Agent Skills
› brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills
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current-biology
GitHub用于评估稿件是否适合Current Biology期刊，提供定位、选题匹配度、证据标准及拒稿启发式规则。适用于跨学科研究或需判断新颖性与完整性的生物学论文投稿前评估与重构。
Trigger Scenarios
作者指定Current Biology为目标期刊
研究跨越多个生物学领域，需判断是否适合该刊而非专注型Cell Press期刊
进化、生态或动物行为学研究需评估新颖性和完整性
需要了解该刊的拒稿模式或转投建议
Install
npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill current-biology -g -y
SKILL.md
Frontmatter
{
"name": "current-biology",
"description": "Use when targeting Current Biology or deciding whether a general-biology manuscript fits this venue. Encodes the journal's fit, framing, method-and-evidence bar, house style, official-submission re-check, and desk-reject heuristics."
}
Current Biology (current-biology)
Journal positioning
Current Biology is Cell Press's broad biology journal, covering the full range of life sciences — from molecular and cell biology through developmental biology, neuroscience, ecology, evolution, and animal behavior — with the unifying criterion that each paper must report a novel, complete advance that is interesting to biologists outside the primary specialty. Unlike the focused Cell Press sibling journals (Neuron, Immunity, Cancer Cell), Current Biology deliberately embraces cross-disciplinary scope; its dual currency is rigor plus novelty-with-breadth. The readership is biologists broadly, so a paper must carry an accessible narrative hook alongside the technical contribution.
This skill is a fit / venue-selection / re-framing tool. It does not replace the journal's current official submission guidelines. Before submitting, re-check the live author instructions on the Cell Press site or submission system.
When to trigger
- The author names Current Biology as the target venue.
- A study spans two or more biological disciplines and the author is unsure whether it belongs at Current Biology vs. a focused Cell Press title or PLOS Biology.
- A manuscript in evolutionary biology, ecology, or animal behavior needs to assess whether its novelty and completeness meet the Current Biology bar.
- The author needs Current Biology's desk-reject patterns and re-routing options.
Scope & topic fit
- Evolution and evolutionary genetics: population genetics, phylogenomics, evolutionary mechanism — when the result has broad biological interest.
- Animal behavior and comparative cognition: mechanistic or computational accounts of behavior in wild or laboratory animals with clear conceptual implications.
- Ecology — from organismal to ecosystem level — when the finding delivers a conceptual advance, not just a field survey.
- Molecular and cell biology advances that are complete and significant but do not reach the focused-journal bar of Neuron, Immunity, Cancer Cell, or Developmental Cell.
- Neuroscience — sensory systems, neural computation, animal behavior — when the advance is complete but its scope is more limited than Neuron's multi-level bar.
- Developmental biology and plant biology when the advance is novel and complete, even if the model organism is niche.
Method & evidence bar
- "Novel and complete" is the editorial standard: the key question must be answered, not merely raised; a short Report format is permitted for complete but focused advances.
- Replication and appropriate statistical power expected; ecology and behavior papers must address sample size and spatial/temporal scope.
- Mechanistic claims need experimental validation; correlational or observational studies need to be clearly framed as such and must argue for their own conceptual significance.
- Quantitative or computational methods are welcome; code/data availability expected.
- STAR Methods required for Articles; shorter Report format has condensed methods that must still be complete.
- Interdisciplinary studies should be clearly accessible to the breadth of the readership; technical jargon from one subfield should be translated.
Structure & house style
- Two article formats: Article (full length, STAR Methods) and Report (shorter, for complete but focused results). Re-check current format definitions and limits.
- STAR Methods required for Articles; key resources table for both formats.
- Structured abstract; Cell Press "in brief" / highlights box.
- Titles should be accessible to non-specialists while being scientifically precise; avoid over-specialized terminology in the title.
- Figures should be self-explanatory to a generalist biologist; each figure panel should be labeled and the caption should enable interpretation without the text.
- The introduction must make the biological question immediately engaging to a broad readership; the contribution is stated explicitly at the end.
- Source data for all quantitative figures; data/code availability statement required.
Official-submission checklist
- Before giving submission-ready advice, read
../../resources/source-basis.mdand../../resources/official-source-map.md; start from the official source anchors for this journal family, then cite the current journal-specific page you checked. - Search "Current Biology author information" on the Cell Press site and follow the current version.
- Re-check article types (Article vs. Report vs. Correspondence), length and figure limits, and supplemental policy.
- Confirm STAR Methods requirements for Articles and the condensed methods requirements for Reports.
- Re-check animal ethics, human-subjects, and field-collection permits where applicable.
- Verify data and code deposition requirements; field data should be deposited in appropriate repositories (Dryad, Zenodo, GenBank/SRA for sequencing).
- Re-check competing-interests, funding, author-contribution, and AI-use disclosure requirements.
- Confirm preprint policy and open-access/license options.
- If the live official instructions conflict with this skill, the official instructions win.
Pre-submission self-check
- One sentence explaining why a biologist outside this specialty would find this result interesting.
- The advance is complete: the central question is answered, not merely raised.
- The title and abstract are accessible to a generalist biologist, not only to specialists.
- Statistical power, replication, and study scope are appropriate to the claims.
- STAR Methods / condensed methods and data/code deposition are prepared.
- The framing positions the advance in a way that connects to broader biological principles.
Common desk-reject triggers
- Advance is significant within a specialty but lacks a hook or implication for biologists outside it.
- An incomplete story: the key biological question is partially addressed, with important controls or validations missing.
- A descriptive field survey or biodiversity study without a conceptual advance.
- Study belongs in a focused Cell Press journal (Neuron, Immunity, Cancer Cell, Developmental Cell) and was submitted to Current Biology to avoid that venue's higher bar — editors recognize this.
- Methods or tool development without a biological insight — better suited to
nature-methods.
Re-routing decision
- Equivalent advance with greater mechanistic depth in a focused field → the relevant focused Cell Press title:
neuron,immunity,cancer-cell,developmental-cell,cell-metabolism. - Broad-biology advance with even broader significance →
cell,nature, orscience. - Strong study below the Current Biology significance / completeness bar →
elife,plos-biology, or the appropriate society journal (Genetics, Molecular Biology of the Cell, Behavioral Ecology). - Ecology or evolution advance at the same tier →
nature-ecology-and-evolution(if significance is high) or Ecology Letters (ecology-letters).
Output format
[Fit] High / Medium / Low (one-line reason)
[Target] Current Biology
[Topic tags] <2–3 closest topics>
[Method/evidence] <is the advance novel, complete, and accessible to non-specialist biologists?>
[Top risk] <the single most likely reason for rejection>
[Official items to re-check] <article type (Article vs. Report) / length / STAR Methods / data-code deposition / ethics>
[Re-route suggestion] <if not a fit, a better-matched venue>
Version History
- 1839142 Current 2026-07-05 13:00
