Some time ago I tried to think of the scientific journals that had the "best" names, the catchiest titles. Straight off the top of my head I came up with:

• Science
• Nature
• Cell

It's hard to imagine anything shorter and more to-the-point. Imagine my surprise recently when, glancing at an analysis of "high-impact journals", I saw the top three for molecular biology: precisely the above short list! In physics, chemistry, etc. highest honors were also held by Science and Nature, though sometimes in the opposite order. Sure, the rankings are based on citation-frequency analysis, not necessarily a definitive way to pick a winner. But no doubt this is another case of the rich getting richer — potentially prestigious papers tend to be submitted to those journals which have published blockbusters in the past, and the trend snowballs.

(cf. Science Watch, Jan/Feb 2005, "Hottest Journals of the Millennium (so far)" at [1])

TopicScience - TopicSociety - 2006-09-13

(correlates: CorrelationCausalityAndAstrology, RatTales, MillionsOfTonsOfOil, ...)