Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week

Although I’m on record of being no fan of the tabloids, there’s no doubt that they are hugely influential.  So it has to be good news to find that in the last few hours, both Nature and Science have publicly come out against the Research Works Act.

The Nature Publishing Group (with publishes Nature), writing jointly with Digital Science, published this statement:

Nature Publishing Group (NPG) and Digital Science note the concern amongst the scientific and library communities about the Research Works Act (H.R. 3699), currently under consideration by the U.S. federal government, and wish to clarify our position.

NPG and Digital Science do not support the Research Works Act.

And within the last couple of hours, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (which publishes Science), has followed suit with its own statement:

The nonprofit American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the journal Science, today reaffirmed its support for the current public access policy of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Contrary to recent news reports, AAAS does not endorse the Research Works Act, which would prevent the NIH from requiring its grantees to make biomedical research findings freely available via the National Library of Medicine’s Web site.

This is excellent and very welcome news.  I have written to the NPG and AAAS to express my thanks for their statements.

I hope and expect to see other publishers following their example: this page on the Harvard cyber-law site is maintaining a list of AAP-member publishers who have done so.

Line drawing and photograph of the axis and third cervical vertebra of Chuanjiesaurus anaensis (LCD9701-I). Bar = 10 cm. From Sekiya 2011:fig. 6. Note the absurdly elongated postzygapophysis.

And remember — it’s not too late for you to make a difference to the RWA’s success or failure.  See the Alliance for Taxpayer Action’s page, Call to action: Oppose H.R. 3699, a bill to block public access to publicly funded research.