Top 100 Scientific Articles

Quick post today because the work week has been crazy.

The scientific journal Nature just released several articles about the Science Citation Index (SCI). The SCI is a measurement of the number of citations (by other articles and research reports) a particular research paper or study receives. This purportedly reflects how important a particular research article is in related scientific fields. Both Thomas Reuters (which owns the SCI) and Google Scholar reported back to Nature on the top 100 most-cited scientific papers of all time. It's quite surprising how many methods and computational papers make the list. A second article discusses how researchers view their own work.

I'm still digesting the articles and what they mean to science and publishing in general, but I wanted to share this with anyone interested. I do find it surprising that the journal Nature only has two papers in the top 50....and the journal Science only gets as high as #63! Take that for what it's worth.

What's in a Name?

Have you ever called someone an Einstein? Or a Scrooge?

You may have even uttered the words ‘Call me Ishmael…’ at some point in your life. 

So what’s in a name? 

It is seemingly a simple question. A question that has been on my mind for some time. Frustratingly so, in fact, considering the powers that be in my research field cannot seem to settle on the nomenclature for the genes I am studying. It’s a mess, but that’s a story for another day…

The question may not be as simple as I once thought.

Names can be powerful, inspiring, and potentially fear-inducing. Sometimes a person or an idea can have multiple names. Some names transcend time – Cleopatra, Caligula, Hammurabi, Jesus, Budha. Whether or not you know it, the names of things can affect you every day. Take for instance the recent events in Syria and Iraq. Many governments and news outlets can’t even decide what to call the Islamic State. Is it ISIL? ISIS? ISIQ? Just the Islamic State? There have even been recent attempts to switch the acronym to QSIS (Al-Qaeda Separatists in Iraq and Syria) to differentiate the terrorist group from anything that remotely resembles Islam – because it most certainly does not.

I’m curious if individuals within the Islamic State have a similar problem when it comes to their own identity.  I doubt it, but if so, what would that mean? How can an enemy be understood if no one can even agree on what to call him/her/it/them? I don’t claim to have any answers on that but I think it is important to figure out.

I’m also not the only one who has thought about names. Click on this link if you are interested in a podcast about names and society. It's by the guys over at Freakonomics and it certainly dives into the topic at length.  

However, I’ve again treaded from my originally-intended topic: the literary motif of names and naming in fantasy stories. 

Even the most casual of fantasy readers are familiar with this. A great example is Lord Voldemort in the Harry Potter series. For most of the other characters in Harry Potter, ‘You-Know-Who’ or ‘He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’ are what Voldemort is known by. The mere speaking of his proper name is horrifying to most wizards and witches. There is a stigma associated with his name that induces emotional and sometimes physical reaction. In fact, J.K. Rowling builds a form of magic around the use of the name ‘Lord Voldemort’. Wizards using his proper name aloud can be tracked because of a taboo curse put on the actual spoken words. Not only does this add to both the stigma and mystique of Lord Voldemort but that’s just great story-telling! 

This does reflect the world in which we live though. When Hitler comes up in conversation there’s almost an immediate association with hurt and suffering. We also associate nicknames to people. Some are well-intended and others…..not so much.  And it’s the most frustrating thing to run into someone and temporarily have forgotten their name. (Something I need to work on.) I feel lost from the moment the conversation begins. 

The power behind names is a central theme in Patrick Rothfuss’ The Kingkiller Chronicles. The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher plays with the idea of full names and power, and there are elements concerning the names of people and places throughout The Lord of the Rings by Tolkien and The Sandman series by Neil Gaiman. Even in classics like Rumpelstiltskin - the queen must give up her child unless she can guess Rumpelstiltskin’s true name. 

I like the fact that theories of names and the power they derive are a staple in a lot of fantasy literature. It’s odd, but I find it comforting that buried in the depths of the Mines of Moria and obscured in the land of Faerie are hidden the true names of things. 

Are there such places in the real world where the true or first names of things are hidden? What did our primitive ancestors first call love, or the stars? Maybe that is why I’m drawn to the fantasy genre so much. The original name of a particular person or place or thing can draw a lot of power in those stories. I think the same is true for our own world.