How effective are videos and other multimedia in research articles? The most obvious benefit lies in experimental work. It may be easier to show rather than tell how an experiment is done. The best example of this is at the Journal of Visualized Experiments (JOVE), where a procedural video essentially is the peer-reviewed article. The benefits to researchers is immediate and potentially immensely helpful—but only if the videos are completely and wholly transparent and valid. That begs the question: when a reviewer "peer reviews" a video, does he or she reproduce the procedure to verify its veracity? Is this beyond the call of duty for a reviewer? Note: I'm not suggesting that any of these videos are flawed. To the contrary, they look incredibly pertinent and accurate.

Like many other journals, BMF offers the chance to publish video as well. A link to the video (mpeg, wmv, or avi) is embedded in the PDF as well as on the abstract page. This article offers a three videos of data, not of a procedure. Regardless, it's encouraging to see researchers taking advantage of multimedia capabilities. This article comes to BMF from National Taiwan University.

AIP is pretty excited about having more and more Chinese contributors to their journals. In fact, it looks as though Biomicrofluidics and its editors will be supporting and promoting a few upcoming meetings in China. There is a conference in Hong Kong January 5-9 2009: Advances in Microfluidics and Nanofluidics. "It should be the best Asian conference on Microfluidics and Nanofluidics," according to BMF's editor, Hsueh-Chia Chang. The conference website in now up and you can find the full speaker list and other helpful info there.