otherwise occupied, and they are as much a part of of making this journal function as I am. Andre started the whole thing, and if it were not for him, the Foundation and journals would never have been possible.

Are there any "myths" about your journal that you'd like to see "busted"?
I don't know of any myths about the journal, and if you do I'd love to hear them. The only thing that comes to mind is that some people might think we have lower standards because we don't have name recognition and that we welcome topics that are not popular. Any idea about our standards being low are misguided by the perception that other journals have maintained, that by rejecting papers they are proving their importance and high standards. What goes on too often is that popularity (or shock value) often wins over good science in other journals. One can see that in the way that papers are often worded so as to convey that there is a controversy, and that their work proves some alternative viewpoint. That may be a popular way to write things up, sensationalizing science, but I like to think that PalArch's priority is publishing good science, even that which only confirms other people's work, even papers where the statistics indicate that the results are insignificant or that the controversy is not needed.

The fact is, if the science is good, then that's all that is needed. I hate to say this, because it sounds like the same way other journal brag, but we have a fairly high rejection rate. I think that's just because some people think of PalArch as the last resort, but I hope that will change. This rate isn't the result of the same cause for rejection I have witnessed for my own papers, as well as those of others, but because PalArch simply cannot save every paper from being fundamentally flawed in their structure, data, or writing. Many of the papers we have in review take longer because we actively try to help the authors improve them, but some people refuse to edit their papers and take constructive reviews seriously, but EVERY paper is sent out for review, and EVERY review is intended to be constructive and have an aim of helping the author get the paper to a publishable state. I would love it if every submission started out that way, then publication would occur more quickly, but that is rarely the case. I find it worthwhile helping authors get it there, though I fear I may be too idealistic in thinking that everyone's goals are to patiently publish strong science.

Thank you, Brian, for sharing your thoughts!

Interview: Brian Beatty, on PalArch (Part 1)

Regular readers of this blog probably know that I'm a big proponent of open access publishing. Today, I wanted to highlight another open access journal, PalArch's Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. So, I contacted its managing editor, Brian Beatty, for more details. In addition to his editorial and academic duties, Brian blogs over at The Aquatic Amniote (and, coincidentally or not, most of his research involves. . .aquatic amniotes!).

How did you get involved with PalArch?
Back in late 2004 I saw a message on the VRTPALEO listserver from Andre Veldmeijer, asking for volunteers for the editorial board of this new journal based in the Netherlands. I was a PhD student at KU at the time, and though I had a lot on my plate, I was eager to learn about editing and peer review, and contacted Andre. I only had a single peer-reviewed publication to my name then, but had lots of projects in progress, had just finished my MS at Howard University with Daryl Domning, and was eager to be done with being a student and wanted to just focus on getting work done. My undergrad advisor at the FLMNH, Dave Webb, always spoke about how peer review was perhaps more beneficial to the reviewer than the author, always keeping one up to date, and so when the opportunity to get involved on an editorial board came up, I jumped at it.

Ironically, when I introduced myself to Andre, I gave him some background, including mention of my recent advisor, Daryl Domning. Andre specializes in the archaeology of ancient Egypt, particularly the leatherwork and rope, and Daryl was one of the few other people that had dabbled in writing scientific papers describing unique knots that ancient Egyptians used. Andre excitedly asked me, "Do you mean, THE Daryl Domning?", and when I finally understood why he found that interesting, we had a laugh at the improbability of it.

Since then, I've tried my best to be a consistent help to the journal, and as time passed and Andre needed more and more help, I volunteered more and more of my time to it. He has always been respectful of my opinions about how journals should be managed, and it has been a great 5+ years of working together.

What kind of papers are you looking for?
PalArch's Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology is interested in anything and everything related to vertebrate paleontology, including reviews and commentaries, but especially new information, including reports of new specimens of rare taxa that highlight new insights about it, faunal studies or contributions about the distribution of fossil taxa, paleopathology case reports, novel paleobiological methods, and even new taxon descriptions. We've been in contact with the ICZN for years about how to comply to the rules about publishing new species names, and because we deposit printed versions of the journal in clearly identified libraries, all names published in PalArch are legitimate. Though we would love to have more high-profile papers submitted, such as recent studies of hominids from Wallacea (Plas, 2007) and Flores (Heteren, 2008), I am eager to get more submissions in general, and hope to see a more prolific submission rate so we can fully realize the journal's potential.

What are the advantages of publishing with PalArch? What does PalArch offer that other journals might not?
The fundamental reason I got involved with PalArch was because of the journal's primary goal, which was to provide an avenue for publication of good science that might otherwise be too long, not popular or sexy enough, or controversial to make it into the restricted world of printed journals. The idea was simple, and yet at the time when I started I hadn't realized how few journals did that, I only knew I was frustrated by some.

