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Depression Researchers Rethink Popular Mouse Swim Tests
Animal-rights group's campaign to end forced-swim tests comes amid debate over whether method is overused.
Plan S FAQs
Plan S is a manifesto for full and immediate Open Access set out by a coalition of research funders. It has been discussed a lot recently, but what, exactly, does it involve?
Yentl Syndrome: A Deadly Data Bias Against Women
The science of medicine is based on male bodies, but researchers are beginning to realize how vastly the symptoms of disease differ between the sexes - and how much danger women are in.
U.S. Targeting of Chinese Scientists Fuels a Brain Drain
A Chinese scientist’s startup fled the U.S. after a federal investigation that included a failed sting, airport stops and an unfounded child-porn search.
Thousands of Universities Join Wave of Climate Emergency Declarations
The climate emergency movement is heading to school. Global higher education networks tying together more than 7000 universities and colleges from across the globe declared a climate emergency and published a three-point plan to confront the escalating environmental crisis.
They Know We Know They Know: Does Sci-Hub Affect Library Subscriptions?
So does Sci-Hub lead libraries to cancel journals, or doesn't it? Maybe the answer isn't a simple yes or no.
The Death of the Learned Societies?
With open access Plan S approaching, learned society journals are expected to fall in hard times.
ELife Introduces First Demonstration of the Open-source Publishing Platform Libero Publisher
ELife Introduces First Demonstration of the Open-source Publishing Platform Libero Publisher
The working example represents a major milestone in the development of Libero Publisher, a community-supported tool to help modernise academic publishing.
The Plan to Mine the World's Research Papers
A giant data store quietly being built in India could free vast quantities of science for computer analysis - but is it legal?
New Face of the £50 Note is Revealed
The £50 note gets a makeover with the image of a computer pioneer.
Nutrition Science Is Broken. This New Egg Study Shows Why.
At turns lauded and vilified, the humble egg is an example of everything wrong with nutrition studies.
Revisiting the Role of the Science Journalist
In today's ecosystem of online science publications, it can be hard to tell what qualifies as journalism and what doesn't. Does it matter?
Telescope Designed to Study Mysterious Dark Energy Keeps Russia's Space Science Hopes Alive
Textbook Analysis Uncovers Erroneous Explanations of Statistical Significance
Textbook Analysis Uncovers Erroneous Explanations of Statistical Significance
An examination of introductory psychology textbooks suggests that prospective psychological researchers may learn to interpret statistical significance incorrectly in their undergraduate classes.
One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: the Frustration of Diversity Efforts in STEM
One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: the Frustration of Diversity Efforts in STEM
Keynote at PyData LondonJuly 14, 2019https://pydata.org/london2019/schedule/presentation/47/DescriptionTech has spent millions of dollars in efforts to diversify workplaces. Despite this, it seems after each spell of progress, a series of retrograde events ensue. Anti-diversity manifestos, backlash to assertive hiring, and sexual misconduct scandals crop up every few months, sucking the air from every board room. This will be a digest of research, recent events, and pointers on women in STEM.AbstractTwo years ago, a Google engineer attended a diversity program. He had such an adverse reaction to it, that he proceeded to write a 10-page anti-diversity manifesto that he circulated on internal channels. It later became public, furor ensued, and the engineer was fired. Far from being the end of the story, this engineer played the victim of political correctness and became a darling of conservative media outlets. What happened here? One tech company's attempts to educate its employees and improve the internal culture mightily backfired and as a result the cause for women in STEM was choked back. While a general sense that moving toward gender parity is desirable (though some still disagree with this premise), what actions to take remains unclear. Diversity trainings have been scarcely evaluated, and when they have, they seem to change awareness but not behavior. Sometimes, they create a backlash. More assertive action, like quotas, engender open resentment. Women in science and technology are underestimated by peers and teachers, pressed by stereotypes, disadvantaged in hiring and career progression, sexually harassed, disheartened as their expertise is ignored…and now they are resented for diversity initiatives. Science and technology needs its leaders to be fully committed to diversity and in frank understanding of the social-justice underpinnings. Two vehicles for change are: men leaders who are allies, and more women in leadership. The recent DataCamp debacle shows that a whole community's action was needed to right the wrongs of one harasser and one company's reticence to make him accountable. I aim to elicit your commitments to hire and promote women affirmatively, and to get educated and empower activism with evidence.
In Act of Brinkmanship, a Big Publisher Cuts off UC's Access to Its Academic Journals
In Act of Brinkmanship, a Big Publisher Cuts off UC's Access to Its Academic Journals
Elsevier, the world's largest publishers of academic journals, just stepped up its fight with the University of California by cutting off UC's access.
Inside a “Fake” Conference: A Journey Into Predatory Science
Science journalist attends a predatory conference and interviews scientists involved.
Establishing, Developing, and Sustaining a Community of Data Champions
Establishing, Developing, and Sustaining a Community of Data Champions
While research data support units now exist in many universities, these are typically not able to provide discipline-specific expertise or resources. This article focuses on the Data Champion Programme at the University of Cambridge, which empowers discipline-specific expertise already embedded within each unit to advocate for good RDM and to deliver support locally.
Interdisciplinary Comparison of Scientific Impact of Publications Using the Citation-Ratio
Interdisciplinary Comparison of Scientific Impact of Publications Using the Citation-Ratio
Article shows that the Citation-Ratio is more consistent across disciplines than total numbers of citations.
I Hate Open Science
Blog post encourages using more specific terms to decrease ambiguity in discussions around open science.
Releasing a Preprint is Associated with More Attention and Citations
Preprint examines whether having a preprint on bioRxiv.org was associated with the Altmetric Attention Score and number of citations of the corresponding peer-reviewed article.
The Definition of Reuse
Article postulates that a clear definition of use and reuse is needed to establish better metrics for a comprehensive scholarly record of individuals, institutions, organizations, etc. Hence, this article presents a first definition of reuse of research data.
Scandal-weary Swedish Government Takes over Research-fraud Investigations
The Research Misconduct Board is one of the first national agencies tasked with investigating serious research misconduct.
Generalise, Don't Specialise: Why Focusing Too Narrowly is Bad for Us
The 10,000-hour rule says intense, dedicated practice makes perfect - at that one thing. But what if breadth actually serves us better than depth?
Amid Concerns About Grad Student Mental Health, One University Takes a Novel Approach
Amid Concerns About Grad Student Mental Health, One University Takes a Novel Approach
At the University of North Carolina, specialized counselors serve the school's biomedical Ph.D. students.
Journal Producation Costs
This dataset provides a granular, step-by-step calculation of the costs associated with publishing primary research articles, from submission, through peer-review, to publication, indexing and archiving. It is found that these costs range from less than US$200 per article in modern, large scale publishing platforms using post-publication peer-review, to about US$1,000 per article in prestigious journals with rejection rates exceeding 90%. The publication costs for a representative scholarly article today come to lie at around US$400. The additional non-publication cost items that make up the difference between publication costs and final price are discussed. The dataset refers to calculations about the scenarios described in a publication about that topic.