A science free-for-all?

Alan Sheets, Loveland CO — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 16:38:52 GMT

SO, are you saying that the big science journals alert journalists to big discoveries before making them public? What keeps a journalist from using that information to his economic advantage before the general public gets a chance?

A science free-for-all?

Alan Boyle — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 16:47:30 GMT

Good question ... Of course that would be wrong. I suppose the insider trading rules would govern that sort of thing; in fact, journalists involved in financial reporting have gotten themselves in trouble:

http://www.time.com/time/
magazine/article/0,9171,951109,00.html

Science news is less tied to the kinds of advances that could really move a market, so I suppose there's less temptation there. There's not much of a way to capitalize on Martian water futures. ;-)

A science free-for-all?

Maxine Clarke, London, UK — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 10:46:09 GMT

Nature has a password-protected website by which registered journalists can access our articles a week or so before they are published. We provide contact details of the authors and of the News and Views author (if there is a N&V accompanying the paper) to aid the journalist in writing the story accurately. We have strict embargo conditions, as outlined at

http://www.nature.com/authors/editorial_policies/embargo.html

Journalists have to sign these to get access to our press site, and if they break the terms, their access is stopped. For the reasons explained at the link, we believe that this is the best way to obtain fair and accurate reporting of scientific discoveries published in Nature.