PalArch is completely not-for-profit, volunteer run, and though we are all human and have our inevitable biases, we try to stay focused on the validity and quality of the science, not the popularity of it. There are no pages charges, and no limitations on length or color figures (similar to that of Palaeontologica Electronica). We try to get reviews done quickly, though we've had a longer than desired lag time in publication because we have a tendency to spend time helping authors that are not native english speakers with their editing and writing, which can often take longer than initially hoped for. I have been trying to get reviewers to be more rapid and responsible about reviews, though I think most editors would agree that that is easier said than done. So, one selling point is the time it should take - though reviewers slow things down, we really try to get things formatted and published online as soon as they are accepted, meaning that a publication could occur within less than a month, IF reviews go well and revisions are managed rapidly.

Tune in tomorrow, for Part 2 of the interview. Image credit for picture at top: Photo by Mo Hassan, proprietor of The Disillusioned Taxonomist. Another blog well worth checking out!

Open Notebook Science for Paleontology?

Open notebook science is kinda like open access for your data. In other words, it recognizes that a scientific contribution is more than just the resulting publication. These publications are often underlain by hours of thought, months of data collection, and weeks of analysis. In an open notebook approach, these "behind the scenes" activities are tossed out there for others to view, critique, utilize, and build upon. Note that this is different from open access, which is usually taken to cover only the final publication.

While at ScienceOnline2010 back in January, I sat in on a stimulating session about open notebook science. Our presenters (Jean-Claude Bradley, Steve Koch, and Cameron Neylon - all with blogs that are well worth checking out) shared their own experience with open notebook science, and the entire group discussed the ups, downs, plusses, minuses, and issues associated with the concept. It got me thinking - could I make at least some of my research open notebook? In this post, I want to explore the issue briefly, and solicit your feedback.

Why we need open notebook science
Good science is about reproducibility. There's no way around this. In a historical science like paleontology, "reproducibility" might involve remeasuring a specimen, retaking a photograph, or rescanning a bone. Some stuff we just can't reproduce. Once a bone is out of the ground, you'll never be able to retake the same precise stratigraphic or taphonomic data. Some data are ridiculously difficult to reproduce - not everyone can afford to fly to every country to remeasure some limb bones, or get the permission to rescan a specimen. Is it really necessary to have to reinvent the wheel?

And let's consider the long term. Whether we like it or not, we're all going to die someday. We can't take our data with us - why should they be locked up in some archive, or tossed out by whoever has to clean out the filing cabinets? Why don't we treat our data with the care that we show our specimens?

Objections (and solutions) to Open Notebook Science
In my own thought on the subject, I've wrestled with a number of issues relevant to open notebook paleontology. Many of these were covered in the ScienceOnline session, and I would refer anyone who is really interested to check out the YouTube videos when they get posted. In brief, objections include:

-Time and money. It takes time to digitize notes and put them into a form usable by others, and long-term data repositories cost money. This is a valid concern - particularly if you have years of undigitized data. When it comes to my museum research, my past three or four years of notes are almost entirely digital, though. And, the issue of a repository is a serious problem. Beyond journals' supplementary information, there is no permanent system for our field.
-Embarrassing errors. When taking notes, our interpretations of specimens change. Sometimes we make a mistake. Do we want to broadcast that to the world? Worse yet, what if someone else uses our mistake? This too can be a genuine concern - but I don't think it's an excuse for locking up raw data. A prominent caveat would probably be sufficient.
-Being scooped. Again, this is a legitimate concern that becomes irrelevant after publication. If you are worried about being scooped, just don't post in-progress data prior to publications. Or, consider the fact that having a time-stamped observation out there on the Internet is pretty unambiguous evidence of priority.
-Being scooped (2). I've heard multiple times (and used to subscribe to this philosophy myself) that one shouldn't release data until every single possible piece of information or side project is leached out of it. Wrong. Simply wrong. If your data are used to create a published summary table, graph, or even other types of figure, they need to be available. This doesn't mean you necessarily should release all of the "extra" data - but at the bare minimum, an interested individual should be able to see the information directly related to your methods, results, and conclusions. And the whole enchilada should get out there at some point.
-Locality data. Another common objection is that we should release precise locality data for sites, to avoid poaching. I agree with this 100 percent. But, there are still tons of data that could be distributed.
-Image rights. Have you ever read the agreement that museums make us sign in order to take pictures? Sadly, most of us don't own the photos that we take of specimens. I would love, love, love to have a Flickr stream of every specimen photo I've ever shot, but it just ain't happening yet. It is understandable that museums don't want someone profiting off of a giant coffee table book of fossil photos - but I'll be the first to admit that 99.9 percent of my photos aren't commercially saleable. Could anyone conceivably profit off of 20 closeup photos of a fragmented ceratopsian jugal bone? And, don't forget that a significant number of specimens in American museums are property of the American people (situations may vary elsewhere). A museum is seriously forgetting one of its reasons for existence if the institution actively hampers scientific progress by not allowing non-commercial distribution of specimen photographs. I don't have a good solution.

