Nature saw in the new millennium by taking an active role in the British Association's millennial celebrations, including collaboration with the Royal Society on 'More than Meets the Eye', a programme of science and art performances, talks and events at the Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington. Into the new millennium, the 2000s have seen a proliferation of new Nature-branded journals being launched, and many new discoveries, especially in the sequencing of genomes. As the pace of discovery has quickened and access to fast internet connections has become more widely available, Nature has explored the future of computing and the effect it will have on the way science is conducted in years to come. The electronic revolution of the 'information age' is now well under way, and the ramifications for science have been explored in pieces such as Machine readability, Publishing on the semantic web and Science in the web age. Nature Publishing Group offices in Crinan Street, London, pictured. A portrait of previous Macmillan chairman Harold Macmillan can be seen in the background.
More Natures
The formation of the Nature Publishing Group (NPG) in 1999 allowed a portfolio of more specialist scientific publications to sit alongside Nature. Nature Immunology in 2000 was followed by Nature Materials (2002), Nature Methods (2004), Nature Chemical Biology (2005), Nature Physics (2005), Nature Nanotechnology (2006), Nature Photonics (2007, pictured), the online-only Nature Protocols in 2007, and Nature Geoscience in 2008. In October 2000, a whole new string of peer-reviewed journals, the Nature Reviews journals, was launched that aim to take a more field-based perspective and appeal to a broader readership. Authors are also encouraged to synthesize their analysis to provide pointers for future research directions. From 2005 the Nature Clinical Practice journals developed NPG's position as a publisher of medical research literature.
2001
The Human Genome Project and other genomes
The Human Genome Project was formally founded in 1990 and scientists from the US, UK, France, Germany, China and Japan formed an International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium to complete the work in centres around the world with sequencing expertise. A special issue of Nature on 15 February 2001 published the draft human genome. At the same time, the journal Science also reported the sequencing of the human genome by the privately funded Celera Genomics which from 1998 used the 'whole genome shotgun sequencing' technique on DNA from the company founder Craig Venter. The final, final draft of the human genome was completed in 2006, and Nature celebrated with a special Human Genome Collection supplement and produced a video to mark the event. Nature has also published genome sequences of the opossum, honeybee and chimpanzee among others.
2003
A tribute to Sir Norman Lockyer
A permanent tribute to Sir Norman Lockyer was unveiled on 17 January 2003 at the house on Penywern Road in Earls Court, London, where Lockyer lived from 1876 to 1920. English Heritage which aims to protect and promote England's historic environment, awards blue plaques to "individuals with a strong reputation who have gained recognition through their life and work". The plaque (pictured) was unveiled
by then science minister Lord Sainsbury, who in his speech said at the time: "He [Lockyer] is, of course, known to us for establishing the world-renowned scientific journal Nature and also for discovering the element helium. He also played an important role in raising the standards of science education in the country, and helped to found both Imperial College and the Science Museum".
2004
news@nature.com
Important scientific news has always been central to the Nature publishing philosophy, and 2004 saw the launch of news@nature.com, a specialized news service for publishing in-depth news daily on the web (pictured), rather than just weekly in print. Replacing the 1990s Nature Science Updates, the new site had its own independent subscription service to cater for an audience that would be less concerned with reading primary research. The new site made an immediate impact and scooped the 2004 Association of British Science Writers award for the best science writing on the World Wide Web for the Flores man special (see below for more). news@nature.com was redesigned and Nature News, a new website launched in late 2007.
The descent of man
The announcement of the discovery of Flores man an extinct and undescribed species of hominid, on the Indonesian island Flores caused a worldwide sensation, although the evidence that a cousin of mankind may have been living in isolation until just tens of thousands of years ago didn't convince everyone. But coming along on the back of the release of the Lord of the Rings films, the small stature of Homo floresiensis meant that they were soon dubbed 'hobbits'; public imagination was fired further by legendary tales of mischievous "short men of the forest" that had been seen by locals just hundreds of years ago. The finding even inspired British artist Damien Hirst to paint a picture of Flores man's skull (left in the picture) next to a modern human skull. See news@nature.com's Flores man special and Nature's Flores Man web focus for more. Image courtesy of Damien Hirst/Gagosian gallery.
