ScienceGeist

A century and a half has seen momentous changes in science. But evidence and transparency are more important than ever before.

Can science continue to fulfil its social contract and to reach new horizons by advancing on the same footing into the future? Or does something need to shift?

Researchers share tips for transforming your group with open data science and teamwork.

How did data get so big? Through political, social and economic interests, shows Sabina Leonelli.

To combat academic dishonesty, focus on educational systems and not just individual offenders, says Tracey Bretag.

Students must learn that a doctoral degree isn't for everyone - and that not doing one might be a better option.

After the euphoria of 2018, this year's Nobel prizes in chemistry, medicine and physics have again all been awarded to men. Here are three ways to encourage change.

The efforts of young researchers to fight the perverse incentives that dominate science right now are all the more impressive because these scientists are at the most vulnerable point of their careers.

Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer have been awarded the prize for their experimental approach to alleviating poverty.

Peer review process helps funders make decisions, but researchers say it is lacks transparency and takes up too much of their time.

Biological advances have repeatedly changed who we think we are.

Publishers, reviewers and other members of the scientific community must fight science's preference for positive results - for the benefit of all.

Wellcome is right to call out hyper-competitiveness in research and question the focus on excellence. But other funders must follow its move.

The rhetoric of "excellence" is pervasive across the academy. It is used to refer to research outputs as well as researchers, theory and education, individuals and organizations, from art history to zoology. But does "excellence" actually mean anything?

Readers say they have been asked to reference seemingly superfluous studies after peer review.

Organs-on-a-chip and other technologies are becoming reliable models for testing drug efficacy and toxicity.

Besieged Iranian researchers say that currency collapse, scientific isolation and psychological strain are hindering almost every aspect of their work.

The Pulitzer prizewinner shares his advice for pleasing readers, editors and yourself.

Thomas Crowther wants to restore the planet, but first he needs to know how many trees, fungi, worms and microbes live on it.

Transparent evaluations of FAIRness are increasingly required by a wide range of stakeholders, from scientists to publishers, funding agencies and policy makers. We propose a scalable, automatable framework to evaluate digital resources that encompasses measurable indicators, open source tools, and participation guidelines, which come together to accommodate domain relevant community-defined FAIR assessments. The components of the framework are: (1) Maturity Indicators - community-authored specifications that delimit a specific automatically-measurable FAIR behavior; (2) Compliance Tests - small Web apps that test digital resources against individual Maturity Indicators; and (3) the Evaluator, a Web application that registers, assembles, and applies community-relevant sets of Compliance Tests against a digital resource, and provides a detailed report about what a machine "sees" when it visits that resource. We discuss the technical and social considerations of FAIR assessments, and how this translates to our community-driven infrastructure. We then illustrate how the output of the Evaluator tool can serve as a roadmap to assist data stewards to incrementally and realistically improve the FAIRness of their resources.

From Bangkok to Brisbane, researchers were among those who protested to urge action on global warming.

The publisher is scrutinizing researchers who might be inappropriately using the review process to promote their own work.

Respondents to a Nature poll want to make their own decisions about how to interpret citation metrics. That requires data to be freely accessible.

Researchers should learn to travel better to mitigate their climate impacts. Institutions can help by facilitating and rewarding sustainable travel behaviour, rather than fuelling the pressure to attend conferences, say Olivier Hamant, Timothy Saunders and Virgile Viasnoff.

Citation of Italian-authored papers by Italian researchers rose after the introduction of metrics-based thresholds for promotions.

Graphics are becoming increasingly important for scientists to effectively communicate their findings to broad audiences, but most researchers lack expertise in visual media.

Reviewing and accepting study plans before results are known can counter perverse incentives. Chris Chambers sets out three ways to improve the approach.

We face interconnected planetary emergencies threatening our climate and ecosystems. Scientists should join civil disobedience movements to fight these unprecedented crises.

As AI technology develops rapidly, it is widely recognized that ethical guidelines are required for safe and fair implementation in society. But is it possible to agree on what is 'ethical AI'? A detailed analysis of 84 AI ethics reports around the world, from national and international organizations, companies and institutes, explores this question, finding a convergence around core principles but substantial divergence on practical implementation.

Science PhD programmes cater almost exclusively to students bound for academia, but they don't have to.