Archive for the 'Scientific Writing' Category

As you know by now, I’m a C&E News superfan. In this week’s edition, editor-in-chief Rudy Baum discusses how he spices up the cover of our favorite chemistry magazine by insisting on variety.  That’s why I like it when he cuts the leash and lets the art editors (directors?) play with the covers. On May 7th, we saw the third (by my count) fancy cover since the 2006 redesign.  The blue and white title bar made a triumphant return, and the cover sported the most centrally-located address label that I can remember (yet required no ugly white box):

Now is probably as good a time as any to unload all of the comments and suggestions I’ve been saving for C&EN: 

— As much as I hate to say it, I’ve really liked the new ”C&EN Photo Gallery” section.  I’m torn, because while I like nice pictures, I am also troubled by some PI’s insistance on finding a pretty picture FOR EVERYTHING. That said, there are times when the crux of an experiment can be explained by a nice picture. Also, some pictures bankrupt of scientific value still have artistic merit.

— I think a regular reader/commenter on ChemBark took one of the pictures featured in this week’s gallery. I don’t want to out him/her, but would the mystery photographer enter and sign in, please?

— I’d like to see more opinion in C&EN, especially the point-counterpoint pieces. There is a simple method for selecting good pairs of chemists to fight in print. First, the people have to be recognized experts on the subject in question.  You can’t pick a random idiot, but you also can’t pick a big name in a tangential field just because he’s a big name. Second, it’s best if the people you pick are jerks who don’t care about upsetting anyone. Don’t pick writers who mince words—diplomatic writing is less informative and less entertaining.  Give us a duel.  We want to know why someone is wrong, and we don’t want to sift through BS to find out.

— My most radical suggestion: C&EN should sponsor a chemical song parody contest.  They could run a full-page call for submissions over several weeks, then post the best songs (top 50?) online and give prizes to the top 5.  I’m sure the contest would drive plenty of traffic to the online edition, and the feature would stand a good chance of getting picked up by Fark, Slashdot, and Boing-Boing.  If money is what motivates the powers that be, think about how this would increase site traffic, and consequently, ad revenue.

That’s it for now, but prepare for a big Big BIG BIG C&E News post on Friday.  Big.

BIG. 

In a bittersweet turn of events, the chemical blogosphere is losing Carmen and her blog, She Blinded Me with Science. The upside is that she landed a job at C&EN, so we’ll get to enjoy her stuff in bigger doses. I’m guessing the pay is better, too.

For those keeping score, this marks the third time that a chemistry magazine has lured a popular blogger into its ranks. Carmen follows in the footsteps of Derek Lowe and Dylan Stiles, who now pen monthly columns for RSC’s Chemistry World.

It’s definitely fitting, because of all the chemical blogs out there, Carmen’s is the one most like C&EN (note: this is a compliment, not an insult). Her posts are meaty, often read like mini-feature articles, are always on topic (science/chemistry), and have a serious/professional tone.  Finally, she avoids making negative posts (no bloggarific mud-slinging) and doesn’t use swear words.  In short, it’s no surprise that C&EN snapped her up.

In contrast, if I were to get a job at C&EN and submit anything like the stuff written here, Rudy Baum would defenestrate my computer and me along with it. I’ve actually heard ChemBark called The O’Reilly Factor of chemistry blogs. Can you believe that?  While I was initially revolted by that thought—I often find myself in disagreement with Billy—a deeper analysis has led me to the conclusion that the comparison is valid. After all, we both frequently address hot-button issues, we don’t shy away from sharing our opinions, we occasionally come off as smug jerks, and a significant percentage of our audience is composed of people who hate our guts. That said, I think he is more of a loudmouth and that I make more sense than he does.

Anyway, all of this ridiculousness got me thinking about what television shows are the most analogous to other chemistry blogs out there.  Here’s what I decided:

The Chem Blog — The Daily Show with Jon Stewart — Good information is presented with an editorial spin in a humorous manner.

Carbon-Based Curiosities — Live with Regis and Kelly — A healthy balance of research news and assorted fluff, although Excimer swears more than Regis.

Totally Synthetic — NFL Primetime – Paul D. breaks down total syntheses like Ron Jaworski breaks down game film. ChemDraw = the Telestrator.