2005
The Nature Podcast
For more than 125 years, Nature had been solely a print publication, but the arrival of the Internet brought new media platforms and opportunities to experiment. By 2004, 'podcast', a type of downloadable audio file, was one of the new media buzzwords and many publishers were keen to catch the bandwagon set rolling by the growing popularity of music players for electronic files, such as Apple's iPod. Audio files had been available on the web for some time, but the provision of a webfeed, such as RSS meant that users could subscribe to and never miss an episode of their favourite show. In 2005 Nature enlisted The Naked Scientists a Cambridge-based group of science media enthusiasts, to help produce the Nature Podcast a 30-minute show that would highlight news and discoveries of the week by interviewing scientists and Nature editors (the logo is pictured). The show was an immediate success and lead to NPG producing other podcasts.
2006
Hwangate
The Woo Suk Hwang scandal, much of which was unearthed by Nature's Asia correspondent David Cyranoski, sent shockwaves through research communities, institutions and publishers that will be felt for years. Hwang's group at the Seoul National University in Korea claimed to have achieved a series of ground-breaking firsts, such as producing the first stem-cell lines tailored to individual patients work that led to plans for a multimillion-dollar World Stem Cell Hub to be based in Korea. But then it all began to unravel. Hwang had paid junior female members of his team for their eggs, which led to a public fall out
with American collaborator Gerald Schatten. His work and methods were further scrutinized until an investigating university panel announced that his human stem-cell cloning papers were fabricated. He was prosecuted for embezzling KRW2.8 billion (US$3 million), committing scientific fraud and violating a bioethics law. Nature editors breathed a sigh of relief when an independent investigation revealed that Snuppy, the world's first cloned dog that was revealed by Hwang in Nature in August 2005, was indeed a genuine clone. See Hwang Special (pictured) for more.
Mashups, video and other innovations
If 2005 was the year of the podcast, 2006 was the year of internet video and other web innovations. Nature took an early interest in video and from 2005 began working with video producers to make 20-minute pieces to accompany major papers. The Naturevideo archive now features many scientists describing their work in their own words, from the discovery of juvenile hominid remains, Pluto's moons, to the development of brain–machine interfaces for paraplegics. Another novelty for 2006 was a Google Earth 'mashup' file, developed by Nature's news reporter Declan Butler, which tracks outbreaks of the H5N1 avian flu virus in animals and humans around the globe. Nature's mashup file (pictured) won the Association of Online Publishers (AOP) 2006 award for Best Use of a New Digital Platform Image: Google Earth.
2007
Web 2.0
The term 'Web 2.0', first coined by O'Reilly Media, has come to signify the next step of the World Wide Web — communities using social networking applications to discover and share information. Nature quickly recognized that science communication lends itself to networking applications — the web itself having been invented at the CERN particle physics laboratory by Tim Berners-Lee (pictured; and see also his Commentary on the semantic web), After hosting a debate on open access in 2004, Nature experimented with open peer review in 2006 and invited debate on the topic. Nature's news site, news@nature.com, also embraced the vogue for user forums and 'weblogs' (also known as 'blogs') with the Nature Newsblog which allows readers to comment on news stories. Other Nature Publishing Group (NPG) blogs cater for specific scientific communities. NPG also developed new 'Web 2.0' applications such as Connotea which scientists can use to save, tag and share their favourite internet pages. NPG's position as a pioneer in progressive publishing practices was further enhanced when it co-hosted the über-trendy conference Science Foo 2007 — a freeform talk-fest of writers, scientists and technologists — at the Googleplex, Google's headquarters in California.
Second Nature
Nature's long history has seen many inventions, innovations and discoveries come and go, some of which have changed people's lives. But now there is a new life scenario — Second Life — where residents build homes, offices and islands for online communities to meet and network with other enthusiasts. Nature has begun to build three online islands dubbed 'Second Nature' and the wider science community has been invited to join the pioneering party. At Second Nature, a model of a cell hovers aesthetically over one island, you can stop at a cyber café and listen to the
Nature Podcast or peruse presentations hosted by mathematicians. The general idea is to challenge the concept that scientists and laboratories are in competition with one another and to use Second Nature to create a global information-sharing laboratory. Second Life may turn out to be the latest fad, or it could offer a tantalizing glimpse into how people will work, meet and live in all walks of life in the future. Image by Andrew Lang.
