Urban Ecology: where the wild meets the city

Urban ecosystems are expanding around the world as people migrate to cities and the human population continues to grow. What happens to other species as these urban ecosystems expand, and how species live and interact

Positively Negative: A New PLOS ONE Collection focusing on Negative, Null and Inconclusive Results

“I never quit until I get what I’m after. Negative results are just what I’m after. They are just as valuable to me as positive results.” – Thomas A. Edison The publication of negative results is vitally important for many … Continue reading »

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Announcing the Latest Update to the Responding the Climate Change Collection

Responding to climate change

New research added to the PLOS Responding to Climate Change Collection In December 2013 PLOS ONE published a unique article, Assessing “Dangerous Climate Change: Required Reduction of Carbon Emissions to Protect Young People, Future Generations and Nature”, by James Hansen … Continue reading »

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Spotlight on PLOS ONE’s NeuroMapping and Therapeutics Collection

Collection image.pcol.v02.i17.g001Launched in 2010, the Neuromapping and Therapeutics Collection is a unique collaboration between PLOS ONE and the Society for Brain Mapping and Therapeutics. The Neuromapping and Therapeutics Collection provides a forum for interdisciplinary research aimed at translation of knowledge across a number of fields such as neurosurgery, neurology, psychiatry, radiology, neuroscience, neuroengineering, and healthcare and policy issues that affect the treatment delivery and usage of related devices, drugs, and technologies. The Collection is open to submissions on these topics from any researcher—so far, 24 research papers have been published as part of this Collection.

We spoke to Dr. Allyson Rosen, one of the members of the Society for Brain Mapping and Therapeutics who helps coordinate the Neuromapping and Therapeutics Collection, to discuss the latest news and research in this area, and the new submissions to the collection they’re hoping to see in the next few months:

What’s exciting in Neuromapping and Therapeutics at the moment?

CollectionSBMT-BMF-Logo for blog

 

It is exciting to see how creative scientists and clinicians are at solving important clinical problems by combining diverse techniques in innovative ways. We see our collection as a home for cross-disciplinary work that might not “fit” in traditional journals. For example, we have published MR methods to enable effective brain infusions and work that exploits computer-aided design for cranial reconstructions. There are invasive and non-inva

What are the implications of President Obama’s commitment to Human Brain Mapping research?sive techniques for stimulating selective brain regions and creating focal lesions, such as transcranial magnetic stimulation, transcranial Doppler technology, and X-ray microplanar beam technology. There are also innovative analysis techniques that exploit powerful computational methods that were previously unavailable.

Given the high-profile nature of the Brain Mapping Initiative and the state of the US economy, we have advocated that there be some clinical implications to the announcement. We believe that this approach will ensure continued public support at a time of great need and uncertainty.

Are there any specific research areas where you’d like to see more submissions to the Collection?

We are proud of the work we’ve received and deeply impressed with the broad array of papers submitted so far. This is a testament to the creativity of our contributors, and we welcome their diversity. We particularly welcome work presented at the international meeting of the Society for Brain Mapping and Therapeutics that occurs in the spring of each year.

Why do you think it’s important to publish this kind of research in an open access journal such as PLOS ONE?

Our society is committed to being inclusive and welcoming any profession that seeks to improve the health and wellbeing of patients with brain disorders. An open access journal enables easier promotion of work we feel is important and encourages sharing among diverse disciplines. Often, truly cutting-edge work is so far ahead of its time that there is not yet an appreciation for its importance. Often, clinical problems are seen as practical but not necessarily novel. We appreciate the mission of PLOS ONE as upholding strong scientific integrity and not as triaging work based on arbitrary decisions regarding importance.

To read more about this Collection, including new research papers like, “Verifying three-dimensional skull model reconstruction using cranial index of symmetryandUnique anti-glioblastoma activities of Hypericin are at the crossroad of biochemical and epigenetic events and culminate in Tumor Cell Differentiation,” click here.

Come visit us at SFN 2013.

Both the Society for Brain Mapping and Therapeutics and PLOS ONE will be attending SFN 2013 – please drop by booth #136 to say hello and learn more about the Collection. For instructions on how to submit to the Collection, please visit the Collection page and download the submission document.

If you have any questions about this Collection, or any other PLOS Collections, please email collections@plos.org

Image credit for Collection cover: Alka Joshi

The New PLOS ONE Collection on “Sauropod Gigantism – A Cross-Disciplinary Approach”

Sauropod-Collection-600x600 (3) (2)The exceptional gigantism of sauropod dinosaurs has long been recognized as an important stage in the evolution of vertebrates, the presence of which raises questions as to why no other land-based lineage has ever reached this size, how these dinosaurs functioned as living animals, and how they were able to maintain stable populations over distinct geological periods.

We are pleased to announce the publication of a PLOS Collection featuring new research on the complex Evolutionary Cascade Theory that attempts to answer  these questions and  explain how the unique gigantism of sauropod dinosaurs was possible. The fourteen papers that make up the collection address sauropod gigantism from a number of varied disciplinary viewpoints, including ecology, engineering, functional morphology, animal nutrition, evolutionary biology, and paleontology.

Sauropod dinosaurs were the largest terrestrial animals to roam the earth, exceeding all other land-dwelling vertebrates in both mean and maximal body size. While convergently evolving many features seen in large terrestrial mammals, such as upright, columnar limbs and barrel-shaped trunks, sauropods evolved some unique features, such as the extremely long necks and diminutive heads they are famous for. Dr Martin Sander, Professor of Paleontology at Universität Bonn and coordinating author for this series of 14 papers, said of the collection:

“This new collection brings together the latest research on the biology of sauropod dinosaurs, the largest animals to ever walk on Earth. Having been extinct for 65 million years, reconstructing sauropod biology represents a particular challenge. Using a wide array of scientific expertise, often from seemingly unlikely fields, has led to some amazing insights. For example, principles of soil mechanics have been used to ‘weigh a dinosaur’ based on its trackways, whilst the latest in computer modeling can make a dinosaur walk again.

The ultimate question underlying this research is how sauropods were able to evolve their uniquely gigantic body size. The wide-ranging disciplines covered in the collection means that there is a -broad, multi-disciplinary audience for the research, as well as general interest in dinosaurs; therefore, we felt that it was essential to publish such a volume in a leading open-access journal such as PLOS ONE to ensure the widest possible dissemination of our work.”

Readers are able to download “Sauropod Gigantism: A Cross-Disciplinary Approach” not only as a PDF but also as an ebook (.mobi and .epub formats) from the collection page. It will also be available on Flipboard (search “PLOS Collections”).

www.ploscollections.org/sauropodgigantism

Image credits:
Collection Image: Kent A. Stevens, University of Oregon