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The minus 10% syndroma
Biochimie 94 (2012) 1261
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Biochimie journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/biochi
Editorial
The minus 10% syndroma
A number of French colleagues, including me, have seen a drop in funding from our fellow institutions of 10% or more this year. It came as a surprise given how loud were the voices announcing that Science would be a national priority. But this 10% syndroma should not be restricted to money. As my own research projects are dedicated to a family of unusual nucleic acid structures called Gquadruplexes or “G4”, should I rename the field “G3.6” to take this reduction into account? And now that I think of it, this 10% seems general. For example some of our internet facilities seem out of reach at least 10% of the time. Yes – still 90% of your emails will reach me – so please repeat the process 3 times and I will have a 99.9% chance of getting the message at least once. Not too bad. Simply submit your papers 3 times to be on the safe side. And if this internet facility is the one that allows you to place orders, it is actually logical to have it active only 90% of the time – that way, its nominal activity per hour remains the same if your credits are reduced by 10%. Are you following me? Our heating system in the lab is also close to 90% functional. The missing 10% could be seen as a minor nuisance, except if you consider that heating won’t work at all for the coolest 36.5 days of the year as it seems. Alternatively, if that 10% drop means a 10% decrease in room temperature, switching from 19 to 17.1 C is fine. I will bring an extra pullover which is actually too small anyway – nothing to do with budget cuts, more with bad temperature choice during the washing program. But see, we are hard core scientist, eh? So we use Kelvin rather than C? So a 10% cut from 292 K is. forget it, I am freezing. My cell phone has never been 100% functional. Rather the opposite. Until last year 100% of my communications were cut or never placed. Does this mean I can also expect a 10% drop in failure rate? In that case, I would warmly welcome that change. I am actually not allowed to disclose the phone company name. Could I transpose this 10% drop to other concepts as well? 6nation Rugby players (or should I write “5.4-nation”?) also start to apply this principle: 10% of the games will be postponed (for reasons related to heating, see above – again a sad miscalculation between cuts in Kelvins, Celcius and Fahrenheit !). More interestingly, could I send a letter to my Bank announcing that my mortgage will be decreased by 10%? I am planning a 10% cut in my calorie intake (remember the pullover too small – my partner may have a different explanation for this 10% smallness) to provoke a 10% decrease in body weight? Should I welcome this? Can I also ask for a 10% decrease in mortality rate (especially for my mortality rate as, like others, I am allergic to dying [1])? Concerning Biochimie, to save space and money, we have decided to apply this 10% principle to the articles we publish. You 0300-9084/$ – see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.biochi.2012.03.014
may ask: does this mean a 10% decrease in acceptance rate or rejection rate? Actually both. More papers will simply stay in between, in the limbos of “Major revision” where nasty editors actually ask for impossible experiments before a final acceptance or rejection that will never come. For the papers accepted, we will also apply a 10% reduction in size; figures may easily be reduced in size by 10% (they are often barely readable anyway so a 10% drop in size won’t hurt much more). Concerning text, our recommendation is either to switch from Time-12 font to Time 10.8, or to remve one chracter evry ten. A you can nderstandwithout ay difficuty this sntence, i really dmonstrate that thi extra 10 is unnecssary – sme princile applie to fundig. My nex grant prposal wil be 10% sorter, saing 10% tme for th experts. Accordingly, page charges may be reduced in the same proportion (well, for Biochimie, there are no page charges anyway – so here is a promise we can keep!) Pubmed may also apply a 10% decrease in the number of articles listed. They have started already. For example, my April 2011 editorial “The fake meeting society” [2] seems to appear and disappear mysteriously in this database. I thought it was a plot against us, but this was only the first example; from now on, of a random selection of 10% of all papers that will not be listed. You may also help randomize the process by asking your direct competitor’s most annoying results to be removed. Convenient. As a result, citations and therefore impact factors will also drop by 10% on average, justifying a posteriori a 10% drop in grants. Logical. Even worse in my field: compare the number of hits using “G3.6” instead of “G4” as a keyword and you will understand how deep this cut can be. In summary, rejoy!! We should all embrace the 10% concept.90% of the time. Do you mind if I apply the 10% exception to my grant? References [1] Eminem, When the music stops, in “The Eminem show”, Aftermath records, 2002. [2] J.L. Mergny, Announcement: the fake meeting society, Biochimie 93 (April 1 issue) (2011) v.
