Protist 2000

As Protist enters the year 2000, the third year of its existence, it may be appropriate to briefly evaluate the past and look forward to what readers and authors of the journal can expect in the near future.It is fair to say that editing the journal over the past two years has been an enlightening experience, more work but also more fun than I anticipated. Whatever has been achieved, it would not have been possible without the tremendous support I received from my co-editors, the publisher and his staff and my secretarial office. Of no less importance has been the constructive criticism of fellow protistologists, readers and authors alike.I wish to thank Paul Falkowski, Rick A Firtel, and Frances D Gillin who have resigned from the Editorial Board for all their help in getting the journal started, and I welcome Randall S Alberte, Donald M Anderson, Richard Kessin and Peter Upcroft as new Board members.Protist has rapidly become one of the premium international journals for protist research, its impact factor, to be issued later this year will testify to this. The journal is covered by MEDLINE and a full text (PDF) online version is now available free of charge through the year 2000 on the publisher's Web site (http://www.urbanfischer.de/journals/protist).Protist will continue to publish high quality original work in all areas of protist research using the highest quality reproduction methods available today. In addition the highly successful “Protist News” and “From the Archives” sections for which authors are usually invited, will remain regular features of the journal.Protist in the year 2000 opens a new chapter of protist research. I invite you to join in this as a reader and a contributor.     

List of biography and history published mostly in <Emphasis Type="Italic">Photosynthesis Research</Emphasis>, 1988–2008

As an outgoing Editor of the Historical Corner of Photosynthesis Research, I present here the following list of papers of historical interest for the benefit of all. The first paper I published was: Govindjee (1988) The Discovery of Chlorophyll–protein Complex by Emil L. Smith during 1937–1941. Photosynth Res 16:285–289. In order to bring to the readers this List of references on the historical papers published in this journal (and some even elsewhere), I have organized these papers under the following headings (some are arbitrarily assigned to a particular section since they may fit in more than one section): (I) biographies (that include obituaries and tributes, arranged alphabetically, with dates of birth and death); (II) recognitions of scientists (arranged alphabetically) by others; (III) personal perspectives (arranged alphabetically); (IV) historical papers (first chronologically, by the year of publication, and then alphabetically by the names of the editors); (V) special issues of Photosynthesis Research (chronologically by the year of publication and then alphabetically by the names of editors); and lastly (VI) Conferences (available reports in Photosynthesis Research). I will appreciate readers to send me (by e-mail: gov@illinois.edu) corrections, if any, and additional references from other journals. “The firefly seems afire, the sky looks flat; Yet sky and fly are neither this nor that”     

Editorial

As Protist enters its seventh year of publication, we can again look back to a successful year of publishing the most exciting research on our favourate organisms, the protists. Submissions, published printed pages and the impact factor (IF 2002: 2.617; ISI, Philadelphia) are all up from last year and have reached the highest levels since Protist began operation in 1998. To me this shows that research on protists in the twenty-first century is well alive and thriving, and it gives me the opportunity to thank all those involved in the production of a quality journal, namely the Editorial Board, Editorial Office, publisher's staff, expert reviewers, and last but not least all authors, who submit their best work to our journal. In particular, I wish to thank Donald M. Anderson and Egbert Tannich who have resigned from the Editorial Board after four and six years, respectively, of dedicated service to the journal, and I welcome C. Graham Clark and Karen A. Steidinger as new members on the Editorial Board.     

In Lieu of an Introduction

Nikolai Veresov: Tatiana, in this volume of our journal we publish a selection of your articles. Two of your other articles were published in Soviet Psychology in the 1970s. Introducing you to the readers of that journal, James Wertsch (1978) wrote: "The author … is one of the leading young investigators from the Luria school of neurolinguistics. She has studied and conducted extensive research both with Luria and with A. A. Leontiev, a major figure in Soviet psycholinguistics. Her analysis of inner speech as a mechanism in speech production reveals the strong influence that L. S. Vygotsky has had on Soviet psychology."¹ But first of all, I suppose our readers would be interested in learning more about your life, about events that preceded your scientific achievements. Could you please tell us briefly about your childhood and your family? How did your parents influence your course of life and your occupational choice? What did they do?     

Morphological specializations for fetal maintenance in viviparous vertebrates: An introduction and historical retrospective

In many viviparous vertebrates, pregnant females sustain their developing embryos and provide them with nutrients by means of placentas and a diversity of other types of specializations. With this article, we introduce a virtual (online) issue of the Journal of Morphology that presents 12 recent papers on fetal maintenance in viviparous vertebrates. We also outline the history of research in this area and document the central role of morphology in helping to explain the function and evolution of specializations for fetal nutrition. This virtual issue of the Journal of Morphology is an outgrowth of a symposium held under auspices of the International Congress of Vertebrate Morphology. The included papers reflect a diversity of taxa, research methods, and biological issues. To celebrate the publication of this virtual issue of the Journal of Morphology, the publisher is making freely available to readers a number of other relevant papers published in the journal over the past 128 years. J. Morphol. 276:1–16, 2015. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Nomenclature proposal for proteins of the nervous system

We hope that this journal can be of service to the scientific community in many ways. One of our aims is to accomplish, this in as flexible a way as possible. A comments section may be one form of increasing flexibility. There must be many worthy scientific communications that do not fit in the traditional forms of full or short papers but would be suitable as comments. Although we are not looking for controversial subjects (please do not attack the editors unless you have to), views expressed do not have to agree with, or represent, the views of the editors.-(Ed.)