Big brother in the academy
As monitoring of scholars' performance, time and output increases, so do reservations about its value and effectiveness
How to make more published research true
Research Practices that May Help Increase the Proportion of True Research Findings
What configurations of fields of science are found in grant proposals today?
What configurations of fields of science are found in grant proposals today?
Cross-disciplinarity is found particularly in research project proposals of fields of science with clearly overlapping content and mainly in research proposals submitted by fields of science within the humanities and social sciences.
The Open Science peer review oath
With the increasing complexities of new technologies and techniques, coupled with the specialisation of experiments, reproducing research findings has become a growing challenge.
Open, single-blind, double-blind: which process do you prefer?
We discuss the views and experiences of our Editorial Board Members towards open peer review on this biomedical journal.
Who's afraid of open peer review?
Celebrating Open Access Week 2014 affords an opportunity to study and promote all aspects of ‘Open.’
Author Insights 2014
Raw data from Nature Publishing Group and Palgrave Macmillan's annual Author Insights survey.
A professor for all cases
A professor for all cases
The Technical University Dresden is breaking new ground by hiring chairs not tied to a discipline.
Less prestigious journals publishing greater share of high-impact papers
The dominance of the elite journals is eroding.
EU's development policy on thin ice
EU's development policy on thin ice
A scientific board that helped forge links between European researchers and policymakers will close down on November 1, 2014. It is unknown if the new development commissioner will set up a similar board.
Charles Munger Makes $65 Million Gift to Theoretical Physics
Charles Munger Makes $65 Million Gift to Theoretical Physics
On Friday Charles Munger has donated $65 million to the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The gift represents the largest in the school’s history.
Pillars of reform
China has come to an unsettling conclusion: the system that it uses to invest in science and technology is broken.
Is your most cited work your best?
John P. A. Ioannidis and colleagues asked the most highly cited biomedical scientists to score their top-ten papers in six ways.
Does science suffer an ‘innovation deficit’?
U.S. science lobbyists coined the phrase "innovation deficit" last year
Machine-Learning Maestro on the Delusions of Big Data
Big-data boondoggles and brain-inspired chips are just two of the things we’re really getting wrong
Rich Citations
We’ve developed an enriched format for citations, called, appropriately enough, rich citations.
Aging Researchers and Funding Trends
The proportion of federal research funding going to investigators older than 65 was greater than that going to researchers younger than 35, even if most Nobel recipients made their discoveries before they were 40 years old.
Low-Quality Scholarly Publishers Don't Understand Copyright
Low-Quality Scholarly Publishers Don't Understand Copyright
I am increasingly seeing contradictory licensing statements on the websites of low-quality, questionable, and predatory publishers.
Fang Zhouzi Erased from China's Social Media
Fang Zhouzi Erased from China's Social Media
Fang Zhouzi is a Chinese popular scientific writer who is also well known for his campaign against pseudoscience and fraud in China. But a few days ago, Fang Zhouzi has been erased.
A 1959 essay by Isaac Asimov on creativity
Note from Arthur Obermayer, friend of the author: In 1959, I worked as a scientist at Allied Research Associates in Boston. The company was an MIT spinoff that originally focused on the effects of nuclear weapons on aircraft structures.
Recommendations for the Role of Publishers in Access to Data
As appeals for public access of research data continue to proliferate, many scholarly publishers-alongside funders, institutions, and libraries-are expanding their role to address this need.
Correcting the bias against interdisciplinary research
When making decisions about funding and jobs the scientific community should recognise that most of the tools used to evaluate scientific excellence are biased in favour of established disciplines and against interdisciplinary research.
Higgs hunter will be CERN's first female director
Higgs hunter will be CERN's first female director
Italian physicist will take the reins at the European physics powerhouse in 2016
Journals unite for reproducibility
Consensus on reporting principles aims to improve quality control in biomedical research and encourage public trust in science
Spending on subscriptions to journals rises by up to 50%
Freedom of Information requests reveal substantial hikes in university outlay despite open access push.
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