Crustacean nociception: The embargo lifts

There are some things I don’t blog about, even though I blog a lot.

One of those things is that I don’t say anything about is my ongoing research. Journals are notoriously twitchy about work being presented in other forums besides their own pages before publication. I don’t want to give the game away on projects before they are completed, accepted, and out there for people to see.

And this time, the paper was embargoed until now. Which, even though I know intellectually is something that happens to every paper in the journal, still felt a little bit sexy.

Today, my co-author, Sakshi Puri, and I have a new paper out in PLoS One that has had a very long fuse. It’s related to a problem that I’ve addressed multiple times on this blog (see links at bottom): the “lobster in the pot” problem, or, “Do crustaceans feel pain?”

“Do crustaceans have nociceptors for extreme pH?” is open access, like all PLoS ONE papers, so it’s free for all to read.

I’m going to be blogging about this paper over the next week or so, because I think there’s some interesting backstory that doesn’t fit into the technical paper. Think of the paper as the movie, and these posts as the bonus features on the DVD.

I also think there’s something to be said for follow-through. Fortunately, that something was largely said by Randy Olson.

But even having said that, if you ever catch me in person – at a conference, say – I can tell you some stories about this paper’s trek to publication that I won’t be telling you here on the blog.

Related posts

Fighting the forces of ignorance - 15 May 2003
Ignorance may not be bliss, but perhaps it is painless - 15 February 2005
Shell shock: Is the new way to dispatch a lobster a better way? - 26 November 2009

Reference

Puri S, Faulkes Z. 2010. Do decapod crustaceans have nociceptors for extreme pH? PLoS ONE 5(4): e10244. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0010244