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B – Des sciences à l’école3 February 2010Pierre-Leon T. De Sciences à l’ècole Accedit 2009;10 Given the fact that science education in primary schools is lacking, (although a French article this statement would easily apply to other countries) is lacking in the general population attitude of thinking as well as in the work force: the target of the teaching method in this […]
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B – Quality of advertisements in medical journals2 February 2010Heimans L, van Hylckama Vlieg A, Dekker FW. Are claims of advertisements in medical journals supported by RCTs? Neth J Med 2010;68(1):46-9 It is well known that most medical journals rely on pharmaceutical advertising for part of their revenue. To provide adequate information for an appropriate prescription, drugs advertising should include a minimum set of […]
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N – ArXiv seeks cash25 January 2010ArXiv, the e-print repository that transformed the scholarly communication infrastructure of multiple fields of physics and plays an increasingly prominent role in a unified set of global resources for physics, mathematics, computer science, and related disciplines, is seeking donations to keep it running. Cornell University Library say that it can no longer afford the annual […]
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N – Open access call25 January 2010The Scholarly Publishing Roundtable, a group of representatives from university administration, libraries, information science departments, and the publishing industry, has called for US federally funded research papers to be made open access. One key recommendation of their 12 January report is the establishment of specific embargo periods between publication and public access, allowing for some […]
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N – Present information agreeably25 January 2010People experience scientific debates as contests between warring cultural factions, and endorse whichever position reinforces their connection to other with whom they share important commitments, says an opinion piece in Nature (2010;463:296-7, 21 January). The process of “cultural cognition” accounts for this distinctive form of polarisation-–it also causes people to interpret new evidence in a […]
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B – The health illiteracy problem in the USA20 January 2010Editorial. The health illiteracy problem in the USA. The Lancet 2009;9707 (374):2028(doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(09)62137-1) Health illiteracy is the inability to comprehend and use medical information, affecting access to and use of health-care systems. Most individuals with low health literacy are elderly people, poor people and minorities. They are more prone to visit emergency rooms, stay longer in […]
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B – Limitations on the publishing of scientific research20 January 2010Meadows J. Limitations on the publishing of scientific research. In: de Leeuw K, Bergstra J (Ed.). The History of Information Security. A Comprehensive Handbook. Elsevier; 2007. p. 29-51(doi:10.1016/B978-044451608-4/50003-1) Journals have played an important part in encouraging greater openness to scientific research but they also impose restrictions on publication since editors and referees decide what research […]
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B – Onwards and upwards: science needs governing16 January 2010Onwards and upwards. The Economist 2009 December 19:35-38. Examines scientific, economic, and moral progress. “From theperspective of human progress, science needs governing. Scientificprogress needs to be hitched to what you might call ‘moral progress’.It can yield untold benefits, but only if people use it wisely. Theyneed to understand how to stop science from being abused. […]
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B – University Public-Access Mandates Are Good for Science12 January 2010Shulenburger D. University Public-Access Mandates are Good for Science PLoS Biol 2009; 7(11): e1000237. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1000237 The ArXiv online digital version of physic articles preprints and post-prints in August of 1991 had the objective of simplify access to and sharing of scientific papers among the scientific community. Since then many have forwarded the example of ArXiv, […]
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N – Journals lack policies on animals11 January 2010Journal editors need to revisit their editorial policies concerning research on animals, a study in the American Journal of Bioethics has concluded (2009;9:55-9, doi:10.1080/15265160903318343). Researchers assessed the policies of a random sample of 288 English language peer reviewed journals that published original research between July 2005 and June 2006 involving the use of animals. They […]
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B – the Article of the Future11 January 2010Emilie Marcus (Editor-in-Chief)Cell. A Publishing Odyssey. 2010 Cell Press has been working for some time on a project they call “the Article of the Future” to rejigger the format of research articles to better use the capabilities of the internet. The publisher is now releasing the fruits of its labors with articles in the new […]
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N – Retracted papers and attempted extortion11 January 2010Two papers recently retracted by Science (2004;303:371-3) and the Journal of the American Chemical Society (2004;126:15654-5) have been linked to an extortion attempt, Nature reports (2009;462:969, doi:10.1038/462969a). Documents seen by Nature show that in 2007, police in San Diego considered a former postdoctoral fellow as a possible suspect after another received an anonymous email demanding […]