In the Pipeline — Money magazine — OK, I’m cheating here; I can’t think of a good TV analogue of Derek’s blog, which is a mix of technical news, industry news, lab research, and human interest stories. In this regard, I think it’s like an issue of Money magazine for drug discovery instead of financial matters.

Chemical Musings — Countdown — Like Milo’s blog, this British game show is filled with puzzles and includes more banter than your typical American game show. At least, it did when the great Richard Whiteley was host.

Sceptical Chymist — The Sports Reporters — This show put a camera in front of a panel of four reporters (here: editors) and allowed them to talk about whatever newsworthy issues they pleased.  It was definitely more professional and thoughtful than most sports shows.

Lamentations on Chemistry — Andy Rooney’s Segments on 60 Minutes — Thoughts from a grizzled chemistry veteran.

Post Doc Propter Doc — Dilbert — Her blog is about her life in lab, and it often sounds like a sit-com.

Org Prep Daily — The Essence of Emeril — BAMMM!! Recipes with flair.

Chemical Forums — Washington Journal (C-SPAN’s morning show) — The focus of both is on audience participation.

The Chemical Informatics Crowd (e.g., Peter Murray-Rust and Egon) — CNBC Network — Much like CNBC covers the financial world inside and out, the chemical informatics community has taken to blogging en masse, making that subject the deepest explored issue in the chemical blogosphere.

The Half-Decent Pharmaceutical Chemistry Blog, Curious Wavefunction, Whistling in the Wind — The National Public Radio lineup — There are a lot of blogs that resemble the programming of NPR, in that they are quality shows that never get the attention they deserve.

It’s difficult to pigeonhole blogs into TV equivalents, so some of the above comparisons ring more true than others. To any of you who feel offended, just remember that none of these is worse than being called another Bill O’Reilly.

Scientists have been pretty good about developing standards to ease communication across scientific disciplines, but we have yet to decide on a standard protocol for determining the order of authors on papers. Since papers are widely regarded as the principal metric of scholarly achievement, maybe it’s time we did.

If you asked anyone what position they’d want in an author list, the general consensus would be first. Knowing nothing else about a paper, most of us would assume that the first author made the most important contributions. In the majority of chemistry labs, the first position is usually granted to the researcher who took primary responsibility for conducting experiments, writing the paper, and shepherding the project to completion. The remaining junior authors are usually listed in descending order of perceived scientific contribution, until you get to the principal investigator, who almost always goes last (1 2 3).

But making the above assumption can lead you astray, as that’s not the way all chemists do it.  Although it has become decreasingly common for the principal investigator to take first authorship (1 2 3), some young professors are continuing this trend.  It seems to be more common in organic synthesis than in other areas.  My understanding of this practice was that it simplified finding papers out of a particular research lab back when papers were sorted alphabetically in literature indexes.  While the advent of computerized literature searches has rendered this advantage obsolete, the practice of some PIs “going first” persists.  Perhaps it is simply a matter of tradition, or maybe a means of senior authors “protecting their brand,” since long author lists are usually shortened to “First Author, et al.”

What do other types of scientists do?  Astrophysicists list authors in descending order of contribution (1 2), which means that the advisor is usually the second author listed.  While this system seems the most fair to me, I can see how some bosses might lament the prospect of getting lost in long author lists.  When I’m scanning through ASAP alerts, after the title, I usually glance quickly at the end of the author list to see where the paper came from.  In this respect, the PI going first or last is rather convenient.  An astrophysics professor I talked to here said that he usually assumes that the last author on a paper was the guy who drove the rest of the team to the telescope.

While the practice of listing authors in alphabetical order is exceedingly rare in chemistry, it turns out to be standard protocol in the economics community (1 2 3). Does anyone else find it disturbing that, when left to their own devices, economists will revert to academic communism? Isn’t there something to be said for providing incentives for hard work?  Oh well.

Aside from author order, there is also the wacky issue of joint authorship. Sometimes author order assignments are so troublesome that people choose to indicate joint first-authorship. While it is occasionally seen in Angewandte Chemie, it has actually been banned from JACS:

JACS does not permit equal or partial authorship designations. JACS assumes that all authors have made substantial contributions to the work.

I’ve got no problem with having these notices of equal contribution; I’m not sure why JACS does.  The issue of joint authorship is so important to some authors that they actually published addition/correction notices to set the record straight (1 2).

Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t link to Jorge Cham’s Ph.D. comic strip that illustrates what the order of authors really means.  There’s more than a bit of truth in it.

So…what style do I advocate? First, any of the above styles is acceptable.  It’s a personal decision that is determined at the sole discretion of the PI.  So long as the community knows how each PI operates, there won’t be any problems.  That said, I like the PI-last format—with a twist.  With the PI-last ordering, the people in the trenches have added incentive to get papers out and the PI gets to stand out too. My twist is that I think the first pages of supporting information for any paper should contain a short summary of each author’s contributions. This way, anyone who wants to know who did what can find out.  The added detail would be a double-edged sword, because with each credited contribution comes the added burden of being responsible for the integrity of the data.  Assigning responsibility in this manner would make it harder for fraudsters and sloppy researchers to hide behind their colleagues.  Furthermore, I think this list should be followed by a signed statement from each author asserting that, to the best of his or her knowledge, the results are authentic, are accurate, and were obtained in an academically honest manner.  It would be naive to think that this simple change would solve all of our community’s problems, from inflated yields to outright fabrication, but it might make some people think twice about going down those roads.

• Remember that rhodamine spill in our lab? The bill for the clean up came to a whopping $2436.
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• Question for the synthetic chemists: if you measure a yield of 98.5%, do you report it as 98% or 99% in the substrate table? And by “do you” I don’t mean “does one”, I mean “do you” .
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• I like it when C&EN plays around with its cover.  The March 12th cover is particularly cool, because the change is so subtle you probably missed it. If you look closely, the title lettering is transparent, so the red you’re seeing is from the Chinese flag. I think the only other time they’ve strayed from their new redesign was with the cerulean 2006 Pharma Review cover.
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• Finally, can you think of any chemical feuds other than those listed below? The first group contains “academic” debates, while the second group contains “ethical” disputes. The names below sometimes just refer to the “face” associated with each side; they aren’t all one-on-one conflicts.

………………Nonclassical Carbocations (Brown vs. Winstein)
………………Nanotechnology (Whitesides vs. Drexler)
………………Origin of Life (Miller vs. Wächtershäuser)

………………Woodward-Hoffmann Rules^* (Corey vs. Woodward)
………………Nonlinear Effects in Asymmetric Catalysis (Córdova vs. Blackmond)

* Note the error in the caption to the first photo.

Some commenters in a previous thread took umbrage at the fact that I admit to judging people by their grammar. Well, I do, and I’m not going to change anytime soon. I’ll put poor grammar on par with poor hygiene, dressing like a slob, and bad table manners—while they don’t automatically invalidate a person’s ideas, they will cause me to treat anything the person says with more skepticism than usual. With respect to the four errors I found in the first paragraph of this recent paper from Org. Lett., the misplaced apostrophe in “Evan’s” was the most aggravating. While the chemistry in the paper was good, as The Chem Blog has noted, the authors’ lack of attention to detail was borderline disrespectful. I expected more from one of the most storied labs in synthetic organic chemistry.

A lot of people will complain, “So what if I make a few mistakes? Why don’t you focus on the ideas?” That’s the thing: I want to focus on your ideas, so why don’t you stop whining and learn to write properly? The rules of grammar are not up for discussion—just follow them out of courtesy to your readers. Grammatical errors are distracting and will cause them to lose sight of what you’re writing. If you are someone who has no trouble reading documents riddled with mistakes, that’s great, but when you are writing, you aren’t writing for yourself.

While grammar shouldn’t be the sole criterion for evaluating intelligence, I will admit to judging some things by a relatively obscure set of criteria. For instance, I have a list of favorite subjects for judging textbooks and course packets. One of the first things I do to determine the quality of a sophomore organic textbook is to look in the index for phenol. As you all know, phenol is more acidic than “standard” aliphatic alcohols. If you took a survey, most people would ascribe this fact to a resonance effect by drawing the following structures:

There are a number of variations on this theme, including drawing out all of the unhybridized p orbitals and showing that an orbital on oxygen containing a lone pair can overlap with the pi system, thereby allowing for increased delocalization of the extra negative charge density.