Thoughts? Comments? Is this ever the sort of thing that paleontologists will buy into?

Two articles of note

First, congratulations to Chris Brochu and colleagues on their paper describing a new species of "horned" crocodile from Olduvai Gorge in Kenya. This probably was an animal that preyed on our earliest human ancestors, as evidenced by a variety of hominid bones from the area with crocodile bite marks. Consequently, this animal has been given the name Crocodylus anthropophagus ("human-eating crocodile"). The paper is freely viewable at PLoS ONE, as a regular web page, XML file, or PDF, and you can also download high resolution versions of the figures. Have a question or comment on the paper? Head on over to the website and get yourself heard! (full disclosure: I am an editor at PLoS ONE)

The second paper of interest concerns the issue of data sharing, which I covered a few weeks back. Following up on a statement published in The American Naturalist, the editors of Evolution have issued their statement (institutional subscription or payment required, sorry) supporting mandatory archival of most data for papers published within the journal. This isn't a huge surprise (they were listed in the earlier article as a supporter), but it's still nice to see something in print. Thanks to Randy Irmis for the notice!

Citations
Brochu CA, Njau J, Blumenschine RJ, Densmore LD (2010) A new horned crocodile from the Plio-Pleistocene hominid sites at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. PLoS ONE 5(2): e9333. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0009333

Rausher MD, McPeek MA, Moore AJ, Rieseberg L, Whitlock MC (2010) Data archiving. Evolution 64: 603-604. doi:10.1111/j.1558-5646.2009.00940.x

Petrified Forest in PLoS ONE

Congratulations to Jeff Martz and Bill Parker on their latest publication in PLoS ONE! It's a wonderfully detailed description of the Sonsela Member of the Chinle Formation as exposed in Petrified Forest National Park.

This new paper resolves a number of niggling problems regarding this portion of the Chinle Formation. It has all sorts of implications for how we understand faunal turnover in the Triassic, among other things. And, the work is ridiculously reproducible! Every measured section has detailed GPS coordinates and photographs. . .contacts were walked out to the bitter end. Geology at its finest!

One of the advantages of an online publication like PLoS ONE is that there are no page limits and unlimited color figures. Jeff and Bill took full advantage of this - the PDF of their paper weighs in 26 pages of geological goodness, and that isn't counting the supplement of 29 pages of measured sections and dozens of megabytes of full-color, high resolution photographs. In short, it's a geological monograph.

Part of the Chinle Formation, with random geologist for scale. Modified from Figure 12 in Martz and Parker 2010.

Another neat thing about this paper is that it's one of the first strict geology papers published in PLoS ONE. With the groundswell of paleontology papers as of late, it's nice to see some geology making it into this major open access journal also. The authors deserve major kudos for their willingness to be guinea pigs.

For more about the paper, check out Bill's post at Chinleana. Or, you can read the whole article here. Do you have a comment or a question, or want to rate the paper? You can do all of that at the PLoS ONE website!

Citation
Martz, J.W., and W.G. Parker. 2010. Revised lithostratigraphy of the Sonsela Member (Chinle Formation, Upper Triassic) in the southern part of Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona. PLoS ONE 5(2):e9329. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0009329

[Full disclosure: I was the academic editor for this paper, and am a section editor for the journal]

Book Review: Am I Making Myself Clear? A Scientist's Guide to Talking to the Public

It's no secret that paleontology fascinates the public. New prehistoric-themed television air practically weekly, and even comparatively minor discoveries make the science section of the local newspaper. But, it's also fair to say that we paleontologists have a love-hate relationship with the news media. On the one hand, the exposure educates the public and shows the importance of an "esoteric" field like paleontology to skeptical funding committees. Yet, nearly everyone has some horror story about how they were taken for a ride by the press. Stories are misreported or overhyped, and television programs are sometimes painfully inaccurate. How is one to navigate this potential minefield?

Enter Am I Making Myself Clear? A Scientist's Guide to Talking to the Public, a trim, timely book by science writer and former NY Times editor Cornelia Dean. The title indicates great ambitions, and Dean generally delivers on these, speaking with the authority and candor of someone in the trenches.

Fifteen chapters cover practically the entire spectrum of scientific communication, from print and electronic media to public policy and the legal witness stand. Dean's writing is concise and readable, with an appropriate number of relevant anecdotes sprinkled throughout. Her perspective as a journalist adds quite a bit to the narrative, particularly in the sections on working with reporters. Although I like to think that I know at least a little about the media, I found numerous tidbits to incorporate into my own efforts. Don't be disappointed if an hour-long interview doesn't produce any attributed quotes in a news article; your information is still crucial for reporters who may not know the field. Thank reporters who do a particularly good job. Use press releases judiciously. It's ok - in fact, even a good thing - to cite opposing points of view during an interview. Sound bites are your friend, if you prepare them carefully.

