This month ScienceWatch.com released the highest-cited papers from 20 countries spanning the globe.  The countries featured were selected based on their papers published in Thomson Reuters-indexed journals from January 1998 through August 31, 2008.

The United States ranked number one with 2,959,661 papers and 42,269,694 citations.  The most cited article comes from the field of clinical medicine: “Mechanisms of disease: atherosclerosis – an inflammatory disease” (full text available in ProQuest).

In addition to clinical medicine, disciplines covered in the top 20 papers include: biochemistry, chemistry, physics, materials science and computer science.

ScienceWatch.com provides a behind-the-scenes look at the scientists, journals, institutions, nations, and papers selected by Essential Science Indicators.