Coming this fall, the Nature Publishing Group will introduce: Nature Methods. This is long overdue and will likely become a publishing empire in its own right over the next decade. Replication of methods sits at the center of the scientific method. I bet Derek Lowe and Randall Parker will applaud NM's introduction too.

According to Nature Methods' Editor, Veronique Kiermer, "they are committed to emphasizing quality, novelty and readability and to serving a large and varied audience with cutting-edge content that meets the highest standards of quality."

"The journal will present a carefully balanced selection of long papers and brief communications, describing the development of new methodologies and significant improvements to tried-and-tested techniques. These articles will be selected on the basis of their likely impact on the scientific community, with a strong preference for those works that have the potential for broad practical application across several sectors of the life sciences. The articles will be technical in essence and tailored to provide readers with an accurate expectation of technical performance, describing validation or proof of concept and illustrating the performance of the new method in comparison to currently available approaches. As with all Nature journals, articles will undergo rigorous peer review process, ensuring the Nature tradition of excellence is maintained.

Along with these articles, each issue will contain a detailed protocol for a relatively recent and technically challenging method, presented in a practical format that allows immediate reproducibility. The journal will also publish reviews written by authorities in their field, discussing the applicability and limitations of specific technologies in comparison to other approaches.

What's Next? Nature Neurotechnology.