Update: The BuzzCloud for 2011

With the Oscars out of the way, it is time for the much more important scientific awards of of the year. It is with great pride that I can present to you the best of buzzwords 2011:

Click the image for an interactive version of the BuzzCloud. For an explanation of how to understand the visualization, please see the original BuzzCloud post.

The awards are:

• Best upcoming buzzword. The word in the cloud that looks most to me as an actual upcoming buzzword is optogenetics. It appeared first as a strong newcomer on the 2010 cloud, and it has only strengthened since.
• BuzzWord most ready for retirement. The award goes to synthetic biology, which first appeared on the cloud of 2004; despite being an exciting field, as buzzwords go it is becoming long in the tooth. Close runner up is omics, which first appeared on the cloud of 2005.
• Worst single-journal buzzword of 2011. Again this year we see buzzwords that have made it onto the cloud thanks to a single journal. The award is split between theranostic nanomedicine, which is pushed by the journal Accounts of Chemical Research, and vaccinomics, which is pushed by the (unfortunately named) journal OMICS. The irony that two distinctly medical-sounding buzzwords are championed by two non-medical journal has not escaped me.
• Worst buzzword to fail to disappear. In the BuzzCloud for 2010, I pointed out that astrology had to my horror popped up as a new buzzword in the biomedical literature. Sadly it has failed to disappear from the cloud in 2011!