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Article Length : 543 Words

Modern science journals are one of the most reliably productive sources of astonishment. And humour. There’s zero doubt that modern journals contain articles destined for satire.

For example, one recently published leading science article has the wonderful title "Infiltration of a Hawaiian Community by Introduced Biological Control Agents" which sounds more like a Michael Crichton plot, or a Gary Larson cartoon title than a paper found in Science – one of the most frequently cited professional journals in the world.

How useful is science in your everyday? Another example of a well titled paper found in another edition of the same periodical, will surely settle all debate; "Nostril Position in Dinosaurs and Other Vertebrates and its Significance for Nasal Function" is obviously very important snuff. Sorry, important stuff.

And speaking of snuff, the paper "Relapse to Cocaine-Seeking After Hippocampal Theta Burst Stimulation" has a certain Hunter S. Thompson, ‘Fear and Loathing...’ feel. It certainly sounds like it was worth every last cent of the funding. The fact that the paper has five authors also suggests that good funding in this area is not so hard to get.

And how poetic and romantic is science? Who could not be moved by the romantic, candle-lit intrigue of any paper called "Productivity and Diversity in a Long-Term Grassland Experiment" ? I know my grandfather got my grandmother into a lot of long term trouble. It was about six weeks after a ‘short-term grassland experiment’. That was how my mother was eventually discovered and how my grandparents came to be married.

Seriously though, our entire world is wrapped up in science of the most bizarre kind. From the deeply profound and highly useful, to the frivolous, remote and completely pointless, science is all conquering and journals are not shy about mentioning that fact.

Science journals are also a constant reminder that serious human diseases are being vigorously fought, often on hundreds of fronts at once. A geneticist, a biochemist, a virologist and a microbiologist may all approach the same disease from completely different angles of approach. Problems in renewable energy and the cleaning of toxic waste spills are being tackled in the same multi-faceted, highly aggressive way.

The problems associated with designing robots which will work on remote planets under extremes of temperatures are overwhelming at first glance. But again, if you go to look in the literature there are people interested in exactly that problem and they’re all communicating through their own journals. It’s a maze of science in fact. All the human social problems are regarded as significant and all over the world people are interested in making a difference. Even if it is a paper on something as frivolous as dinosaur nostrils, somewhere in the world, guaranteed, there is another scientist, reading with eyes watering, mouth open like an oven door.

The modern science journals are ‘the word’ of scientific hope as well as technical and intellectual achievement. The science journals of today are also where the agenda of the human future is also first debated. It used to be the halls of government which stirred life into the most sweeping social changes but today it is the laboratories which set the pace and the science journals which foreshadow the coming social and technical revolutions.