Sally Howells & Nick Boross-Toby
The Physiological Society

https://doi.org/10.36866/pn.95.21a

15–19 February 2014,
San Francisco, USA

After the howling gales and floods that battered the UK in January and February 2014, it was great to go to San Francisco to confirm that the sun still shone somewhere in the world. The Moscone Center in San Francisco was this year’s host for the Biophysical Society’s annual meeting, and after setting up the stand in preparation for the exhibition, we took a tour of Alcatraz. Although sunny during the day, it wasn’t long before the fog rolled in over the bay and the notorious island was shrouded in an eerie mist. We were, of course, on our best behaviour to ensure we weren’t incarcerated or unable to man the stand.

Our stand was extremely well positioned opposite a busy and lively poster area, and we had a steady stream of scientists wanting to learn more about The Journal and The Society. We were pleased to be able to tell them that The Journal has no restrictions on page count or the number of figures allowed, and that we impose no submission or page charges – a great competitive advantage.

The Journal of Physiology really is the ‘home of biophysics’ so in addition to featuring some of our best biophysics content published in the last 12 months by way of a virtual issue, we were also proud to display the original copies of some Nobel Prize winning papers published in The Journal in the last century. Having these historic copies on show really helped to pull in the crowds, and some of the younger delegates were amazed to see the hardback format of The Journal, and some of the more senior scientists remembered reading these seminal papers during their studies. At this conference we launched our Oral History series that features interview transcripts of notable physiologists talking about their life and work. These can be found here: http://bit.ly/PhysHist

Several of our loyal reviewers and authors stopped by the stand to say hello, as did some of The Journal’s Reviewing and Senior Editors. David Paterson, Editor-in-Chief, was impressed with the quality of science on offer at this meeting, and we are expecting to receive more top biophysics submissions as a result of attending the conference, which attracted over 7,000 delegates.

Due to the success of this meeting, we are hoping to attend the 59th Annual Meeting next year in Baltimore, where the first umbrella factory in the USA was opened in 1828 – which doesn’t bode well for the forecast!