''Life'' is a peer-reviewed open access

scientific journal In academic publishing, a scientific journal is a periodical publication intended to further the progress of science, usually by reporting new research. Content Articles in scientific journals are mostly written by active scientists such as s ...

published by

MDPI MDPI (Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute) is a publisher of open access scientific journals. Founded by Shu-Kun Lin as a chemical sample archive, it now publishes over 390 peer-reviewed, open access journals. MDPI is the largest op ...

. The journal was established in 2011 and covers all aspects of life sciences, from basic to applied research. It publishes reviews, research articles, short communications, perspectives, and hypotheses. The journal is organized in 20 sections. Since 2014, the journal offers

open peer review Open peer review is the various possible modifications of the traditional scholarly peer review process. The three most common modifications to which the term is applied are: # Open identities: Authors and reviewers are aware of each other's iden ...

(optional, at the authors' discretion).

Abstracting and indexing

The journal is abstracted and indexed in Science Citation Index Expanded,

Chemical Abstracts Service CAS (formerly Chemical Abstracts Service) is a division of the American Chemical Society. It is a source of chemical information. CAS is located in Columbus, Ohio, United States. Print periodicals ''Chemical Abstracts'' is a periodical index t ...

, and

Scopus Scopus is Elsevier's abstract and citation database launched in 2004. Scopus covers nearly 36,377 titles (22,794 active titles and 13,583 inactive titles) from approximately 11,678 publishers, of which 34,346 are peer-reviewed journals in top-l ...

. According to the ''

Journal Citation Reports ''Journal Citation Reports'' (''JCR'') is an annual publicationby Clarivate Analytics (previously the intellectual property of Thomson Reuters). It has been integrated with the Web of Science and is accessed from the Web of Science-Core Collec ...

'', the journal has a 2021

impact factor The impact factor (IF) or journal impact factor (JIF) of an academic journal is a scientometric index calculated by Clarivate that reflects the yearly mean number of citations of articles published in the last two years in a given journal, as ...

of 3.251.

Controversial article

In December 2011, the journal published Erik D. Andrulis' theoretical paper, ''Theory of the Origin, Evolution, and Nature of Life'', aiming at presenting a framework to explain life. It attracted coverage by the popular science and technology magazines '' Ars Technica'' and ''

Popular Science ''Popular Science'' (also known as ''PopSci'') is an American digital magazine carrying popular science content, which refers to articles for the general reader on science and technology subjects. ''Popular Science'' has won over 58 awards, incl ...

'', which characterized it as "crazy" and "hilarious". A member of the

editorial board The editorial board is a group of experts, usually at a publication, who dictate the tone and direction the publication's editorial policy will take. Mass media At a newspaper, the editorial board usually consists of the editorial page editor, a ...

of ''Life'' resigned in response. The publisher defended the journal's editorial process, saying that the paper had been revised following lengthy reviews by two faculty members from institutions other than the author's.

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://www.mdpi.com/journal/life Biology journals MDPI academic journals Quarterly journals English-language journals Publications established in 2011 Open access journals