High Five!

5 decades have passed since Richard Feynman delivered his historic and classic “There is plenty of room at the bottom” talk in 1959.1 He discussed the possibility of manipulating matter at the atomic level, a revolutionary line of thought that went mostly unnoticed at the time. Nevertheless, his vision was inspirational, and his talk is often considered the birth of nanotechnology. 52: Incidentally, the term “nanotechnology” was coined 25 years ago in 1974 by Norio Taniguchi, of Tokyo Science University. His techniques and foresight boosted the development of nanotechnology as a subject. This exciting field has since grown in leaps and bounds and the end is nowhere in sight. Small, too, has grown at a remarkable pace, and the number of manuscripts submitted over the years (Figure 1) is a clear indication of the journal's acceptance and standing in the community. The high standards can only be maintained through a stringent selection procedure. With the help of our expert referees, only the top 20% of manuscripts are accepted for publication so that we can deliver high-impact content. (The ISI Impact Factor for Small for 2007 was 6.4.) Although we have ensured that only the best papers are published, the rapid growth has seen increasingly thicker issues towards the end of 2008. I am therefore delighted that this is the first fortnightly issue of 2009, as we double the number of issues per year from 12 to 24. Development of manuscript submission to Small from its inception to now (extrapolated for 2009). As a new feature, we will now also be offering the inside front cover for authors to showcase their work. This issue's inside cover shows lizards (10 µm line thickness) etched into a potassium haxacyanoferrate crystal (red) by a reaction-diffusion process initiated from a hydrogel stamp. The technique allows direct printing of complex microarchitectures into a variety of materials as explained by K. Bishop and B. Grzybowski3 in their Concept article. Celebrations: The fifth year of Small coincides with the anniversary of several other important events in the history of science. 2009 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, whose contribution to modern scientific thinking cannot be underestimated. Importantly, his landmark publication “On the Origin of Species” appeared 150 years ago. We also celebrate the 400th anniversary of the publication of Johannes Kepler's first two Laws of Planetary Motion. It is also the 400th anniversary of Galileo's first use of a telescope to scan the skies and provide a new, focused outlook on the universe. Small will continue to scan the horizon of the nano- and microworld and focus on the most important contributions.