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Many biases affect scientific research, causing a waste of resources, posing a threat to human health, and hampering scientific progress. These problems are hypothesized to be worsened by lack of consensus on theories and methods, by selective publication processes, and by career systems too heavily oriented toward productivity, such as those adopted in the US.
Science stands as an ideological force insofar as it offers the answers to a variety of fundamental questions and concerns; as such, those who pursue scientific inquiry have been shown to be concerned with the moral and social ramifications of their scientific endeavors.
The fascinating story of the discovery of nuclear fission began with an error that earned Enrico Fermi (see picture) a Nobel Prize for the apparent but incorrect discovery of the transuranic elements. Careful repetition and extension of the experiments finally led to the correct interpretation by Hahn, Meitner, Strassmann, Frisch, and Bohr as an effect from nuclear fission of the “small impurity” of (0.7 %) contained in natural uranium.
Our PhD employment problem is very simply described: there's a mismatch between the number of graduate students earning doctorates each year and the number of tenure-track faculty positions available to them. There are too few tenure-track jobs for the PhD recipients who are qualified to compete for them.
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With the announcement of its new Data Grants program, Twitter is inviting academic researchers to propose experiments that take advantage of the full "firehose" of its 500 million daily tweets. But some researchers worry that the terms of the deal give Twitter ownership of their ideas.
More than half a million researchers have now signed up for an online science passport: a unique 16-digit identity number, with an accompanying online profile, from the Open Researcher and Contributor ID ( ORCID) project. There, researchers can maintain an up-to-date record of their professional pursuits.
A newly released report recommends a simplified set of funding instruments at the Research Council of Norway, better strategic planning at the universities, and less detailed guiding principles from the ministries.
Follow our coverage of the 2015 budget request to Congress
The UK-based Wellcome Trust, the world's second-largest funder of medical research behind the Gates Foundation, has launched a free online magazine called Mosaic that is dedicated to longform science writing. The site will be run by former Times science editor Mark Henderson - who was involved with a monthly science magazine published by the Times...
The good news: Many more women than ever before are completing Ph.D.'s in the sciences. Back in 2000, when I was appointed the first female dean of the graduate division at the University of California at Berkeley, I was delighted to learn that about half of the incoming doctoral students in the biological sciences-and more than 30 percent in heavily male fields like chemistry and engineering-were women.
As universities move towards a corporate business model, precarity is being imposed by force. The following is an edited transcript (prepared by Robin J. Sowards) of remarks given by Noam Chomsky last month to a gathering of members and allies of the Adjunct Faculty Association of the United Steelworkers in Pittsburgh, Penn.
Study of psychology departments finds that female full professors are less likely to co-author papers with lower ranking women
Panelists and attendees at the American Society for Cell Biology annual meeting considered the future of peer review and journal impact factors.
On the eve of a new funding era, the European Union's research chief tells scientists what to expect
Battelle and R&D Magazine jointly released the 2014 Global R&D Funding Forecast indicating that the combination of private and public global R&D spending was flat for 2013.
Typically papers appearing in journals with large values of the IF receive a high weight in such evaluations. However, at the end of the day one is interested in assessing the impact of individuals, rather than papers. Here we introduce Author Impact Factor (AIF), which is the extension of the IF to authors.
The academic job market is structured in many respects like a drug gang, with an expanding mass of outsiders and a shrinking core of insiders.
An endocrinologist who resigned from the University of Tokyo in March 2012 amid an investigation that concluded 43 of his papers should be retracted, has retracted five more papers. The newest is in this week's Nature.
The new ERC President turns his eyes towards cooperation with China, Japan and South-Korea. Jean-Pierre Bourguignon: “The key is to show eagerness to attract scientists from outside Europe.”
Founders of Google and Facebook award ‘Breakthrough prize’ of $3 million to Michael Hall of the University of Basel in a ceremony hosted by actor Kevin Spacey and featuring a live performance from singer Lana Del Ray.
The British drug maker GlaxoSmithKline will no longer pay doctors to promote its products and will stop tying compensation of sales representatives to the number of prescriptions doctors write.
The Congress of Argentina recently passed a landmark law making publicly funded science and technology research publications free and open access.
Schulterschluss in der Teilchenphysik
Academics fear secrecy will hinder research into the science behind policy decisions.
The EPSRC allocates millions to fund research at residential workshops.
Civility is important in evaluating a manuscript for publication, but so is telling the truth when the paper falls short.
In the spirit of acknowledging and normalizing failure in the process, a doctoral student defended her dissertation in a skirt made of rejection letters from the course of her PhD.
Wiley Editorial on the changing landscape of publishing suggests that OA and traditional outlets will continue to coexist successfully for some time to come.
