Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
publish a report with us in
Science.
There was just one fly in the oint-
ment. Like
Nature, Science
embargoes papers that it has accepted, so we
would have to work quickly to get a paper submitted before David's
film appeared on national television in March. After that, our research
would be “old news,” which
Science
would be unlikely to publish.
The clock was ticking. After I went home, we burned up the tele-
phone wires between Tallahassee and St. Louis. Morwood and I also
discussed our unfolding research on the telephone (although I had a bit
of difficulty deciphering his charming but thick Australian accent—
maybe he thought the same thing about my American one). I spent the
last four days of 2004 back in St. Louis, working on the Hobbit project.
Kirk and I did a lot of measuring at the computer screen, and Scooter
designed our statistical procedures and analyzed the data as we col-
lected them. When we got stuck on something, we called in Fred, who
usually knew the answer or what to do to find it.
We were highly motivated to complete our initial analyses and to
write the first draft of a paper to send to Morwood for his team's input.
The goal was to submit the finalized paper to
Science
for peer review
as soon as possible so that it had a chance of appearing on or before
March 13, the date that David's film would air in the United States. We
all had day jobs, so the intense work was exhausting. As noted in the
January 4, 2005, entry in my diary:
In by 9 to work on the endocast illustration of LB1 & other stuff pertain-
ing to the paper. Very little sleep. Home 3-ish for a 1 hour nap, then up
and working again 'til almost midnight. Scooter's doing the same thing.
But it's getting there. What a monumental effort. Just have the concluding
paragraph and abstract to write. Plus dealing with all the figures, tables, and
supporting online material. I am so-o-o tired.
The first version of the paper went to Mike for his team's revisions
and additions, which we received from him on January 11. One good
thing about submitting papers to
Science
(a nd
Nature
) is that they are
reviewed extremely rapidly. A mere 20 days after we submitted it, our
