In these interviews, scientists talk to ScienceWatch.com and
offer behind-the-scenes insights into their research: reflections on
what led them to their chosen field, the motivation driving their work
in a given direction, and the challenges encountered along on the way.
These authors also offer their views on why their work has wielded
particular influence in the scientific community, as indicated by
Clarivate
citation data, and on how research in their respective fields has
progressed over time and will likely unfold in the future.
Featured interviews for December 2008 are listed
below. To view featured interviews from past months/years, visit the
Featured
Interviews Main Menu.
The authors discuss
their 2003 Nucl. Instrum.
Meth. Phys. Res. A paper:
"GEANT4-a simulation toolkit."
Geant4 is a complex system of
detector description and
simulation tools. The toolkit
simulates the passage of
elementary particles through
matter in order to aid in the
design and optimization of
detectors, as well as the
development and testing of
reconstruction and analysis
programs, and the interpretation
of experimental data. This was a
Current
Classics paper selection for
Aug. 2008 (Eng.).
Listen:
MP3|
WMA
Excerpt from the
interview: "Our paper presents
the construction of a new highly
supersymmetric Lagrangian field
theory. This Lagrangian was not
previously thought to exist and
enables a definition of the
interacting theory of multiple
2-branes in M-theory. Our result is
novel in that it is the first
example of a field theory with a
maximum amount of supersymmetry
that..."
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "The identification
and quantification of the
individual phenols of virgin olive
oil are of great interest because
several agronomic and technological
parameters can affect phenolics'
presence in virgin olive oil, and,
as a consequence, affect the
resistance to oxidation of oil
during storage, the sensory and
health properties, and..."
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "Chemistry
& Biodiversity (CB) was
grown as a "spin-off" of the
Helvetica Chimica Acta
(HCA), a monthly journal covering
all aspects of chemistry. HCA is a
more than 90-year-old monthly
periodical published by Verlag
Helvetica Chimica Acta, a
publishing house originally owned
by the Swiss Chemical Society and
now a subsidiary..."
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "This paper dealt
with the optimal condition for a
frequency-selective transfer
between two waveguides. This
condition leads to the construction
of ultra-compact photonic crystal
channel add/drop filters, which is
of great importance in wavelength
division multiplexing for
communication purposes. In
addition, the paper
provides..."
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "Light and
gibberellins (GA) are two important
factors regulating multiple aspects
of plant development. It was
previously known that both pathways
have crosstalk with each other;
however, molecular mechanistic
insight was lacking. The study in
our paper defines a novel and
important connection between light
and GA signaling..."
View Article
Laurie Garrett, the
Senior Fellow for Global Health
at the Council on Foreign
Relations in New York City, and
author of an article in the
journal Foreign
Affairs, entitled:
“The Challenge of Global
Health, ” in January 2007,
discusses the impact of turmoil
in the energy & financial
markets on the health of poor
people around the globe.
Listen:
MP3|
WMA (recorded in July
2008)
Excerpt from the
interview: "Graphene is a lot
of fun for many reasons. It relates
to almost all interesting problems
in condensed matter and statistical
physics, and it has also
fascinating connections to field
theory, and even cosmology.
Besides, there is a general
consensus about the general models
to be used, so that there is not
the confusion typical of..."
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "This paper
describes a recent version of a
computer program called Clustal
(actually Clustal W and Clustal X
versions 2.0) which is widely used
for aligning sets of related
protein or DNA (or RNA) sequences
together. Much of modern molecular
biology revolves around the
determination and analysis of
sequences, and one..."
View Article
Excerpt from the feature:
"This
month,ScienceWatch.compresents
a listing of the top 20
institutions which, as of the
fourth bimonthly update ofEssential Science
IndicatorsSMattracted
the highest total citations to
their papers published in
Clarivate-indexed
Psy. & Psy. These institutions
are the top 20 out of a pool of 360
comprising the top 1% ranked by
total citation count in this
field...."
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "There is a very
clear pattern in our college
student data that students who
either participate in
intercollegiate athletics, or who
are sports fans, are more likely to
binge drink. This was true for both
male and female students, and there
are not differences in drinking
behavior between the athletes and
the fans. We also found that at
colleges..."
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "Our article
provides an overview of important
personal and situational factors
that either constrain or facilitate
successful interdisciplinary
collaboration in scientific,
training, and applied research
settings. This article is part of
the rapidly growing "science of
team science," broadly concerned
with understanding and
managing..."
View Article
Excerpt from the feature:
"In the seventh annual
presentation,
ScienceWatch.com presents the
top 20 countries (among nations
that published 1,000 or more papers
during the period, and across all
fields) out of a pool of 147
which, as of the latest bimonthly
update of
Essential Science
IndicatorsSM,
attracted the highest total
citations to their papers published
in
Clarivate-indexed
journals from 1998-August 31, 2008,
a 10-year + 8..."
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "When I first
started in 1995, people were just
beginning to work on the
self-assembly of
nanoparticles—metallic
particles of gold, silver, etc., so
I worked on that. I worked on shape
control of self-assembled
nanoparticles and on carbon
nanotubes, and I developed a method
called in situ
nano-measurement, which
means..."
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "...the behavior of
complex interconnected systems
cannot be understood without also
understanding the role played by
the network. These days, it’s
become conventional to say that
"networks matter," but as the
current financial crisis
illustrates quite painfully, we
still don’t understand how.
Getting network science to the
point..."
View Article
(Additional
interviews/commentaries will be
added during December 2008)