Why bother to go that way ? No need at all

When an institution or a college recruits a researcher, she expects the researcher to lay eggs and to lay gold eggs. But even the researcher himself cannot be sure that he is bound to lay gold eggs. Not only that, what appears more confusing is about the definition of 'gold'. What appears 'gold' to the researcher may not appear so to other researchers and to the employer. In many cases, the employer seeks superficial 'goldness' (such as the impact factor of the journal the papers are published), knowing nothing about the content (such as what is the work discussed in that paper and how it adds value to the body of knowledge) that is inside. A researcher must be tough enough to withstand such pressure, which is really vicious and irrational. A good and confident researcher knows and has to know how to handle such situations. In my opinion, one just needs assure that his work is of good quality (at least satisfying himself who is supposed to be ultimately honest) and then writes it up in a nice paper and submit it to a widely known and read journal for publication. No need to wrestle too much with editor procedures. No need to squeeze yourself into a narrow journal that is inappropriately crowded. No need to seek that outward reputation. If your work is gold, it will glow and will be appreciated eventually.

More on the LAO/STO interface

This interface is really booming interests in similar structures ! See a summary by A.J.Millis of what might be expected in this system.

Electronic phase separation at the LaAlO(3)/SrTiO(3) interface
Authors: Ariando et. al.
Nature Communications 2 Article 188 (2011).
Coexistence of Superconductivity and Ferromagnetism in Two Dimensions
Authors: D. A. Dikin, M. Mehta, C. W. Bark, C. M. Folkman, C. B. Eom, and V. Chandrasekhar.
Phys. Rev. Lett. 107 056802 (2011).
Coexistence of magnetic order and two-dimensional superconductivity at LaAlO3/SrTiO3
interfaces
Authors: Lu Li, C. Richter, J. Mannhart and R. C. Ashoori
Nature Physics, doi 10.1038/nphys2080.
Direct Imaging of the coexistence of ferromagnetism and superconductivity at the
LaAlO3/SrTiO3 interface
Authors: J. A. Bert, B. Kalisky, C. Bell. M. Kim, Y. Hikita, H. Y. Hwang and K. Moler
Nature Physics, doi 10.1038/nphys2079

Interactions in graphene

The electrons in graphene are particularly nimble and their interactions are usually ignored together with the effects of some defects. However, recently more and more attention have been paid to them, e.g., about superconductivity and other new orders. Here is a brief summary by P. Guinea [http://www.condmatjournalclub.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/JCCM_SEPTEMBER_2011_01.pdf].

1. Broken symmetry states and divergent resistance in suspended
bilayer graphene
Benjamin E. Feldman, Jens Martin, Amir Yacoby,
arXiv:0909.2883, Nature Physics 5, 889 (2009)
2. Local Compressibility Measurements of Correlated States in
Suspended Bilayer Graphene
Jens Martin, Benjamin E. Feldman, R. Thomas Weitz, Monica T. Allen,
Amir Yacoby,
arXiv:1009.2069, Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 256806 (2010)
3. Interaction-Driven Spectrum Reconstruction in Bilayer Graphene
A. S. Mayorov, D. C. Elias, M. Mucha-Kruczynski, R. V. Gorbachev, T. Tu-
dorovskiy, A. Zhukov, S. V. Morozov, M. I. Katsnelson, V. I. Fal'ko, A. K.
Geim, K. S. Novoselov,
arXiv:1108.1742, Science 333, 860 (2011)
4. Transport Spectroscopy of Symmetry-Broken Insulating States
in Bilayer Graphene
J. Velasco Jr., L. Jing, W. Bao, Y. Lee, P. Kratz, V. Aji, M. Bockrath, C.N.
Lau, C. Varma, R. Stillwell, D. Smirnov, Fan Zhang, J. Jung,
A.H. MacDonald
arXiv:1108.1609

A vision for new editor policy

Nowadays most journals, as long long as they have fair prestige, must have the papers published under peer review, which monitors either the technical aspects or the physical importance or both of received manuscripts. Usually, a manuscript will be at first evaluated by editors and then sent to expert referees. After some time (one or two months or even longer), reviewer's reports will arrive to the editors, who then make a decision based on the reports. It may be either rejected or asked for revisions. Even if it is rejected, the author may still have the chance to write a rebuttal if he thinks the reviewer's reports are refutable. Now the author sends the revised manuscript together with a reply to the reviewer's reports. After that the author has to wait another period to get the reviewer's second reports. And still, the reviewers may get him wrong. At this stage, the editor usually won't listen to the authors anymore and will directly deter the considerations of the manuscript.

As everybody may agree, such a procedure is time consuming and does not ensure timely, unbiased and direct communications between the referees and the authors. The referee is placed at a superior position and the author is not allowed to engage timely conversations with the referee. However, timely conversations and continuous discussions are crucial for the referees to get a thorough comprehension of the work. The point is that, any expert can make mistakes. The best peer review process should look like this: whenever the reviewer reaches a place where he feels confused, he should be able to instantly address it to the author and ask for clarifications, and the author should give a reply within certain duration of the arrival of the referee's requests; if the referee is not happy with the author's reply, he may then recommend against or he may send a further request if he thinks the issue is important enough. Anyway, the point is to render efficient communications between the author and the referee.

The above described process is possible given present technology. The reviewer should be given an email box and so should the author. These email boxes are used only for peer review process and should be transparent to the editor. All conversations and arguments are collected there.

Physics and Physicists: Don't Jump to Conclusion Faster Than c!

Physics and Physicists: Don't Jump to Conclusion Faster Than c!

Helical structures through simple mechanical rules

Structures of this kind commonly occurs in nature. How do we generate them artificially? Here is a review of a work that gives a simple thumb rule.

Macroscopic helical structures formed by organisms include seashells, horns, plant tendrils, and seed pods (see the figure, panel A). The helices that form are chiral; like wood screws, they have a handedness. Some are helicoids, twisted helices with saddle-like curvature and a straight centerline; others are cylindrical helices with cylindrical curvature and a helical centerline. Studies of the mechanisms underlying the formation of helicoid or helical ribbons and of the transitions between these structures (1–4) have left an important question unanswered: How do the molecular organization of the material and its global geometrical features interact to create a diversity of helical shapes? On page 1726 of this issue, Armon et al. (5) explore the rich phenomenology associated with slender strips made of mutually opposing “molecular” layers, taking a singular botanical structure—the Bauhinia seed pod—as their inspiration. They show that a single component, namely a flat strip with a saddle-like intrinsic curvature, is sufficient to generate a wide variety of helical shapes.

An introduction to dimensional analysis

This is a nice article giving a brief account of dimensional analysis, which is an extremely powerful tool for scientists. Still, many postgraduates don't know how to use it !