It turns out that an inductive effect—not a resonance effect—is the predominant reason for the increased acidity of phenol relative to aliphatic alcohols. Whereas aliphatic alcohols have a C(sp³)—O bond, the carbon to which the hydroxyl group is bonded in phenol is sp² hybridized. The increased s-character of the carbon orbital used to form the C—O bond makes it more electron withdrawing, which leads to greater stabilization of the conjugate base of the alcohol. For the purpose of comparison, look at the pK_a of phenol compared to that of enol tautomer of acetone:

Even though you can only draw two resonance forms showing delocalization of the extra negative charge in the conjugate base of the enol (vs. four for phenol), the acidities of the two protons differ by less than an order of magnitude. For those interested, these data come from Evans’ Chem 206 lecture notes (Lecture 20, restricted access), where the point is hammered home in glorious detail. Professor Evans’ PowerPoint slides should be framed and displayed in the Smithsonian.

While we’re discussing phenol and errors, let me also use this example to illustrate one of the main problems with Wikipedia. Wikipedia is great, but it is home to a number of edit-happy users who think they know more than they actually do. If you look at the discussion page for phenol, someone actually addressed the resonance vs. inductive effect argument, but was unceremoniously (mis)corrected by another user, who references an incorrect explanation on the Internet. Thus, the main article (as of today) gives the incorrect (resonance > inductive) explanation:

Phenol has a limited solubility in water (8.3 g/100 ml). It is slightly acidic: the phenol molecule has weak tendencies to lose the H⁺ ion from the hydroxyl group, resulting in the highly water-soluble phenoxide anion C₆H₅O⁻. Compared to aliphatic alcohols, phenol shows much higher acidity; it even reacts with NaOH to lose H⁺ whereas aliphatic alcohols do not. This is due to orbital overlap between the oxygen’s lone pairs and the aromatic system, which delocalizes the negative charge throughout the ring and stabilizes the anion. This effect is attenuated, however, due to oxygen’s relatively high electronegativity. ^[1]

God knows that we in the chemical blogosphere love the Wikipedia, but read it with skepticism.

This concludes today’s lesson. Your homework for the weekend is to find all of the grammatical errors in this post. For extra credit, find an error in a chemistry article on Wikipedia, fix it, and brag about having done so in the comments. Class dismissed.

In celebration of the one-year anniversary of the ignition of the chemical blogosphere (in JACS), here’s what I’d do if someone handed me the reins of the ACS’s flagship journal: 

First, one thing that I would not do is make the journal open access.  I like the idea of going open access, but it would be a poor business decision for one of the leading journals.  Why should the ACS give away all of that revenue? JACS is the finest chemistry journal on the planet—it provides a good service and puts out a good product. If libraries and other subscribers are willing to pay exorbitant sums of money for subscriptions, why not take it?  Let all of the worse journals go open access first, then you can start talking about JACS.  Also, libraries having to pay for JACS is good for the prestige of the journal.  If budgets tighten, the last chemistry journal that a library will cancel is JACS.  We don’t want anybody to forget that.

Philosophy 

How would I run the journal?  Well, the central editorial philosophy would be that the process of publication should be completely transparent—no anonymity at any step.

Main Features

1. Once an accepted paper is ready for publication, all documents associated with that manuscript will go online. This includes the final paper, the supporting information, the original and revised submissions, the cover letter, the referee reports, and the authors’ response to the referees. Everything. As is currently the case, only the final paper will appear in the print edition of the journal.

2. Once a paper is published online, a comments thread will appear on the ACS Web site for readers who wish to make comments on the work. In order to post comments, readers will have to register for an account, and their full names and home cities will appear alongside their comments. Anonymous commenting will not be allowed.

Authors, like any other users, can respond to comments. At first, in order to ensure that the commenters are who they say they are, only members of the American Chemical Society will be allowed to comment. Details for signing up for accounts will be mailed to the addresses that the ACS has on its membership files. All corresponding authors must register for an account before they will be allowed to submit manuscripts for publication.

For non-ACS members, we will setup registration booths at ACS national meetings or prospective users can swing by ACS headquarters in DC. Two forms of photo identification will be required to register in person.

3. Documents associated with manuscripts that are ultimately not accepted for publication will not be made public. However, the ACS publications office will keep these records on file, including referee reports.

4.  The office will maintain statistics on each referee to monitor how many papers each accepts and rejects, and how many times a referee’s recommendation stands in opposition to the recommendation of the other referees and the final decision of the editor. The statistics will be published on the user page of each referee, alongside other statistics such as the average turn-around time the referee has for returning reports on communications and on articles.

