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Interactivity in Scientific Figures Is a Key Tool for Data Exploration and the Scientific Process

Interactivity in Scientific Figures Is a Key Tool for Data Exploration and the Scientific Process

Last summer we launched our interactive figures initiative with plotly. Since then, we have published 22 interactives figures in seven articles across two platforms. In this post authors describe their figures and share why they wanted to make them interactive.

Why Scientists Accused of Sexual Misconduct Can Still Get Government Grants

Why Scientists Accused of Sexual Misconduct Can Still Get Government Grants

The U.S. government does not consider sexual harassment a form of scientific misconduct. Should it?

Overselling Results is a Problem in Science

Overselling Results is a Problem in Science

Climate skeptics, conspiracy theorists, and the anti-immunization movement are on the rise. At the same time, fraudulent research and issues with the replicability of scientific results prompt the question if science is still a reliable source for political decision-making.

Teach Young Scientists the Importance of Societal Impact for Research

Teach Young Scientists the Importance of Societal Impact for Research

Societal impact should be rated more highly in scientific publishing and research evaluation. To this end, we suggest that ways to achieve it should be introduced as an important component of curricula at higher-education institutions.

Without Urgent Action Big and Open Data May Widen Existing Inequalities and Social Divides

Without Urgent Action Big and Open Data May Widen Existing Inequalities and Social Divides

The unsustainable nature of the digital data landscape, the quality and credibility of the data themselves, and how data sources currently represent only privileged individuals, are challenges that can be overcome, but to do so requires significant investment in key data governance priorities.

Would College Students Retain More If Professors Dialed Back The Pace?

Would College Students Retain More If Professors Dialed Back The Pace?

Why do we forget so much of what we read? Anthropologist Barbara J. King suggests that the answer might point toward benefits of a slower pace of teaching in the college classroom.

Why Hiring the ‘Best’ People Produces the Least Creative Results

Why Hiring the ‘Best’ People Produces the Least Creative Results

If you want to explore things you haven’t explored, having people who look just like you and think just like you is not the best way. We must see the forest, thinks Scott Page collegiate professor of complex systems, and author of the book  book "The Diversity Bonus".

Cheating on my Mentor

Cheating on my Mentor

For the first 2 years of my Ph.D. program, my primary adviser was always available when I needed help, promptly responding to emails and meeting with me when questions arose. But that abruptly changed when he went on sabbatical and left the country.

Science Is Universal and Unifying

Science Is Universal and Unifying

It is the universality of science, coupled with a love for knowledge and understanding shared by all humanity, that gives science its power to transcend cultural and other differences. By Fabiola Gianotti, Director General, CERN.

Why Academic Journals Need to Go

Why Academic Journals Need to Go

In his fantastic Peters Memorial Lecture on occasion of receiving CNI’s Paul Evan Peters award, Herbert Van de Sompel of Los Alamos National Laboratory described my calls to drop subscription.

Should we Steer Clear of the Winner-Takes-All Approach?

Should we Steer Clear of the Winner-Takes-All Approach?

Scientists in New Zealand held the first ‘Kindness in Science’ workshop in December 2017 at the University of Auckland, hoping to kick-start a movement that will offer a kinder, gentler and more inclusive scientific culture. The group’s mantra is “Everyone here is smart and kind — don’t distinguish yourself by being otherwise.”

A Big Brother Future for Science Publishing?

A Big Brother Future for Science Publishing?

The leaders of Elsevier have now decided that the epoch of journals will soon be over, argues the former editor of the BMJ.

To Have and Have Not: The Drama of EU Research Funding Enters Its next Act

To Have and Have Not: The Drama of EU Research Funding Enters Its next Act

More EU ministers and commissioners are voicing support for bigger research and innovation funding - but the political argument is a long way from won. To win the case for more funding, innovation fans are going to have to talk, not abstractly, but concretely.​