Back in July of 2009 I wrote about Scitable for AdAge Digital, A New Model for Digital Publishing … From an Academic Journal?, and have so much to tell you about it — and I am driving Ed Zitron crazy to write the follow-up article — but I have been so busy that I have not had the time.  So, to throw this amazing company a bone, here’s their latest news:  Nature Education’s Scitable Launches Mobile Version to Broaden Global Access to Science Information

Cambridge, MA – August 25, 2010 – Nature Education, the educational wing of global science publisher Nature Publishing Group, today announced the launch of the mobile version of the open-access science library Scitable. Scitable’s free library of scientist-authored overviews of key concepts in the life sciences is now accessible to users on a broad range of mobile devices, including the iPad, Android, Blackberry, and basic feature phones.

“Our mission is to democratize access to science education” said Vikram Savkar, SVP & Publishing Director at Nature Publishing Group. “Through our website, we’ve grown to reach more than 500,000 life science students in 165 countries. However, we’ve been working to find a way to put our high quality content library in the hands of the millions of students throughout the developing world who don’t have consistent access to personal computers or broadband.  With the launch of our mobile site, any student with a cell phone, even a very basic device, has access to a simplified version of the site that includes a wealth of quality, citable information. At the same time, students in the U.S. and similar countries who have feature-rich smartphones or iPads will have access to a more robust version of Scitable, with full video/audio capabilities, built-in glossary, and in some cases full ability to network with thousands of researchers and fellow students.”

Scitable, launched in 2009, combines a library of science education resources in the life sciences with classroom management tools and a collaborative community of scientists, instructors, and students.

For more information about Scitable, visit http://www.nature.com/scitable.

About Nature Education
Nature Education, the educational division of Nature Publishing Group, is dedicated to developing innovative science education resources for undergraduate and high school science students and faculty.

About Nature Publishing Group
Nature Publishing Group (NPG) is a publisher of high impact scientific and medical information in print and online. NPG publishes journals, online databases, and services across the life, physical, chemical, and applied sciences and clinical medicine, including Nature (founded in 1869), the leading weekly, international scientific journal, and Scientific American, the oldest continuously published magazine in the US and the leading authoritative publication for science in the general media. Online, nature.com provides over 5 million visitors per month with access to NPG publications and online databases and services. Part of Macmillan Publishers Limited, NPG is a global company with principal offices in London, New York, and Tokyo, and offices in cities worldwide including Boston, Buenos Aires, Delhi, Hong Kong, Madrid, Barcelona, Munich, Heidelberg, Basingstoke, Melbourne, Paris, San Francisco, Seoul, and Washington DC. For more information, visit www.nature.com.

Anyway, I still want to write that article — and plan to — so to Ed Zitron and Vikram Savkar, bear with me — your platform and mission and your vision are so admirable that I can’t just dash it out.

Hopefully I will have the time to spend more time with the notes and emails and the press releases you have sent me and I will be able to convince other people why I believe Scitable is such an amazing, essential, and game-changing venture for the future of science education — and a model for all forms of education, an exemplar for the future of teaching.

I think about this all the time.  Save the world, World Day, and all of that has nothing to do with saving the earth, it is only about saving humanity.  No matter what we do — since we are natural, we are nature, we’re wildlife, and everything we build is as natural as anthills — we’re in sync with nature and earth and Gaea.  When we go on about saving the world, we’re actually saying we just want to save ourselves.  To quote George Carlin, the planet is fine:

“We’re so self-important. So self-important. Everybody’s going to save something now. “Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save those snails.” And the greatest arrogance of all: save the planet. What? Are these fucking people kidding me? Save the planet, we don’t even know how to take care of ourselves yet. We haven’t learned how to care for one another, we’re gonna save the fucking planet?

I’m getting tired of that shit. Tired of that shit. I’m tired of fucking Earth Day, I’m tired of these self-righteous environmentalists, these white, bourgeois liberals who think the only thing wrong with this country is there aren’t enough bicycle paths. People trying to make the world save for their Volvos. Besides, environmentalists don’t give a shit about the planet. They don’t care about the planet. Not in the abstract they don’t. Not in the abstract they don’t. You know what they’re interested in? A clean place to live. Their own habitat. They’re worried that some day in the future, they might be personally inconvenienced. Narrow, unenlightened self-interest doesn’t impress me.