Nature saw in the new millennium by taking an active role in the British Association's millennial celebrations, including collaboration with the Royal Society on 'More than Meets the Eye', a programme of science and art performances, talks and events at the Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington. Into the new millennium, the 2000s have seen a proliferation of new Nature-branded journals being launched, and many new discoveries, especially in the sequencing of genomes. As the pace of discovery has quickened and access to fast internet connections has become more widely available, Nature has explored the future of computing and the effect it will have on the way science is conducted in years to come. The electronic revolution of the 'information age' is now well under way, and the ramifications for science have been explored in pieces such as Machine readability, Publishing on the semantic web and Science in the web age. Nature Publishing Group offices in Crinan Street, London, pictured. A portrait of previous Macmillan chairman Harold Macmillan can be seen in the background. 
The formation of the Nature Publishing Group (NPG) in 1999 allowed a portfolio of more specialist scientific publications to sit alongside Nature. Nature Immunology in 2000 was followed by Nature Materials (2002), Nature Methods (2004), Nature Chemical Biology (2005), Nature Physics (2005), Nature Nanotechnology (2006), Nature Photonics (2007, pictured), the online-only Nature Protocols in 2007, and Nature Geoscience in 2008. In October 2000, a whole new string of peer-reviewed journals, the Nature Reviews journals, was launched that aim to take a more field-based perspective and appeal to a broader readership. Authors are also encouraged to synthesize their analysis to provide pointers for future research directions. From 2005 the Nature Clinical Practice journals developed NPG's position as a publisher of medical research literature. 
The Human Genome Project was formally founded in 1990 and scientists from the US, UK, France, Germany, China and Japan formed an International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium to complete the work in centres around the world with sequencing expertise. A special issue of Nature on 15 February 2001 published the draft human genome. At the same time, the journal Science also reported the sequencing of the human genome by the privately funded Celera Genomics which from 1998 used the 'whole genome shotgun sequencing' technique on DNA from the company founder Craig Venter. The final, final draft of the human genome was completed in 2006, and Nature celebrated with a special Human Genome Collection supplement and produced a video to mark the event. Nature has also published genome sequences of the opossum, honeybee and chimpanzee among others. 
A permanent tribute to Sir Norman Lockyer was unveiled on 17 January 2003 at the house on Penywern Road in Earls Court, London, where Lockyer lived from 1876 to 1920. English Heritage which aims to protect and promote England's historic environment, awards blue plaques to "individuals with a strong reputation who have gained recognition through their life and work". The plaque (pictured) was unveiled
by then science minister Lord Sainsbury, who in his speech said at the time: "He [Lockyer] is, of course, known to us for establishing the world-renowned scientific journal Nature and also for discovering the element helium. He also played an important role in raising the standards of science education in the country, and helped to found both Imperial College and the Science Museum". 
Important scientific news has always been central to the Nature publishing philosophy, and 2004 saw the launch of news@nature.com, a specialized news service for publishing in-depth news daily on the web (pictured), rather than just weekly in print. Replacing the 1990s Nature Science Updates, the new site had its own independent subscription service to cater for an audience that would be less concerned with reading primary research. The new site made an immediate impact and scooped the 2004 Association of British Science Writers award for the best science writing on the World Wide Web for the Flores man special (see below for more). news@nature.com was redesigned and Nature News, a new website launched in late 2007. 
The announcement of the discovery of Flores man an extinct and undescribed species of hominid, on the Indonesian island Flores caused a worldwide sensation, although the evidence that a cousin of mankind may have been living in isolation until just tens of thousands of years ago didn't convince everyone. But coming along on the back of the release of the Lord of the Rings films, the small stature of Homo floresiensis meant that they were soon dubbed 'hobbits'; public imagination was fired further by legendary tales of mischievous "short men of the forest" that had been seen by locals just hundreds of years ago. The finding even inspired British artist Damien Hirst to paint a picture of Flores man's skull (left in the picture) next to a modern human skull. See news@nature.com's Flores man special and Nature's Flores Man web focus for more. Image courtesy of Damien Hirst/Gagosian gallery.
