Elsevier, the scientific publisher, has a new online tool called the Journal Finder. The idea is to help authors identify the appropriate journals for their manuscripts. You input the title, abstract and general fields and it spits out rank-ordered matches based on a keyword algorithm. It's a nice idea if you are contemplating what to do with a manuscript that is outside of your normal field of research. For me, the most compelling feature of the Journal Finder is that it tells you the acceptance rate, impact factor, open access options, editorial times and production times for each journal....I can't tell you how many times I have looked for that information. To have it aggregated in one place is quite helpful, even if it's only for journals published by Elsevier. 

I tried the Journal Finder with the title and abstract of an article that I previously published in the Elsevier journal Forest Ecology and Management, which was consequently the highest match. This seems obvious, so I also tried a few other articles that I had published elsewhere...and got Forest Ecology and Management. Elsevier doesn't have a huge suite of journals in my field and that limits the utility. Nevertheless, publishers offer a service that is driven by content and I applaud the idea of improving the process for those of us providing that content. 


Thanks to P.C. Lopes for turning me on to the Journal Finder. 

A paper by scientists at the University of Alberta has demonstrated that there just might be something to this whole cryogenics craze. 

La Farge et al. report the growth of little ice age bryophyte (the taxonomic group including mosses, lichens, and liverworts) samples that were recovered from within the Teardrop glacier on Ellesmere Island. Simply put, the scientists were able to grow mosses that had been frozen in ice for ~400 years! They didn't do anything special, they just collected the 'dead' moss, mixed it up in soil, and watered it. 

The implications of this study - beyond being able to grow something that hasn't grown for 4 centuries - is that  glaciers serve as an important source of life (bryophytes, bacteria, etc.) as they advance and retreat. It implies that following a significant ice age, the deposit of mosses onto the soil beneath a retreating glacier allowed for the rapid recolonization of plants on the landscape. Mosses and lichens are a great way to kickstart ecosystems, because they break down rocks and soils and thus make nutrients available. This is just a little hint at how life begins over again after a big freeze....

La Farge et al. 2013. Regeneration of Little Ice Age bryophytes emerging from a polar glacier with implications of totipotency in extreme environments. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 24: 9839–9844.