The conventional procedures for reporting analysis or new results in science is to compose an “article”, augment that perhaps with “supporting information” or “SI”, submit to a journal which undertakes peer review, with revision as necessary for acceptance and finally publication. If errors in the original are later identified, a separate corrigendum can be submitted to the same journal, although this is relatively rare.

For perhaps ten years now, the future of scientific publishing has been hotly debated. The traditional models are often thought to be badly broken, although convergence to a consensus of what a better model should be is not apparently close. But to my mind, much of this debate seems to miss one important point, how to publish data.

Chemical and engineering news (C&EN) is asking people to vote for their molecule of the year from six highlighted candidates. This reminded me of the history of internet-based “ molecules of the moment ”. It is thought that the concept originated in December 1995 here at Imperial and in January 1996 at Bristol University by Paul May and we were joined by Karl Harrison at Oxford shortly thereafter.