For more than 125 years, Nature had been solely a print publication, but the arrival of the Internet brought new media platforms and opportunities to experiment. By 2004, 'podcast', a type of downloadable audio file, was one of the new media buzzwords and many publishers were keen to catch the bandwagon set rolling by the growing popularity of music players for electronic files, such as Apple's iPod. Audio files had been available on the web for some time, but the provision of a webfeed, such as RSS meant that users could subscribe to and never miss an episode of their favourite show. In 2005 Nature enlisted The Naked Scientists a Cambridge-based group of science media enthusiasts, to help produce the Nature Podcast a 30-minute show that would highlight news and discoveries of the week by interviewing scientists and Nature editors (the logo is pictured). The show was an immediate success and lead to NPG producing other podcasts. 
The Woo Suk Hwang scandal, much of which was unearthed by Nature's Asia correspondent David Cyranoski, sent shockwaves through research communities, institutions and publishers that will be felt for years. Hwang's group at the Seoul National University in Korea claimed to have achieved a series of ground-breaking firsts, such as producing the first stem-cell lines tailored to individual patients work that led to plans for a multimillion-dollar World Stem Cell Hub to be based in Korea. But then it all began to unravel. Hwang had paid junior female members of his team for their eggs, which led to a public fall out
with American collaborator Gerald Schatten. His work and methods were further scrutinized until an investigating university panel announced that his human stem-cell cloning papers were fabricated. He was prosecuted for embezzling KRW2.8 billion (US$3 million), committing scientific fraud and violating a bioethics law. Nature editors breathed a sigh of relief when an independent investigation revealed that Snuppy, the world's first cloned dog that was revealed by Hwang in Nature in August 2005, was indeed a genuine clone. See Hwang Special (pictured) for more. 
If 2005 was the year of the podcast, 2006 was the year of internet video and other web innovations. Nature took an early interest in video and from 2005 began working with video producers to make 20-minute pieces to accompany major papers. The Nature video archive now features many scientists describing their work in their own words, from the discovery of juvenile hominid remains, Pluto's moons, to the development of brain–machine interfaces for paraplegics. Another novelty for 2006 was a Google Earth 'mashup' file, developed by Nature's news reporter Declan Butler, which tracks outbreaks of the H5N1 avian flu virus in animals and humans around the globe. Nature's mashup file (pictured) won the Association of Online Publishers (AOP) 2006 award for Best Use of a New Digital Platform Image: Google Earth.
The term 'Web 2.0', first coined by O'Reilly Media, has come to signify the next step of the World Wide Web — communities using social networking applications to discover and share information. Nature quickly recognized that science communication lends itself to networking applications — the web itself having been invented at the CERN particle physics laboratory by Tim Berners-Lee (pictured; and see also his Commentary on the semantic web), After hosting a debate on open access in 2004, Nature experimented with open peer review in 2006 and invited debate on the topic. Nature's news site, news@nature.com, also embraced the vogue for user forums and 'weblogs' (also known as 'blogs') with the Nature Newsblog which allows readers to comment on news stories. Other Nature Publishing Group (NPG) blogs cater for specific scientific communities. NPG also developed new 'Web 2.0' applications such as Connotea which scientists can use to save, tag and share their favourite internet pages. NPG's position as a pioneer in progressive publishing practices was further enhanced when it co-hosted the über-trendy conference Science Foo 2007 — a freeform talk-fest of writers, scientists and technologists — at the Googleplex, Google's headquarters in California. 
Nature's long history has seen many inventions, innovations and discoveries come and go, some of which have changed people's lives. But now there is a new life scenario — Second Life — where residents build homes, offices and islands for online communities to meet and network with other enthusiasts. Nature has begun to build three online islands dubbed 'Second Nature' and the wider science community has been invited to join the pioneering party. At Second Nature, a model of a cell hovers aesthetically over one island, you can stop at a cyber café and listen to the
Nature Podcast or peruse presentations hosted by mathematicians. The general idea is to challenge the concept that scientists and laboratories are in competition with one another and to use Second Nature to create a global information-sharing laboratory. Second Life may turn out to be the latest fad, or it could offer a tantalizing glimpse into how people will work, meet and live in all walks of life in the future. Image by Andrew Lang.