Besides, there is nothing wrong with the planet. Nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is fine. The PEOPLE are fucked. Difference. Difference. The planet is fine. Compared to the people, the planet is doing great. Been here four and a half billion years. Did you ever think about the arithmetic? The planet has been here four and a half billion years. We’ve been here, what, a hundred thousand? Maybe two hundred thousand? And we’ve only been engaged in heavy industry for a little over two hundred years. Two hundred years versus four and a half billion. And we have the CONCEIT to think that somehow we’re a threat? That somehow we’re gonna put in jeopardy this beautiful little blue-green ball that’s just a-floatin’ around the sun?

The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through all kinds of things worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles…hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worlwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages…And we think some plastic bags, and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet…the planet…the planet isn’t going anywhere. WE ARE!

We’re going away. Pack your shit, folks. We’re going away. And we won’t leave much of a trace, either. Thank God for that. Maybe a little styrofoam. Maybe. A little styrofoam. The planet’ll be here and we’ll be long gone. Just another failed mutation. Just another closed-end biological mistake. An evolutionary cul-de-sac. The planet’ll shake us off like a bad case of fleas. A surface nuisance.

You wanna know how the planet’s doing? Ask those people at Pompeii, who are frozen into position from volcanic ash, how the planet’s doing. You wanna know if the planet’s all right, ask those people in Mexico City or Armenia or a hundred other places buried under thousands of tons of earthquake rubble, if they feel like a threat to the planet this week. Or how about those people in Kilowaia, Hawaii, who built their homes right next to an active volcano, and then wonder why they have lava in the living room.

The planet will be here for a long, long, LONG time after we’re gone, and it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself, ’cause that’s what it does. It’s a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed, and if it’s true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new pardigm: the earth plus plastic. The earth doesn’t share our prejudice towards plastic. Plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didn’t know how to make it. Needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old egocentric philosophical question, “Why are we here?” Plastic…asshole.

So, the plastic is here, our job is done, we can be phased out now. And I think that’s begun. Don’t you think that’s already started? I think, to be fair, the planet sees us as a mild threat. Something to be dealt with. And the planet can defend itself in an organized, collective way, the way a beehive or an ant colony can. A collective defense mechanism. The planet will think of something. What would you do if you were the planet? How would you defend yourself against this troublesome, pesky species? Let’s see… Viruses. Viruses might be good. They seem vulnerable to viruses. And, uh…viruses are tricky, always mutating and forming new strains whenever a vaccine is developed. Perhaps, this first virus could be one that compromises the immune system of these creatures. Perhaps a human immunodeficiency virus, making them vulnerable to all sorts of other diseases and infections that might come along. And maybe it could be spread sexually, making them a little reluctant to engage in the act of reproduction.

Well, that’s a poetic note. And it’s a start. And I can dream, can’t I? See I don’t worry about the little things: bees, trees, whales, snails. I think we’re part of a greater wisdom than we will ever understand. A higher order. Call it what you want. Know what I call it? The Big Electron. The Big Electron…whoooa. Whoooa. Whoooa. It doesn’t punish, it doesn’t reward, it doesn’t judge at all. It just is. And so are we. For a little while.”

I was very impressed, obviously, about the direction that the gang from Nature took when they launched Scitable: A New Model for Digital Publishing … From an Academic Journal?Why This Blogger’s Excited About Scitable in AdAge DigitalNext:

A couple of months ago I attended a discussion at the National Press Club titled “What Will We Tell Peoria?” during which a panel of journalists complained that people have become too stupid to realize how essential traditional methods of reporting are and how we’ll all be sorry when rigorous newsrooms close and papers die and only TMZ is left standing.

I think that is rubbish. In my work, I believe it is essential to give the gift that people want and not the gift you think they should have. Newspaper magnates are indignantly trying to force feed us their content believing their version of civics is the inoculate we need to prevent us from becoming vile Yahoos.

I believed that papers needed to convert their devoted readership into a devoted community — transitioning one-way print and broadcasting into conversation and sharing. There are almost no good examples of this.

At least that’s what I thought before I received an e-mail from Vikram Savkar, publishing director of Scitable, asking if I might have time to jump on the phone with him to talk about his science social network. “Good Lord, not another social-networking service,” I thought.

Well, Scitable is a product of the journal Nature, a respected, peer-reviewed academic journal. Its goal is to offer free scientific knowledge to students, starting with genetics, as well as facilitating the connection between students and senior scientists as mentors, something that is much easier to make happen online.

