Journal of Biosciences Impact Factor reversing

Year	Impact Factor (IF)	Total Articles	Total Cites
2010	1.888	60	1630
2009	1.956	82	1274
2008	1.703	82	1045

PLoS ONE's 2010 Impact Factor is 4.411

PLoS ONE received its 2010 journal impact factor today, 4.411, placing the open access journal in 12th spot among 85 Biology journals.

The open access journal, published by the Public Library of Science, has grown rapidly since its launch in December, 2006. In 2010, it published nearly 7,000 articles and became the largest scientific journal in the world. Based on this trajectory, the publisher predicts 12,000 published articles by the end of 2011.

PLoS ONE is based on a scalable publishing model with an editorial board of 1,300 volunteer academics. As an online-only publication, the growth of the journal is nearly limitless: The journal is purposefully interdisciplinary in nature, bases criteria for inclusion primarily on "sound methodology," not novelty, and pays for itself through individual article fees. At the 2011 SSP Annual Conference, PLoS ONE publisher, Peter Binfield, believes that we've entered the era of the "OA Mega Journal." According to his predictions, by 2016, 50% of all STM articles will be published by 100 of these mega journals.

The metaphor to describe this new publishing model could go both ways: For the cynical, PLoS ONE is an alien Blob that is bent on devouring the publishing landscape; for its supporters, it represents a successful model to be emulated — and emulated it has.  In the last two years, many subscription publishers have launched PLoS ONE-like journals (SAGE Open, BMJ Open,Biology Open, and Open Biology, to name a few) into the growing market, promising similar services–fast publication, high-acceptance, and article-level metrics — at competing prices.

Expect several more entrants this year.

To continue reading this article by Phil Davis please visit The Scholarly Kitchen

'Indians could actually be refrectory to the German E. coli strain' - Lothar Wieler

My friend, Lothar Wieler, called this evening from Berlin and informed that they are now tracing the history of the bacteria, and will be out in the field going after cows, trash and soil to know the natural descent of the outbreak strain! so that its kinships are established. This is now the natural scientific way out as the latest analysis released by the BJI indicates that the two German strains (01-09591 originally isolated in 2001 and TY2482 from the 2011 outbreak) have clonal profiles for all 12 virulence/fitness genes and 7 MLST housekeeping genes (100% identity). However, at some point over this 10-year period, the new 2011 outbreak strain might have accumulated mutations/plasmids that conferred ability to resist many additional types of antibiotics. In simple words, the source of the German EHEC outbreak is home grown - their own EAEC strain from a 2001 outbreak.

I am hopeful Lothar and his team will succeed in their efforts. We discussed also the possibility that the new isolate being interoaggregative could become pandemic if certain patients turn chronic carriers and could take the bug with them on travel routes. The EU therefore should be proactive on containment of this outbreak within the boundaries of Germany. Lothar, (who is always surprised and amused on visibly unhygienic conditions in certain parts of India, such as heaps of garbage, open drains etc., and apparently healthy people with no institutionalized outbreaks! ) then laughed loud to say Indians could actually be immune to the EHEC like strains - so no worries!! and, I agree. So sometimes the cow dung around us could be 'auspicious' in many ways!