Recent retraction of two papers on stem-cell research by the journal Nature highlights weaknesses in this self-regulatory framework that scientists need to address.

The increasing pace of human discovery is a curse – we need to rethink what it means to publish the results of research.

Commenters on post-publication peer review sites such as PubPeer are catching errors that traditional peer reviewers have missed.

Nature, the pre-eminent journal for reporting scientific research, has had to retract two papers it published in January after mistakes were spotted in the figures, some of the methods descriptions were found to be plagiarised and early attempts to replicate the work failed.

The biggest thing holding invention back is our impatience. With enough time and support, young engineers will develop the technology we need.

Free from bureaucracy, independent science labs offer a flexibility that can't be matched by universities, writes a researcher.

One of the loudest buzzwords in current science politics is interdisciplinarity. Government extols its virtues. Research councils clamour about its value. Academics parade their credentials.

How this money is invested could make a huge difference to our future, in the UK and to some extent beyond

Report points to 'serious dangers for the international standing of UK research' in humanities and social sciences.

Aside from the occasional cigar (once every five years or so), I'm one of those smug "never smoked" gits. You then might think that I'm all for plain packaging, not publishing tobacco industry-funded research, and completely against the " normalization" of smoking via the evidently evil medium of e-cigarettes.

Merciless competition for jobs and funds pushes some researchers to spin data in the eternal quest for success

Scientific mavericks once played an essential role in research. We must relearn how to support them and provide new options for an unforeseeable future.

Universities are drowning in digital information. It's time senior leaders made openness – and its consequences – their concern.

Scientists are not as secular as people think.

The number of female students considering university courses in STEM subjects has seen a bigger increase over the last seven years than for male students, according to new research.

The EU's academic output is 20% higher than the US. This shouldn't really be a surprise given the EU's combined population of over 500m versus America's 300m. In fact, Europe produces a third of the world's research outputs and, like China, investment is being ramped up while UK and US investments are treading water.

Research careers are built on publishing in high-profile journals, so can postdocs be expected to take a stand against them?

A bibliometric analysis in Nature purports to confirm that women scientists are discriminated against. But the full picture might be much more interesting.

There are indeed concerns about the current science publishing model, but until major changes in grant funding are incorporated, researchers will continue to lust after publications in high-tier journals.

The EPSRC allocates millions to fund research at residential workshops.

When Peter Higgs, of Higgs boson fame, was quoted in the Guardian on Friday as saying "Today I wouldn't get an academic job" because he would not "be regarded as productive enough", it prompted much nodding and retweeting from academics.

Scientists desperate to have an "impact" in their field are cherry-picking and misrepresenting their results. It's the natural result of a desperate scramble to publish. Science, according to a recent Nature article, is like Battleship. You fire shots into the dark and mostly miss your target.

Academics concerned universities are excluding interdisciplinary research from the Research Excellence Framework exercise.

Rather than simply demanding more open science, we should remember closure is a quite normal part of science, and instead look in detail at what's closing, when, why and to whom?