Science marches on, sometimes with headlines and awards, but most often with little fanfare.
A look at the year's most-cited papers in science, ones that scientists themselves referenced in their own work, for example, finds studies that did and didn't make any "Top Ten" lists.
"What scientists themselves are interested in often differs a good bit from the public's interests," says analyst David Pendlebury of Thomson Reuters, the international specialty information firm. "Often the stories that really matter in science are the ones still unfolding."
As part of his efforts for the ScienceWatch.com website, Pendlebury compiled 2009's top topics in science, by citation, using an "Essential Science Indicators" database of publications, citations and trends in all disciplines. Here are the top 10:
•NASA's measures of the age, expansion and distribution of galaxies throughout the universe based on observations by its WMAP probe, launched in 2001. Not on a lot of lists, but, "the studies just provide a wealth of data that everyone in physics from cosmology to high-energy physicists will use for years," Pendlebury says.
•Prostate cancer studies suggesting that screening and Vitamin E had few benefits in treating the disease. These made news but were also highly cited by other researchers.
•New England Journal of Medicine and Journal of the American Medical Association studies showing problems with the blood-thinning drug Clopidogrel for heart patients. Another newsmaker.
•Diabetes treatment consensus statements that were updated this year. "Such articles are typically highly cited," Pendlebury says.
No comments:
Post a Comment