Speeding up scientific knowledge production
A platform comparing research journal's performance aiming to make the peer review process more efficient.
Scientists Should Talk Directly to the Public
Our work helps answer some of society's greatest challenges, but it's usually conveyed with technical language in journals most citizens never see.
Encourage Governments to Heed Scientific Advice
To stop evidence-based policy losing its clout, researchers need to engage with policymakers and understand their needs, says Bill Colglazier.
Scientific 'Cartels' Band Together to Cite Each Others' Work
A small number of scientists band together to reference each other’s work, gaming the citation system to make their studies appear to be more important.
Breakthrough Awards $25m to Researchers at 'Oscars of Science'
Huda Zoghbi, Stephen Elledge, Jean Bourgain, Joe Polchinski and other researchers in life sciences, fundamental physics and mathematics share awards from prize founders Yuri Milner, Mark Zuckerberg and Sergey Brin.
A surge of p-values between 0.040 and 0.049 in recent decades
A surge of p-values between 0.040 and 0.049 in recent decades
It is known that statistically significant results are more likely to be published than results that are not statistically significant. We conducted a search in the abstracts of papers published between 1990 and 2014. The results indicate that negative results are not disappearing, but have actually become 4.3 times more prevalent since 1990. Positive results, on the other hand, have become 13.9 times more prevalent since 1990.
Publish Houses of Brick, Not Mansions of Straw
Papers need to include fewer claims and more proof to make the scientific literature more reliable.
New truths that only one can see
Maybe the researchers deeply believed that their findings were true. But that is the problem. The more passionate scientists are about their work, the more susceptible they are to bias.
Good Enough Practices in Scientific Computing
A set of computing tools and techniques that every researcher can and should adopt.
Five Lessons for Researchers Who Want to Collaborate with Governments and Development Organisations but Avoid the Common Pitfalls
Five Lessons for Researchers Who Want to Collaborate with Governments and Development Organisations but Avoid the Common Pitfalls
Ensure the benefits are felt by all involved, maintain a degree of distance and objectivity, protect the quality of consent and your publishing rights, and always choose your partners carefully.
Why do scientists find it so difficult to reproduce results?
Researchers face pressure to hype and report selectively, says Dorothy Bishop.
Ten Simple Rules for Effective Statistical Practice
A list of 10 rules with researchers in mind: researchers having some knowledge of statistics, possibly with one or more statisticians available in their building, or possibly with a healthy do-it-yourself attitude and a handful of statistical packages on their laptops.
Why A Culture of Preprints Developed in Physics, But Not Biology
Scientific journal policies, physics' head start with arXiv, and differences in the culture of the two disciplines may all play a role.
Go forth and replicate!
To make replication studies more useful, researchers must make more of them, funders must encourage them and journals must publish them.
The Next Generation Researchers Initiative at the National Academies: New Study Begins
The Next Generation Researchers Initiative at the National Academies: New Study Begins
A new study commenced work at the start of 2017: the “Next Generation Researchers Initiative,” directed by the Board on Higher Education and Workforce at the National Academies of Science Engineering and Medicine.
Why the Human Brain Project went wrong
Two years in, a $1-billion-plus effort to simulate the human brain is in disarray. Was it poor management, or is something fundamentally wrong with Big Science?
Nature Special Issue on Young Scientists
The research enterprise sometimes keeps scientists from pursuing the best ideas: intense competition forces researchers to prioritize publishing papers over tackling important questions. A special issue explores the problems facing early and mid-career scientists, and how to solve them.
Five companies control more than half of academic publishing
[3]A study at the University of Montreal shows that Reed-Elsevier, Springer, Wiley-Blackwell, Taylor & Francis, and Sage now publish more than 50% of all academic articles. This number has been rising, thanks to mergers and acquisitions, from 30% in 1996 and only 20% in 1973.
Why it's time to get real about interdisciplinary research
A new book argues for less focus on structures and funding for interdisciplinarity, and more on the everyday highs and lows of collaboration.
World’s Biggest Science Experiment Seeks More Time and Money
The world’s biggest science experiment may get more time and money for completion when nuclear officials convene on Wednesday in France.
Why faculty members work so much?
As I am writing this article, I should be writing something else: an email to an editor, an email to an author, a letter of recommendation, notes for tomorrow’s classes, comments on students’ papers, comments on manuscripts, an abstract for an upcoming conference, notes for one of the books I’m working on.
New Stanford center for scientific cartography
The new David Rumsey Map Center, which opened last week at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, showcases what was once one of the world’s great private map collections—more than 150,000 maps, globes, and cartographic artifacts.
Most Scientific Editors Still Come from US or UK
Lack of international representation on scientific journals' editorial boards has persisted since 1985.
Why 'Statistical Significance' Is Often Insignificant
Researchers who want professorships are sometimes driven to publish suspect findings.
Spain, the European Exception: 'Economic Miracle' & Scientific Suicide
Spanish researchers are still waiting for the full implementation of a law which was approved six years ago.
Retraction of scientific papers for fraud or bias is just the tip of the iceberg
Investigating fraud is hard work, and it is easier for journal editors to ignore the problem and perpetuate the myth that peer review of trial reports ensures their scientific quality.
Yet more evidence for questionable research practices in Psychology
The replicability of psychological research is surprisingly low. Why? In this blog post I present new evidence showing that questionable research practices contributed to failures to replicate psyc…