386 27 JANUARY 2012 VOL 335 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org
NEWS OF THE WEEK
BY THE NUMBERS
18% Percentage of reviewed
research grant proposals that were
funded by the National Institutes of
Health in 2011, a record low.
5.7 million to 6.7 million
Number of bats that have died
from white nose syndrome since
the disease was fi rst documented in
2006, according to a new estimate
by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
biologists.
Random Sample
A New Way for Journals
To Peer Review Papers?
Carsten Rahbek, editor-in-chief of Ecography, has a
problem facing many journal editors. ?Due to an explosion in the number of submitted papers, we
have major problems fi nding people to review, and the quality has gone down as well,? he says.
So Rahbek?s journal, published by Wiley, has joined Peerage of Science, an online social net-
work that aims to provide journals with already-peer-reviewed manuscripts. Recently founded
by three Finnish ecologists, the Web site accepts paper submissions?and matches them with
potential reviewers: Scientists with a potentially publishable paper can upload it to the Web site,
while other members with relevant expertise, alerted by keywords in the papers, can provide
reviews that scientifi c journals can use to decide whether to offer to publish the work.
Janne-Tuomas Sepp?nen, a postdoc at University of Jyv?skyl?, came up with the idea for
Peerage of Science in 2010. Scientists receive one credit for every review they fi nish, whereas
uploading a manuscript costs two credits divided by the number of authors. The author who
uploads the paper must have a positive balance. ?This formalises an unwritten rule: He who
wants his manuscripts reviewed, reviews other manuscripts in return,? says Sepp?nen. Since
November, four manuscripts have received reviews.
Peerage of Science is currently free for journals, but its founders plan to charge fees that
they say will be below what it costs a journal to handle its own peer review. Rahbek has so far
encountered one article of interest to Ecography?which he decided not to publish. ?But,? he
says, ?I liked the procedure and the quality of the reviews.? http://scim.ag/peerofsci
FINDINGS
Signature of Senescence
Last year, researchers retracted a Science
paper that aimed to predict one?s chance of
living to 100 after critics discovered errors
that invalidated the results. Now, the origi-
nal group has revamped and republished
their results, this time in PLoS ONE. Boston
University biostatistician Paola Sebastiani,
geriatrics specialist Thomas Perls, and their
colleagues report a new ?genetic signature?
of 281 gene variants that has some overlap
with the one they described in Science in
July 2010, though it?s less predictive, except
in very old people.
The fl ap began 18 months ago, after the
Boston team proposed a gene signature that
they said could predict with 77% accuracy
one?s chance of becoming a centenarian.
The work was criticized by geneticists who
said it infl ated the importance of a num-
ber of gene variants. Last July, the authors
retracted the paper.
In the new work, almost no gene vari-
ants were very signifi cant on their own at
predicting life span, but in extremely elderly
people, the overall signature was more likely
to accurately predict their old age than in
younger ones?evidence, says Perls, that
?the heritability of longevity? increases the
older we get. http://scim.ag/_oldage
Embryonic Stem Cells for Eye
Disease Appear Safe
In the fi rst published
report from a clinical
trial using human embry-
onic stem cells, two
legally blind patients who
received hESC-derived
cells in one eye have
experienced no harmful
side effects and appear
to have slightly better
vision. Although prelimi-
nary, the results are an
important milestone for
the hESC fi eld.
Advanced Cell Tech-
nology (ACT) of Marlborough, Massachu-
setts, used hESCs to derive retinal pigment
epithelium (RPE) cells, which nourish the
retina?s light-sensing cells. Collaborators
at the University of California, Los Ange-
les, then injected 50,000 of these RPE cells
under the retinas of a woman with Stargardt?s
macular dystrophy and another woman with
dry age-related macular degeneration. Four
months later, the patients have not devel-
oped tumors from the hESC-derived cells or
shown signs of rejection, the team reported
online this week in The Lancet. Both women
showed some improvement on vision tests.
Other hESC researchers welcomed the
report, but cautioned that the study was very
small and designed only to test the safety of
the procedure. ACT plans to test a total of
12 patients in each trial. http://scim.ag/_eyesCREDITS (TOP TO BOTTOM): PEERAGE OF SCIENCE; S. D. SCHWARTZ
ET AL.
,
THE LANCET
(PUBLISHED ONLINE 23 JANUARY 2012); DONALD E. HURLBERT/NATIONAL MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY, SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
Eye test. A Stargardt
patient?s eye before
(top) and after
receiving RPE cells.
Smithsonian Director to Take Over
Wildlife Conservation Society
Cristián Samper, director of
the Smithsonian National
Museum of Natural History,
is shifting gears in August
to become the president and
CEO of the Wildlife Con-
servation Society (WCS),
a $200 million conserva-
tion organization that runs the Bronx Zoo,
other New York City zoos, and wildlife pro-
grams in 65 countries.
Samper started his career in conserva-
tion and says he is eager to get back to that
focus. The natural history museum direc-
tor since 2003, Samper helped transform
the museum, bringing in 25 new curators,
starting an endowed fellowship program,
and redoing two-thirds of the exhibits,
including the mammals, ocean, and human
origins halls. In 2007, he took over tempo-
rarily for Smithsonian Institution Secretary
Lawrence Small, who resigned amidst con-
troversy. Samper again became the natural
history museum?s director after Wayne
Clough was hired as the institution?s secre-
tary 15 months later.
Samper leaves the museum with a
?major legacy,? says Clough. ?It?s a great
>>NEWSMAKERS
Samper
gain for WCS,? says Jonathan Coddington,
the museum?s associate director for research
and collections.
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