5. A special associate editor for the site will have the power to temporarily remove comments that he or she judges to be inappropriate. A committee of seven people who have been corresponding authors on a JACS publication in the past five years will serve as an oversight committee for the Web page. They will convene once a month, online, to consider the reinstatement of comments removed by the associate editor and to consider appeals from other users regarding inappropriate conduct. They will have the power to delete comments and sanction individuals who misbehave by trolling, badgering authors, or posting off-topic (spam) or offensive material. The sanctions will be made public and posted on the offending person’s user page. The user will be allowed to post a response.

Considerations

1. Everything will be signed—the manuscripts, the referee reports, the editors’ decisions. Any material that cannot be ascribed to the person who wrote it will be discarded.

a. If the authors don’t like the policy of making the cover letters and original revisions available, they should go publish somewhere else.

b. If the referees don’t like the possibility of having their reports made public, they should decline our requests to review manuscripts. Why should a referee be embarrassed about anything he or she has to say? If the criticism is valid, the authors and the readership will recognize it as valid. The only people who benefit from anonymity are cowards and those who wish to abuse the system by playing favorites or holding personal grudges.

(I know a lot of you will get hung up on this and say, “This will never work.”  I don’t understand why it’s such a big deal. We are all adults. A referee shouldn’t feel bad about writing a critical referee report, so long as he is justified in doing so.  So long as the opinion is valid, no one will go online and criticize the referee.  In fact, if a referee knows that he will have to defend his report in public, the report will probably end up being more honest and of a higher quality.)

2.  As editor, if I saw that an author was submitting a lot of manuscripts but wasn’t refereeing his fair share, I’d cap the number of submissions that the author could make per year.

3.  Statistics will be maintained regarding the activity of all authors, editors, referees, and commenters.  These stats will be posted on their user pages. User pages will also include links to the users’ referee reports, Web comments, editorial decisions, stats on submissions, and sanctions or disciplinary actions.

4. Upon the death of an author, a note will be entered in his user profile and an automated system will leave a comment in all of his publications saying that the author will not be able to respond to further comments.

5.  As a resource to the commenting community, we will provide information about federal and state laws on defamation.  Users will be required to sign a statement acknowledging they have reviewed the information and will not make libelous comments.

Prognosis

I have no doubt that the journal would endure an initial decrease in the number of submissions and in the number of people willing to serve as referees. In fact, if the journal had any serious competition, the consequences could be disastrous.  But if the above system is instituted, the increased candor will bolster the credibility of papers published in JACS and the comment system will improve scientific communication among members of the community.  As I see it, that’s what the ACS Publications Division should have as its top priority.

Now is a good time to make these changes, because the Internet has become a reliable tool for publishing scientific papers and JACS is the perfect publication to implement these changes because it is the leader in our field.  JACS might be the only journal strong enough to weather the inevitable wave of resistance from the Ol’ Boys Club and others who stand to lose from the democratization of power in scientific publishing.

So, can we make this happen?

From their Web site:

“Scientific Publishing at a Non-Profit Organization: or How to Get Your Name in Every Issue of JACS”
Presented by Sonja Krane, Ph.D.
Managing Editor, Journal of the American Chemical Society
.
Dr. Krane, will talk about working in the scientific publishing industry. In February 2006, Dr. Krane joined the American Chemical Society staff, serving as Managing Editor of JACS, the society’s flagship journal since 1897. Based in Salt Lake City, Utah, she works closely with Editor-in-Chief Professor Peter Stang and the editorial staff to manage and streamline the manuscript submission and review process. Her responsibilities include evaluating manuscripts for their fit within the scope of JACS, adjudicating minor ethical issues, representing the journal in correspondence with editors, authors, and reviewers, and developing initiatives to sustain and enhance the standing of JACS at the forefront of international chemistry journal. Dr. Krane is an alumnus of the Department of Chemistry, receiving her Ph.D. in 2004 with Koji Nakanishi. Her graduate studies centered on the characterization of a variety of plant (Ginkgo biloba) and animal (slow loris, gaur) derived natural products, as well as the synthesis of retinoid analogs for investigating activation of the signaling protein Rhodopsin.

