Oxford University Press together with a consortium of UK academics has launched a new journal, BioscienceHorizons, which is unique among scientific journals in that they publish exclusively papers by undergraduate students about their own final year projects.

All British and Irish universities can nominate their best final year projects. The student then rewrites his thesis into the format of a scientific paper and submits it. The paper will be reviewed by academics in the field and the best papers will be published.

We are probably a few who, during searches of papers from specific researchers in Web of Science or Google Scholar, have experienced the frustration of getting 100s of papers listed from different subjects and clearly different authors. This problem of course arises when we search for scientists with common last names. Often the only solution is to either browse through all the papers or alternatively go in search of the scientist’s own homepage to view his publication list there.

Translation of an interview of Bjørn Lomborg conducted on the 23rd of November 2007 by science journalist Lennart Kiil.

Lennart Kiil: When did you first become interested in political science?

The name of the magazine is research*eu and as the name implies it is the official research magazine of the European Union. However, unlike what you may think the magazine is far from a boring technocratic description of European research projects. It is true that it focuses on large research projects funded by the European Commission, but the magazine is independent and has a dedicated staff of professional journalists. Besides covering European research projects, it also covers events and small research notices through the European Union. It, furthermore, sometimes covers special topics from a global perspective. The latest issue, for instance, has an in depth coverage of climate change, but also covers topics such as the 2007 Polar Year, nanotechnology and a scientist portrait.