Mark Patterson's blog

PLoS and the Max Planck Society (MPS) have recently established an agreement whereby open access publication fees in PLoS journals will be paid directly by the MPS for articles from researchers at Max Planck Institutes.

The latest impact factors (for 2007) have just been released from Thomson Reuters. They are as follows:
PLoS Biology - 13.5
PLoS Medicine - 12.6
PLoS Computational Biology - 6.2
PLoS Genetics - 8.7
PLoS Pathogens - 9.3

Pete Binfield joined PLoS this week as the Managing Editor for PLoS ONE.

PLoS Computational Biology, PLoS Genetics and PLoS Pathogens were launched in the Summer of 2005, and are now entering a new phase in their development. In a few days, they will join PLoS ONE and PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases on the Topaz publishing platform, and will benefit from more rapid publication along with tools for user interaction – commentary, notes and ratings.

On January 11th, the NIH announced their new public access policy, which has now been strengthened to a mandate as required by the appropriations bill signed by President Bush in December.