Posted by Christina Folz, OPN Managing Editor

Physics Today, the membership magazine of the American Institute of Physics, recently launched its Campaign 2008 elections Web site, a comprehensive source of information about the positions of the presidential candidates on science, technology and energy issues.

The magazine staff, in partnership with AIP's Inside Science News Service, posed questions focused on the areas of science and technology in which policymakers play a critical role. Then they gathered position statements, news articles and relevant commentary to define where each candidate stands. As the candidates make statements on relevant issues, whether in debates, new position statements, or news media interviews, the Web site will be updated.

2008-01 January, Miscellaneous Optics science policy

Posted by Christina Folz, OPN Managing Editor

In perusing the daily news on optics.org, I came across an item titled, “Optics or Photonics: What’s in a Name?” It explained that the publisher of the Journal of Optics A had recently asked her editorial board whether they thought the name of the journal should be shortened or changed. Apparently there was some interest in integrating the word “photonics” into the journal’s name.

Which begs the question: Just what are optics and photonics anyway? And what’s the distinction between them? Although the Journal of Optics A editorial board didn’t reach consensus on a new name, they offered a multitude of opinions and insights. One member claimed that optics refers specifically to matters and equipment related to vision, whereas photonics (derived from the Greek word “photon”) is an umbrella term for any science dealing with light. According to these definitions, optics would seem to be a subdivision within photonics.

Other experts argue that it is the other way around: Optics is the older and broader discipline encompassing the relatively new field of photonics. Indeed, according to John Howard’s history column about OSA’s own name change controversy, the term “photonics” was introduced in the 1980s, coinciding with the emergence of several new areas within optics, including lasers, electro-optics, integrated optics and optical engineering. “The loosely defined word ‘photonics’ was analogous to the engineering of photons, just as ‘electronics’ had grown out of electron engineering,” Howard said.

In fact, in October 1989, OSA’s Committee on Society Objectives and Policy proposed to the Board of Directors that OSA change its name to “The Optics and Photonics Society” to reflect the evolving nature of the field. Although the Board voted to recommend the change, it reneged before the decision could be brought to a vote in the wake of a major backlash among Society veterans. Most of the opposition came from the classical and applied optics communities, which felt that the word “optics” already encompassed all wavelengths and processes involving optical radiation, so there was no need to adopt a gimmicky new word.

However, one significant modification was made as a result of this fray. The name of the Society’s membership magazine was changed from Optics News to Optics and Photonics News. Was this the right call? That’s what I’d like you to tell me through your comments and letters. In any case, you can rest assured that, whatever optics and photonics are, we’ve got them covered.

2008-01 January, Optics history optics history, osa, photonics

Posted by Christina Folz, OPN Managing Editor

On December 26, President Bush signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2007, which contains a provision requiring scientific researchers who have received funding from the National Institutes of Health to make their work publicly available within one year of publication. As I reported in my August 25 post about the CESSE 2007 meeting, the legislation has been under consideration for most of last year, and researchers, publishers, librarians and the public have all been carefully weighing the implications of the new law.

Some scholarly publishers have expressed concern that mandated public access could compromise the quality and economics of the peer-review system. On the other hand, librarians and patient advocates are generally supportive of the bill and feel that taxpayers have a right to freely access government-funded research.

Here is the key language in the new law:

The Director of the National Institutes of Health shall require that all investigators funded by the NIH submit or have submitted for them to the National Library of Medicine's PubMed Central an electronic version of their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts upon acceptance for publication to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date of publication: Provided, That the NIH shall implement the public access policy in a manner consistent with copyright law.

The legislation has triggered a lot of blog activity among all stakeholder groups. Some have suggested that the ball is now in NIH’s court to determine an appropriate procedure for researchers to submit their articles to NLM’s database.

2008-01 January, Miscellaneous Optics publishing, science policy

By Patricia Daukantas

For this month’s issue of OPN, I wrote about a possible new way to kill disease-causing viruses with pulses from a femtosecond laser (see "Fine-Tuned Lasers Zap Deadly Germs," Scatterings, p. 8).

Two of physicist K.T. Tsen’s colleagues at Arizona State University have done numerical simulations to explore the intrinsic vibration modes of capsids, which are the protein shells around individual virus particles. The American Institute of Physics has posted a short article on the research, which appears in a recent issue of Physical Review Letters.

2008-01 January, Biomedical optics biomedical optics, information technology