This issue of Pesquisa FAPESP has a special feature that entails a new graphic layout, concurrently with slight changes to the editorial format. This development comes in response to recent evaluations conducted by the editorial board and the scientific committee aiming at making reading easier and more agreeable. However, no concession has been made as to how accurately information is presented and to the scientific and journalistic relevance of the topics chosen as object of articles, news items and comments.
Among the outstanding features of this new layout, I would like to highlight the choice of the family of fonts to be used throughout the entire magazine providing it with a clear identity and cohesion. This new graphic layout was the work of our young designer, 29-year old Laura Daviña, with the help of our consultant, Mayumi Okuyama. Another outstanding achievement was the design work by Paulo André Chagas, who developed an exclusive font for titles. With the help of Laura, Paulo looked for letters that would combine purely geometric shapes and the so-called organic shapes. In addition, in the area of visual language, we have decided to resort to photography as an effective source of information to a greater extent, besides eliminating merely decorative elements that sometimes ‘prettified’ the magazine, and recurrently using info graphs, in which photographs or illustrations form part of a narrative structure. The cover will be in line with the overall concept of the new graphic layout. The new logo of the magazine is very similar to the former one, which has become so familiar to our readers over all these years. Readers who are interested in design can access our site to get more details about this project.
Concerning what I referred to as slight layout changes, readers will also notice that, in addition to creating new sections, we have concentrated most of them in the first pages of the journal. This is the case of Wiki, which on Page 9 answers questions sent by readers, and of On-line, on page 8, with information about our site. Page 10 contains information on Data and Projects, with details on the latest theme projects contracted by FAPESP. Page 11 contains an important chart for Brazilian scientometrics and good practices that highlights international cases related to scientific fraud. Both of these features are direct contributions from the Office of the Foundation’s Science Director. We have also renamed page 3, This Month’s Image; it is now Photolab. The objective is to show beautiful images to illustrate how scientific knowledge is produced in Brazil. To this end, we are asking researchers to send us special photographs of their research work. Other changes will be identified by the reader’s sharp eyes.
To conclude, I would like to comment on this month’s cover story, which focuses on the effect of bradikynin in the transformation of stem cells into neurons. Getting this story involved a path rich in adventure. Around October 15, we were told that it would not be possible to publish the cover story we had originally planned. As a result, we had to find a research topic that would be fitting for a cover story, contain interesting news from the journalistic point of view and could be ready for publishing very soon. The list of recently concluded theme projects found on FAPESP’s institutional site was a good guide. After turning down various topics on the list for a number of reasons, on October 21 our science editor, Ricardo Zorzetto, suggested that we consider the theme project coordinated by Alexander Ulrich. We accepted the suggestion and on Saturday afternoon, October 22, we went to the researcher’s home to interview him. When we left, we were sure that we had a great cover story. From then on, we read a number of articles, interviewed other researchers, collected important data to produce an info graph and, finally, wrote the article. Alexandre Ulrich worked on the cover story with special editor Carlos Fioravanti. Their work resulted in a great article, which starts on page 18 and describes the incredible advances regarding cell differentiation and the formation of the mysterious human neurons. Enjoy!
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