Jean-Louis Mergny* Univ. Bordeaux, INSERM U869, Institut Européen de Chimie et Biologie, 2 rue Robert Escarpit, Pessac Cedex 33076, France * Tel.: þ33 (0) 540 003 022. E-mail address: [email protected] Available online 23 March 2012
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Biochimie journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/biochi
Editorial
The minus 10% syndroma
A number of French colleagues, including me, have seen a drop in funding from our fellow institutions of 10% or more this year. It came as a surprise given how loud were the voices announcing that Science would be a national priority. But this 10% syndroma should not be restricted to money. As my own research projects are dedicated to a family of unusual nucleic acid structures called Gquadruplexes or “G4”, should I rename the field “G3.6” to take this reduction into account? And now that I think of it, this 10% seems general. For example some of our internet facilities seem out of reach at least 10% of the time. Yes – still 90% of your emails will reach me – so please repeat the process 3 times and I will have a 99.9% chance of getting the message at least once. Not too bad. Simply submit your papers 3 times to be on the safe side. And if this internet facility is the one that allows you to place orders, it is actually logical to have it active only 90% of the time – that way, its nominal activity per hour remains the same if your credits are reduced by 10%. Are you following me? Our heating system in the lab is also close to 90% functional. The missing 10% could be seen as a minor nuisance, except if you consider that heating won’t work at all for the coolest 36.5 days of the year as it seems. Alternatively, if that 10% drop means a 10% decrease in room temperature, switching from 19 to 17.1 C is fine. I will bring an extra pullover which is actually too small anyway – nothing to do with budget cuts, more with bad temperature choice during the washing program. But see, we are hard core scientist, eh? So we use Kelvin rather than C? So a 10% cut from 292 K is. forget it, I am freezing. My cell phone has never been 100% functional. Rather the opposite. Until last year 100% of my communications were cut or never placed. Does this mean I can also expect a 10% drop in failure rate? In that case, I would warmly welcome that change. I am actually not allowed to disclose the phone company name. Could I transpose this 10% drop to other concepts as well? 6nation Rugby players (or should I write “5.4-nation”?) also start to apply this principle: 10% of the games will be postponed (for reasons related to heating, see above – again a sad miscalculation between cuts in Kelvins, Celcius and Fahrenheit !). More interestingly, could I send a letter to my Bank announcing that my mortgage will be decreased by 10%? I am planning a 10% cut in my calorie intake (remember the pullover too small – my partner may have a different explanation for this 10% smallness) to provoke a 10% decrease in body weight? Should I welcome this? Can I also ask for a 10% decrease in mortality rate (especially for my mortality rate as, like others, I am allergic to dying [1])? Concerning Biochimie, to save space and money, we have decided to apply this 10% principle to the articles we publish. You 0300-9084/$ – see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.biochi.2012.03.014
may ask: does this mean a 10% decrease in acceptance rate or rejection rate? Actually both. More papers will simply stay in between, in the limbos of “Major revision” where nasty editors actually ask for impossible experiments before a final acceptance or rejection that will never come. For the papers accepted, we will also apply a 10% reduction in size; figures may easily be reduced in size by 10% (they are often barely readable anyway so a 10% drop in size won’t hurt much more). Concerning text, our recommendation is either to switch from Time-12 font to Time 10.8, or to remve one chracter evry ten. A you can nderstandwithout ay difficuty this sntence, i really dmonstrate that thi extra 10 is unnecssary – sme princile applie to fundig. My nex grant prposal wil be 10% sorter, saing 10% tme for th experts. Accordingly, page charges may be reduced in the same proportion (well, for Biochimie, there are no page charges anyway – so here is a promise we can keep!) Pubmed may also apply a 10% decrease in the number of articles listed. They have started already. For example, my April 2011 editorial “The fake meeting society” [2] seems to appear and disappear mysteriously in this database. I thought it was a plot against us, but this was only the first example; from now on, of a random selection of 10% of all papers that will not be listed. You may also help randomize the process by asking your direct competitor’s most annoying results to be removed. Convenient. As a result, citations and therefore impact factors will also drop by 10% on average, justifying a posteriori a 10% drop in grants. Logical. Even worse in my field: compare the number of hits using “G3.6” instead of “G4” as a keyword and you will understand how deep this cut can be. In summary, rejoy!! We should all embrace the 10% concept.90% of the time. Do you mind if I apply the 10% exception to my grant? References [1] Eminem, When the music stops, in “The Eminem show”, Aftermath records, 2002. [2] J.L. Mergny, Announcement: the fake meeting society, Biochimie 93 (April 1 issue) (2011) v.
Jean-Louis Mergny* Univ. Bordeaux, INSERM U869, Institut Européen de Chimie et Biologie, 2 rue Robert Escarpit, Pessac Cedex 33076, France * Tel.: þ33 (0) 540 003 022. E-mail address: [email protected] Available online 23 March 2012