PNAS cautions on in the unintended effect of impact factors and what happens when indicators replace judgement: an indicator developed for librarians that has had huge and unintended influence on the intellectual economy of science. Marder, E, Kettenmann, H & Grillner S (2010) Impacting our young PNAS 107 (50) 21233; doi:10.1073/pnas.1016516107
Ken Arnold from the Wellcome Collection and Thomas Soderqvist have developed a challenging set of rules and contentions for museum exhibitions dealing with science - what would the effect be? The rules in brief are as follows, but read the Wellcome blog for discussion:../more
1. Exhibitions should be research-led, not a form of
dissemination
2. A scientist should always be involved in the exhibition,
a technologist if it is about technology
3. Be clear about exhibitions being “multi-authored”
4. Use only original material
5. Never show ready-made science
6. Jealously guard a place for mystery and wonder
7. Reject most exhibition ideas
8. Leave out as much as possible
9. Embrace the showbusiness of exhibitions
10. Celebrate the ephemeral quality of exhibitions
11. Make exhibitions true to the geography of their venues
12. Avoid artificial lighting
13. Always involve more than one sense
14. Make exhibitions for inquisitive adults
15. Remember that visitors ultimately make their own
exhibitions
16. Make exhibitions the jumping off place for further
engagement
17. Don’t be afraid to bend, break or reinvent the rules
A paper in Trends in Ecology and Evolution estimates costs of naming the remaining 5.4 million animal species, based on costs of taxonomy in Brazil - $200 million. The taxonomic impediment is seen as the most significant barrier to progress Nature blog post quotes the NHM's Chris Lyal.../reference
Fernando Carbayo and Antonio C. Marques The costs of
describing the entire animal kingdomTrends in Ecology & Evolution, 07
February 2011 doi:10.1016/j.tree.2011.01.004
