Science has lost its way, at a big cost to humanity
Researchers are rewarded for splashy findings, not for double-checking accuracy. So many scientists looking for cures to diseases have been building on ideas that aren't even true.
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Atypical Combinations and Scientific Impact
How big a role do unconventional combinations of existing knowledge play in the impact of a scientific paper? A new study shows that the highest-impact papers were not the ones that had the greatest novelty, but had a combination of novelty and otherwise conventional combinations of prior work.
A lot can happen in a decade
This issue on Open Access marks the 10-year anniversary of PLOS Biology, and it's as good a time as any to pause and take stock of how the last decade.
Center for Open Science
Reproducibility Initiative Receives $1.3M Grant to Validate 50 Landmark Cancer
The open access movement grows up
It's been just over a decade since the concept of Open Access first captured the attention of the scientific and scholarly research community.
Psst! Want a tip on how to get EU funding? Google it!
Business Key documents for Horizon 2020 are circulating on the Internet. The Commission needs to put order into the timely and fair distribution of this information.
What can article-level metrics do for you?
In this essay, we describe why article-level metrics are an important extension of traditional citation-based journal metrics and provide a number of example from Article-level metrics data collected for PLOS Biology.
How to get a piece of the Horizon 2020 cash
The process of applying for research funds has been simplified into a single set of evaluation criteria
Architecting the future of research communication
Building the Models and Analytics for an Open Access Future.
EU promises Israeli participation in Horizon 2020
A senior official from the European Union has visited Israel to inform the government that it will find a solution to ensure Israel's participation in the scientific Horizon 2020 project, Haaretz newspaper has claimed.
ORCID public data file now available
One year after launching the ORCID Registry, we are excited to be releasing our first Public Data File. This file contains a snapshot of all public data in the ORCID Registry associated with an ORCID record that was created or claimed by an individual.
PubMed opens for comment
Research repository launches comment platform for post-publication peer review.
Les difficultés d'insertion professionnelle des docteurs
Les raisons d'une exception française analyse l'insertion professionnelle des docteurs en France. Le nombre de doctorats délivrés est faible au regard des sortants chaque année du système éducatif et des effectifs de l'enseignement supérieur.
Unis genauer beurteilen
Tilmann Warnecke Der Wissenschaftsrat will Unirankings neu erfinden, doch auch sein "Forschungsrating" ist umstritten. Jetzt soll es auf bis zu 25 Fächer ausgeweitet werden. Der Wissenschaftsrat hält an seinem umstrittenen „Forschungsrating" fest und will es in den kommenden Jahren auf bis zu 25 Fächer ausweiten.
Reforming the Russian Academy of Sciences
The end of Russian science or the start of a new era? Either way, the government's reform of the Russian Academy of Sciences has fuelled a vicious debate. Fiona Clark reports from Moscow.
Does UK science have a fetish for the short-term?
Many of the biggest problems in science are tackled through sustained efforts over years or decades. But if science is a long-term endeavour, why are funding and careers so fixated on the now? Guest post by Andrew Holding.
How can non-scientists influence the course of scientific research?
Science communication should be more than the dissemination of results to the public; it should also flow in the other direction, with members of the public able to communicate their priorities to scientists and those who fund them. But how?
It's not only peer-reviewed, it's reproducible!
Peer review is one of the oldest and most respected instruments of quality control in science and research. Peer review means that a paper is evaluated by a number of experts on the topic of the article (the peers). The criteria may vary, but most of the time they include methodological and technical soundness, scientific relevance, and presentation.
We need to talk about sexism in science
The events that culminated in the resignation of Bora Zivkovic from Scientific American last week demonstrate that women in science face a long struggle to root out sexism.
No physicist is an island
The physicist Richard Feynman liked to gripe about what he called "Alfred Nobel's Other Mistake." The first mistake was the invention of dynamite. The second was creating the Nobel Prizes.
Scientists experiment with crowdsourcing
Labs at Yale are researching mosquito sterilization and the abilities of rubber-decomposing fungus, all without grants. As grants from federal organizations like the National Institutes of Health become increasingly difficult to secure, researchers at Yale and across the nation are turning to a new source of support.
The science crowdfunding landscape
As the dominant all-comers crowdfunding platform, Kickstarter's fundraising stats are leading indicators of where charitable online crowdfunding is headed. Just yesterday Kickstarter proclaimed that over 50,000 projects have been successfully funded to the tune of $836 million. They could barely contain their glee: For over a year, I've been observing a sliver of the rapidly expanding crowdfunding pie: science projects.
United Nations embraces science's best minds
Just another talking club or a genuine attempt to give science more weight in policy matters of global importance? Time will tell whether the United Nations' newly created scientific advisory board, whose members were announced last week, will indeed influence the business of international policy-making in practice.
"Die Forschungslandschaft verändert sich"
Neben dem SNF sind EU-Fördergelder die wichtigste Finanzierungsquelle für Schweizer Forscher. Das neue EU-Rahmenprogramm für Forschung und Innovation, "Horizon 2020", wird auch die Schweizer Forschungslandschaft beeinflussen. Michael Hengartner geht davon aus, dass die EU in Zukunft verstärkt in die angewandte Forschung investiert.
Universities putting research before teaching, says minister
Universities need a "cultural change" towards teaching, the universities minister, David Willetts, has argued, as a survey of UK undergraduates showed they were being set less work and received notably less tutor feedback than did their peers 50 years ago.
PubMed Commons: a commenting system within PubMed
PubMed Commons: a commenting system within PubMed
NIH launches commenting system integrated within PubMed - huge moment for post publication peer review.
Spanish science still suffering
Despite Friday's €70m rescue of the Spanish National Research Council, Spain's scientists are still in mourning. Amaya Moro Martín sets the scene as a range of commentators identify the challenges still facing Spanish science
Science fallout could last for years
The government may finally be on a path to reopening, but the shutdown’s effects will linger for scientists studying everything from climate change to cancer.
How science goes wrong
Scientific research has changed the world. Now it needs to change itself.
Trouble at the lab
Scientists like to think of science as self-correcting. To an alarming degree, it is not
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