The not-quite-stated, awful truth
For all but a small percentage of aspiring researchers, doing a postdoc at a university is a lousy idea because it will neither result in an academic job nor otherwise advance one’s career.
150+ Websites For Lifelong Learners
This list keeps being updated with more online educational resources.
Swiss University Dissolves Astronomy Institute after Misconduct Allegations
Swiss University Dissolves Astronomy Institute after Misconduct Allegations
ETH Zurich in Switzerland launched an investigation into allegations that a leading professor mistreated graduate students for more than a decade.
A new network for science advice in Africa
There are plenty of reasons to be upbeat about the prospects for science and research across Africa. The next challenge is to bring more of that evidence and expertise into decision making.
Can Scientists and Their Institutions Become Their Own Open Access Publishers?
Can Scientists and Their Institutions Become Their Own Open Access Publishers?
The potential advantages and challenges involved in a shift away from for-profit journals in favor of institutional open access publishing.
The R-factor, a New Way to Rate Journal Articles?
New metric measures how reliable scientific claims turn out to be – but calculating it could be an enormous task.
Ten Reasons to Share Your Data
Making data available to the larger scientific community has many benefits.
Inside Google’s Academic Influence Campaign
Google operates a little-known program to harness the brain power of university researchers to help sway opinion and public policy, cultivating financial relationships with professors nationwide.
Radical Ideas Required to Cut Research Grant Waste, Funders Told
New head of Science Europe says he hopes for experiments with grant lottery system and even a basic income for researchers.
Badges to Acknowledge Open Practices
The aim is to specify a standard by which we can say that a scientific study has been conducted in accordance with open-science principles and provide visual icons to allow advertising of such good behaviours.
Sowing the Seeds of Diversity in Engineering
Only 14 percent of all engineers in the U.S. today are women, and the gender imbalance continues, or even worsens, when women enter the workforce.
An open science peer review oath
We propose steps to help increase the transparency of the scientific method and the reproducibility of research results: specifically, we introduce a peer-review oath and accompanying manifesto.
Climate Scientists Face Harassment, Threats and Fears of 'McCarthyist Attacks'
Researchers will have to deal with attacks from a range of powerful foes in the coming years – and for many, it has already started.
Is Health Care Ready for Routine DNA Screening? A Massive New Trial Will Find Out
More than 400 Pennsylvanians have already learned of disease mutations.
Researcher's death shocks Japan
One of Japan's top stem cell researchers, died in an apparent suicide. He was famous for his ability to coax embryonic stem cells to differentiate into other cell types.
We need a Github of Science
Open Science efforts like arXiv and PLoS ONE should follow GitHub’s lead and embrace the social web.
Britain Offers £1bn a Year to Stay in the EU’s Science Club
Britain will offer to keep paying more than £1 billion a year to the EU after Brexit to continue to participate in its science and research programmes.
Inferential Statistics, P-Values, and the Quest to Evaluate Our Hypotheses
Inferential Statistics, P-Values, and the Quest to Evaluate Our Hypotheses
P-values and significance testing have come under increasing scrutiny in scientific research. How accurate are these methods for indicating whether a hypothesis is valid?
US budget cuts laying off scientists
A new joint survey out today found that nearly half (46%) of 3,165 scientists in the United States reported they've laid off scientists due to sequester budget cuts or they will have to lay off scientists. Also, more than 54% or those surveyed know a colleague who has lost his or her job or expects to soon.
Macron's European Innovation Agency Ramping Up
Like Darpa, Jedi will aim to deliver developmental milestones along the path to strategically important technologies, including through prototyping. It will sit between academia and industry and fund projects lasting no more than two years.
Initiative helps match refugees with science jobs
A new program will connect researchers with universities but won't give them preferential treatment.
Ten Simple Rules for Taking Advantage of Git and GitHub
All software used for the analysis should be either carefully documented or, better yet, openly shared and directly accessible to others.
All Take and No Give? Many Scientists Resist Shift to Open Data
Most academics are keen to access other researchers’ material but a third are yet to share their own.
Wellcome Trust collaborative awards
The Wellcome Trust launches the new Collaborative Awards, enabling teams of researchers to apply together and bring new perspectives to the work they are doing.
The Kardashian index: a measure of discrepant social media profile for scientists
The Kardashian index: a measure of discrepant social media profile for scientists
While social media is a valuable tool for outreach and the sharing of ideas, there is a danger that this form of communication is gaining too high a value and that we are losing sight of key metrics of scientific value, such as citation indices.
If These Data Could Talk
Data-driven methods have come to dominate many scientific fields, but many fields exhibit distressingly low rates of reproducibility.