two almost identical articles published in last week's Nature

[reine1jb]

just out of curiosity did any one happen to read the January 31st issue of Nature? I mean there are two articles written by two completely different labs that are almost titled the exact same way and are almost identical in terms of experiments run, the hypothesis, everything...I mean there are differences but
article 1 title: DBC1 is a negative regulator of SIRT1
article 2 title: Negative regulation of the deacetylase SIRT1 by DBC1

I mean they are published (and maybe fittingly) back to back has anyone seen anything like this before? I find it rather odd, maybe I just haven't been reading primary literature long enough but...

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[Mountain Cow]

I have seen JAMA and the new england journal publish very similar articles in the same non-theme issue (albeit clinical). I'm not rich enough to get science too, but I wouldn't be too suprised that they did this. I wonder in cases like this if publication of one article is delayed so they can be published together or if the labs submit the papers at the same time.

 

[Gfunk6]

This is common, particularly in high impact journals.

 

[reine1jb]

I have seen JAMA and the new england journal publish very similar articles in the same non-theme issue (albeit clinical). I'm not rich enough to get science too, but I wouldn't be too suprised that they did this. I wonder in cases like this if publication of one article is delayed so they can be published together or if the labs submit the papers at the same time.

well to give you the answer to that from the two nature articles, one was received september 11th and accepted November 26 while the seconded was received on July 12 and accepted november 27th...so based on that it seems that nature decided to publish them both together or maybe it's just convenient that it appears that way...no clue definitely interesting though

 

[Doctor&Geek]

Heh, those are my two journal club articles I'm presenting in a couple weeks!

 

[j-weezy]

well to give you the answer to that from the two nature articles, one was received september 11th and accepted November 26 while the seconded was received on July 12 and accepted november 27th...so based on that it seems that nature decided to publish them both together or maybe it's just convenient that it appears that way...no clue definitely interesting though

Sounds like two competing labs working on the same project. The July group probably tried to publish first but may not have had a robust enough publication and thus the delay...

 

[gstrub]

This happened in my lab as an undergrad...we got the cover of Science for the paper (Dec 2001) and an identical paper was published in the same issue (published a genome of a plant bacterium). I think it is relatively common.

 

[tbo]

Yes, some journals do themed editions sometimes on a particular topic, and batch publish them, even when getting them at different times. Smaller journals sometimes solicit labs for reviews and stuff to coincide with a certain theme. You'll often see this come together in the editorial at the beginning of the journal. The Human Genome sequencing bit during the same week in Science and Nature was a bit of a rarity, but stuff like that happens as well.

 

[Myempire1]

In this funding environment, instead of screwing each other over, many investigators agree to submit things at the same time at the same journal. It works if both competitors trust each other.

 

[mudphudwannabe]

In this funding environment, instead of screwing each other over, many investigators agree to submit things at the same time at the same journal. It works if both competitors trust each other.

That makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.

But seriously, I think it is a good thing. If your results are "real," they should be reproducible, and what is better evidence of reproducibility than another lab at another institution getting the same results?