I imagine that the question and answer period could be quite interesting.  Or maybe not (San Francisco ‘06, anyone?).  In case people run out of things to ask, how about: 

1. When do publications go directly into print without going through ASAP first?  Who makes the decision?
2. Under what circumstances does JACS allow the online edition to be edited?  When are edit notices placed in PDF files and when are they not?
3. How often does JACS find it necessary to sanction authors for ethical offenses?  What are the most common punishments?
4. Do you think the peer-review system is broken?
5. Is JACS planning to do anything cool with its Web site, like adding a news blog or online review or comment system?
6. How much money does a technical editor at JACS make?  What about the production staff and copy editors in Ohio?

So it looks like you’re in for a real treat, Columbians.  Enjoy, and let us know how it goes.

Some recent discussions in the chemical blogosphere have wandered into particularly contentious areas. Whether trading news about scientific misconduct or sounding off on minorities in science, bloggers and commenters want to know how much they can say without getting into trouble. Fortunately, the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School has the answers. They developed chillingeffects.org to help Average Joes and Janes on the Internet understand laws regarding what you can and can’t say online.

So, how many of the protections enjoyed by the press also apply to bloggers? All of them. Just remember that when you post stuff online, you are publishing information. Online publications are governed by the same laws that govern information published in more traditional media. Blogs have the right to report newsworthy things, but at the same time, bloggers are also open to defamation and violation-of-privacy lawsuits. You generally want to keep two things in mind: make sure what you say is both true and newsworthy. Don’t make stuff up, and don’t go digging into areas where someone would have a reasonable expectation of privacy.

On the plus side, you only have to worry about what you say. Legal precedent has established that owners and operators of sites are not responsible for statements posted by third parties. That means that bloggers are not responsible for defamatory comments left on their blogs. (So keep on posting, Wolfie.) At the same time, commenters don’t have “freedom of speech” on someone else’s Web site; their comments can be deleted by the site’s owner at any time.

While those are the main points, I highly recommend surfing through the Chilling Effects Web site when you’ve got some free time. And should you ever find yourself having to figure out a cease-and-desist letter, they’ve got a great section on those, too.

While the law may treat bloggers as members of the press, the rest of the world has been reluctant to do the same.  Fortunately, that’s changing. A recent article in The Washington Post notes that 2 out of the 100 seats for the media at the Scooter Libby trial are being distributed to bloggers. With this new vote of confidence, it will be interesting to see whether bloggers improve their journalistic standards by doing things like taking the time to verify information, obtaining permission before using copyrighted images, and publishing corrections when circumstances warrant them.

As far as chemistry goes, the American Chemical Society has pretty much poo-pooed the idea of blogs being a legitimate news medium. As proof, look no further than national meetings, where the ACS offers complimentary registration and access to a media room (complete with wireless Internet access) to the people lucky enough to be deemed journalists. Seeing as how the ACS is coming to Boston this Fall, I thought it might be interesting to use their facilities to post dispatches from the lectures and maybe even get short interviews with anyone being offered to the media. Upon closer inspection, it appears that the ACS won’t let me:

Press/Media Registration: Press registration is complimentary for credentialed members of the news media (restricted to reporters and editors working full-time for print or broadcast news) who are approved by the ACS Office of Communications. Press representatives may pick up their badges with valid media credentials from the Press Room (Moscone Center, Room 232) during the meeting.

That stinks, and it makes little sense as a blanket policy. For instance, by their definition, no freelance reporter will be granted press registration. Furthermore, a reporter from the Harvard News Office could get credentialed but not a student-reporter from the Harvard Crimson, despite the fact that the latter probably has a much greater readership. If the ACS truly exists as an organization to promote chemistry, I think that encouraging intrepid bloggers to cover interesting chemistry would be a good idea. I mean, who’s going to do a better job of covering chemical lectures: some random reporter working full-time for the Sunnyville Post or some nerd on the Internet who actually understands chemistry?

Maybe I’ll send a letter to the ACS Press Office to see if they’ll step into the 21st century and reconsider their restrictions. I’m not looking for a free ride…I’ll happily pay for registration, just give me access to the Internet at the meeting site. Pretty, please?

UPDATE: Mitch found a more extensive write-up of the ACS’s Media Accreditation Policy.  Web entities can get media registration so long as they have a news component, and freelancers just need a note from mommy.

Expect more news posts on ChemBark in 2007.  If I can save some money on registration, the drinks will be on me.