publishing science, accelerating research

I have always been fascinated by reading pieces of research in different areas, and trying to understand them, or at least make something out of them. I think this might be a reminiscence of highschool times when i used to have endless discussions with my Philosophy teacher (who's a brilliant guy), my Maths teacher (who is in fact a proffesor teaching in the University of Bucharest) and my Physics teacher (who trained the Romanian team taking part in international olympiads). It was absolutely fantastic to tackle such issues with them, and i felt really lucky i was challenged to understand and reflect upon really complicated things.

However, with entering advertising and not actually having any such pro around to provoke me and so on, i didn't exactly stay focused enough on such matters. Until this winter break, when i talked to Space a lot about neuroscience, and with some other friend (PhD in Physics, in Romania for holidays only) about, well, physics, and with another bunch of smart people about science in general and astronomy...And i got the old flame back. Which is why it was a thrill for me to discover PLoS One: Publishing Science, Accelerating Research. The site, in beta, is "a new way of communicating peer-reviewed science and medicine" - basically, an open source of research in various domains. As prof. Lon Cardon, of University of Oxford, says: "PLoS meets a crucial need. By providing scientists from different disciplines with easy and free access to high quality research papers PLoS should actually enhance scientific progress itself."