The short format of the book (indeed, it's just slightly larger than pocket-sized) means that many topics are covered in only the briefest fashion. For instance, the scant 17 pages devoted to book writing and publication is surely only the beginning for someone who is truly serious about such an effort. I personally would have liked to see a little more on preparing a public lecture. Thankfully, a carefully chosen bibliography offers some excellent suggestions for deeper reading.

One message echoes throughout the entire book: We scientists can't just sit back and let the journalists do the talking for us. As citizens, we have a responsibility - an obligation, even - to get involved. Sure, there might be bumps on the road, but in the shifting social, political, and economic sands of the early 21st century, communication is more important than ever before. If you are at all serious about communicating science to the public, you must read this book.

Citation
Dean, Cornelia. 2009. Am I Making Myself Clear? A Scientist's Guide to Talking to the Public. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. 274 pp. $19.95 (hardcover) - available for $13.57 on amazon.com.

Four-Winged, Psychedelic Dinosaurs

When many of us think of viewing things under a "black light," we either think of those psychedelic posters from the 1960s or else the displays of fluorescent minerals that nearly every science museum has. It's also virtually mandatory to have a scene involving the use of "black light" in the popular CSI television programs - many bodily fluids show up nice and pretty under these conditions. "Black light," more properly known as "ultraviolet (UV) spectrum light", is just outside the visible light spectrum for us humans (past violet, hence the name). And, through some neat tricks of physics, many objects will brightly fluoresce under intense UV light when they wouldn't look like anything special under your standard sunlight or incandescent light bulb.

Oddly enough, many fossils fluoresce under UV light (certain minerals in fossils, including phosphates, are behind this phenomenon). Thus, this technique has been used to look for otherwise hidden features of some exceptionally well-preserved fossils. Historically, it's been the domain of invertebrate paleontologists (looking at crustaceans from the Jurassic of Germany, for instance), but vertebrate paleontologists have used the technique to identify forged fossils (like Archaeoraptor), study Archaeopteryx, and much more. What might be a very subtle or invisible structure under regular light (such as a feather shaft, or antenna, or soft tissue outlines) sometimes shines nicely under UV light.

Thus, Beijing paleontologist Dave Hone and colleagues applied the UV light technique to some of the spectacular fossils coming out of the Cretaceous-aged beds of China. In particular, they were interested in a little critter called Microraptor. A dromaeosaur (part of the same group including Velociraptor), Microraptor is relatively well-known as the "four-winged dinosaur." Spectacular fossils with feather impressions show the standard pair of bird-like wings on the arms and a second set of wings on the hind limbs. This suggests to some researchers that birds went through a four-winged flight phase early in their evolution, and the two-winged flight with which we are familiar only happened later.

Cast of the type specimen of Microraptor gui, from the Wikimedia Commons, reproduced under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license.

Although the fossil looks spectacular, many paleontologists speculated that appearances might be deceiving. Were the feathers on the legs actually in place, near their life position? Or had they gotten moved around from somewhere else on the body? A pale halo of sediment (probably from the decomposition process) obscured the contact of the feathers with the bones, so the issue remained unresolved. Either way, it had major implications for avian evolution.

Hone and colleagues wondered if the full anatomy was obscured under visible light. So, they turned a UV light source against the specimen. It turns out that the feather structures fluoresce quite nicely - and can be traced right through the "halo" and up to the very edge of the leg bones. So, the feathers really are in place. Problem solved! [image, showing full skeleton, modified from Figure 2 in Hone et al. 2010]

Now that we're more confident that Microraptor really was four-winged (and not just an accident of fossilization), the conversation can move forward. And, this is a great rallying cry for other researchers - who knows what structures we might discover with UV light!

Close-up of hind legs of Microraptor under UV light, with arrows indicating feathers. The yellow stripes leading up to the leg bones are portions of the feathers visible only under UV. Modified from Figure 3 in Hone et al. 2010

Read the full paper in the freely-available, open access journal PLoS ONE (full disclosure: I was the editor who handled this manuscript). You can post comments or ratings for the article there, too! In the blogosphere, check out Dave Hone's posting on his article and this follow-up, Adam Yates' write-up, as well as ReBecca Hunt's interview with Dave.

Citation

D. W. E. Hone, H. Tischlinger, X. Xu, & F. Zhang (2010) The extent of the preserved feathers on the four-winged dinosaur Microraptor gui under ultraviolet light PLoS ONE 5 (2) : 10.1371/journal.pone.0009223