Mr. Savkar realized that there is a lot of crap, misinformation, outdated info and rubbish online, especially in science. Even the content that is legit is neither guided nor contextual. And content without context is hard to digest. When I think of dodgy content that does a pretty good job of informing but is not cite-worthy, I think of Wikipedia.

Scitable is a direct response to Wikipedia. While Wikipedia a great tool for generalists, faculty of science know that it is not a definitive source. The first goal Mr. Savkar set was to make sure Scitable was as easy to use as Wikipedia while approaching all the content through rigorous editorial processes and review.

I asked Vikram if you could access all of the content on Scitable without ever needing to log in, something that many community developers do to encourage registration, and he told me that locking down the content would have been antithetical to the open-access model for content. When someone searches for “Gene Expression and Regulation,” Vikram wants students to find the article on Scitable instead of on Wikipedia.

When students and scientists and professors and teachers do register, they are granted some very cool tools to message, bookmark and submit content to the conversation, “Upload Original Content,” which I assume is then placed under the spotlight, making sure it is edited and vetted.

If you haven’t heard about the journal Nature, it is part of the Nature Publishing Group, which has been publishing since 1869 and covers 70 science and medical journals — surely the type of company most likely to fail in this mainstream media-killing economy. That’s why I was so excited about this call — over an hour long — and why I am sharing it here. Scitable is game-changing — they’re doing what all of the ivory-tower walking dead refuse to do: evolve or perish. I personally don’t think it is very noble to go down with the ship when hitting the iceberg is completely preventable.

The reason why Scitable is starting with genetics is because genetics is sexy right now. According to the press info, “Now that President Obama has lifted the ban on stem-cell research, genetics has become a hot topic for students, teachers and scientists. There are few credible resources and brands online that students can easily access and trust.” A good enough reason.

Another reason is because genetics research is pretty clean and easy, accessible to newbies and beginners. In D.C., the land of the genome, I attended some classes on the programming language Perl, a simple-to-learn language that is known for its ability to churn through large amounts of data — and text — to find patterns and allow “normal people” to mine for genetic findings, something that very well could encourage students to choose science and medicine as their vocation.

One cool tool that Scitable has created to encourage students to pursue science is called Learning Paths, guided lessons that walk students through an entire course on subjects as awesomely arcane as “Chromatin in eukaryotic regulation,” “Gene Mapping: Then and Now,” “A Brief History of Genetics: Defining Experiments in Genetics” and “Intro Biotechnology: Techniques and Applications.” Each of these Learning Paths is developed by an educator who has worked very hard to not throw the student unto the deep end to sink or swim but rather to assist in that student’s autodidactic journey. For example, “Chromatin in eukaryotic regulation” was put together by Laura Hoopes. Learning paths allow people to have a streamlined experience, sort of like a mentorship or training program, to break down all of these sundry tools and resources into an easy, accessible learning experience.

Finally, the future of Scitable. Savkar addressed the movement past genetics. Scitable has been designed to scale without breaking or becoming impenetrable. In fact, the bigger Scitable grows, the better. There are no walls between the disciplines in order to be sure there is no siloing going on, and that allows the hyper-textual site content to interact and allow serendipity and coincidence to act out and to allow students to see the connections and the connectivity among all things, something that is too often prevented in the competitive environment of the university.

The plan is to be profitable in five years, by selling advertising through the site. The sponsors must contribute to the site — there will be no advertisements for products. I am envisioning ads that highlight, say, internships at labs, educational programs or jobs at bio-pharmaceutical companies.

In our busy ADHD world, I know I need executive summaries of the web and of knowledge. Scitable is trying really hard to dig through all of human knowledge and be able to sift all of the content, boil it all down into understandable and trustworthy bits that students and adults alike can fit into their busy lives in a compelling and exciting way without freaking students out or intimidating them out of ever wanting to enter the sciences in college; 40% of students leave the sciences in colleges, often because of an attrition culture in the academy.

To me, Scitable is an elegant interpretation of both “publish or perish” and “evolve or perish,” and I believe it’s an exemplary model for how stodgy old journals and boring dead-tree newspapers might be able to survive these internet “anti-intellectual” dark ages. Maybe this is a map that more publishers should consider following.

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Chris Abraham, president of the digital-PR firm Abraham Harrison, is a blogger who specializes in social-media marketing with a focus on blogger outreach, blogger engagement and search-reputation management. Chris lives in Berlin and Washington and can be reached via Twitter, Facebook or e-mail.