It's always nice to get some stroking, and The Scientist staff has been purring over the last couple of weeks.

Last night we took home the national Gold Azbee award -- that's the top one -- for Publication Redesign in the under-80,000 category at the American Society of Business Publication Editors' 29th Annual Awards of Excellence . We entered the November 2006 issue. Congratulations go particularly to the Production team led by Joelle Bolt and to designer Eric Mongeon and advisor John Benditt.

We also placed in the top 10 for the same contest's Magazine of the Year in the under-80,000 category. The Scientist was the only science publication to appear on the list. The overall winner was Builder - congratulations to the team there.

And just last week, writer Ishani Ganguli won a Silver regional award from the same organization for the July 2006 feature A Complementary Pathway in the category of Individual/Company Profile.

We'll have a party on the back of this, but we're not getting carried away. The life science community is a demanding audience and we're always open to your suggestions for improvements.