Life: The Excitement of Biology 4(1)                                                                           1 
 
Editorial: The First Three Years (2013-2015) of  
Life: The Excitement of Biology 
 
Jorge A. Santiago-Blay1 
 
Herein I summarize the major developments in Life: The Excitement 
of Biology, emphasizing 2015. Below, I list some of our main 
accomplishments and, thereafter, I ponder about the roles of LEB. 
 
Main Accomplishments 
1. Expanded Indexing, Referencing, and Availability. Life: The 
Excitement of Biology continues to be indexed and its published articles 
detected by Biosis, Biological Abstracts, CAB Abstracts, Google Scholar, 
and Research Gate. In 2015, LEB became available through the EBSCO 
Discovery Service (EDS) although not in full text.  Also, Life: The 
Excitement of Biology is scheduled for inclusion in EBSCO’s, Academic 
Search Ultimate (https://www.ebscohost.com/academic/academic-search-
ultimate), which is slated for release in September 2016. LEB continues 
participating fully in CitedBy (CrossRef, http://www.crossref.org/) and has 
a very good record of “resolutions”, that is, correctly directing readers who 
click on the links to the correct publication. Wholehearted thanks to the 
staff members of CrossRef, for their help, particularly when I have made 
mistakes. Basch Subscriptions, a Prenax company (http://basch.com/bsi/, 
http://www.prenax.com/), as well as WT Cox Information Services 
(http://www.wtcox.com/), two subscription management companies 
headquartered in the USA, now include Life: The Excitement of Biology in 
their online platform databases.  
2. Increased Internationalization. More scholars have joined the 
Board of Editors of Life: The Excitement of Biology during 2015. 
Currently, the board has nearly 100 members representing over 40 countries 
worldwide. 
3. “Responsive” Presence via Social Media. Life: The Excitement of 
Biology continues having a strong digital presence through our digital 
carrier, WordPress. Its website, blaypublishers.com, is compatible with 
different types of mobile devices and screen sizes. The term used for this 
among website developers is “responsive”, meaning that a web site follows 
responsive design principles. Also, LEB maintains a regular presence, 
                                                          
1 217 Wynwood Road, York, Pennsylvania 17402 USA. E-mail: blayjorge@gmail.com  
 
DOI: 10.9784/LEB4(1)SantiagoBlay.01 
Electronically available on May 31, 2016. Mailed on May 31, 2016. 
Life: The Excitement of Biology 4(1)                                                                           2 
 
particularly through Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, Tumblr, among others.  
4. Constantly Improving.  Authors, reviewers, subscribers, and 
members of the boards of Life: The Excitement of Biology continue 
suggesting improvements to the journal many of which I have gratefully 
incorporated. This editor insists that all scientific papers submitted to LEB 
be peer-reviewed while colleagues doing the evaluation of papers are 
encouraged to be fair, careful, contructive, and as fast as possible.  
 
Roles of Life: The Excitement of Biology in society at large 
In addition to serving as a peer-reviewed, international venue to the 
scientific community, I see a possible role for Life: The Excitement of 
Biology in society at large, through education. Nothing is more frustrating 
for people from all walks of life for whom life-long learning is in their 
hearts than trying to learn something and such learning be made difficult by 
a teacher who communicates in an unaccessible language. For instance, 
once, the unscientifically-trained wife of a colleague asked for a description 
of the chemical concept of mole. While her husband rapidly proceeded to 
define the term, including, yes, the 1023, as in a dictionary, I used simple 
language. Instead of the 1023 I said “a very large amount”. The lady 
concluded the conversation by saying to her husband: “you speak to impress 
while Jorge speaks to communicate”. That is exactly what Life: The 
Excitement of Biology aims: to communicate serious science in a language 
that more people understand. 
 
All of these continue helping LEB gain visibility among the 
communities of scholars and the broader public. They could not have been 
possible without numerous fruitful communications with members of the 
board. The support of the Courtright Family of York, Pennsylvania (USA), 
owners of NeFra, printers of the hard copy version of Life: The Excitement 
of Biology as well as WordPress, carrier of the digital version of LEB and 
their friendly and helpful online staff members deserve a special 
recognition.  
Please, feel free to spread the word about Life: The Excitement of 
Biology and its high quality, fast publication, and helpfulness; a great value, 
in sum, science for all. I hope all of you join me in a wonderful voyage of 
discovery during 2016. 
 
Sincerely and gratefully, 
Jorge Santiago-Blay 
Jorge Santiago-Blay, Ph.D. 
Editor-in-Chief, Life: The Excitement of Biology