faculty of 1000

Post-publication peer review

Archive for the ‘Random’ Category

Hair apparent

Posted by stevepog on 8 March, 2010

beware of the bearded man bearing breadfruit

Sometimes there’s a real life-changing thrust to blog posts, that drives at the heart of a pivotal issue in modern society and make people question their motives, passions, opinions or even educational goals.

But seeing as we’re all coming down off a post-Oscars high, let me preempt your own judgement by rating this one as an Inglourious Basterds compared to the Hurt Locker of more worthy blog scribblings.

Actually, it’s really more of a Valkyrie than QT’s latest effort but then Tom Cruise never won any awards for his ability at copying accents (and it obviously wasn’t nominated for the 2010 awards so it’s less zeitgeisty).

Anyway, my point is to direct your eyes to the picture of the man on the left, much-respected Stanford neuroscientist and f1000 Faculty Member Robert Sapolsky.

With a beard that would make Hagrid feel ashamed, Sapolsky must be a delight as a lecturer. He’d also make a great magician with no need for a top hat either.

Sapolsky is a seasoned reviewer for f1000 and contributed a very positive review of a recent paper in Nature which discussed Prejudice and truth about the effect of testosterone on human bargaining behaviour. The crux of the paper was in a press release we put out today but the first emailed responses from journalists focused not on the weighty issues being discussed but of course, the accompanying photo above.

In one reporter’s words, it encouraged her to ask for more information on him as “I’ve been meaning to do somethign (sic) on weirdy beardies for a while”.

This is not the first time we’ve discussed hirsute scientists and our friend Joanne Manaster has a similar penchant (purely scientific) for bearded biologists. But it reinforces once again how much we should respect a scientist who sports this look: if he shows half as much commitment to research as to beard growth, a cancer/malaria/Xbox-related RSI cure is surely not far away.

*it’s ok, I cringed while writing the headline as much as you probably did reading it. To me it felt like the title for a bad 90s C-grade comedy starring a faded stand-up comic.

Then I did an IMDB search (I’m writing this in real-time, so the punchline could be a fizzer) and whaddya know?

It was closest in wording to a bad Canadian comedy flick , a 1912 black and white romantic drama and best of all, the ridiculously titled, Michael Flatley: Eire Apparent, about the most arrogant Irishman to ever pull on a pair of tights. Riverdance fans, I’ll meet you in the car park if you want to take issue with that assessment.


Posted in Communication, FMs, Journalism, Press Releases, Random, Science, f1000 | Tagged: , , , | 6 Comments »

When animal activists go too far

Posted by stevepog on 25 February, 2010

We have previously discussed the honorable activities of the Americans for Medical Progress (AMP) and its members, including Dario Ringach whose recent paper on animal activism was highly rated by our reviewers.

AMP send regular email updates to scientists and this item looked at an extremely important issue, so I am reproducing it here in full:

SCIENCE BLOGGERS DECRY ACTIVIST TARGETING OF CHILDREN

Five members of the Science Blogs community have posted strong commentaries today denouncing the activist targeting of a scientist’s child.

As background, UCLA professor Dario Ringach, one of the organizers and participants of last week’s panel discussion about animal research with AR adherents, and two of his colleagues had protests at their homes a few days in advance of the event. In an after-action communique about the protests, it was stated that activists knew where one of Dario’s children went to school and are planning to stage a protest there.

Janet Stemwedel, a panelist in the UCLA discussion, led the outcry on her widely-respected Adventures in Science and Ethics blog with a post entitled “Time to Get Mad. Time to Speak Up.”
(http://scienceblogs.com/ethicsandscience/2010/02/time_to_get_mad_time_to_speak.php ) Here is the thrust of her call to action:

“For just daring to stand up and share his view, Dario was targeted for more home demonstrations. And now, activists threaten to bring the demonstration to his children’s schools, to “educate fellow students what their classmate’s father does for a living”.

“Express the view that scientific research is worth doing, plan on your kids being harassed? Is that what we’ve come to? Is this really the society we want to live in?

“If it’s not, we need to stand up and say so, in no uncertain terms.

“Having differing opinions is not a crime. Nobody’s kids should be targeted for harassment because you disagree with their parents. We need to call this behavior out, no matter who does it, no matter what cause they hope to further with it.

“Each time these tactics are the ones that are used, we die a little as a pluralistic society, no matter which side we support. Any member of the public paying attention to such shenanigans should be outraged, and should say so.

“And members of the scientific community especially have reason to oppose these tactics. They reflect, after all, the impression that scientists aren’t really a part of our society, that they’re not really members of our moral community. You can bang on their windows and scare the crap out of their kids, and “normal” people won’t make a peep about it.

“Scientists are normal people, despite their specialized skills and interests. They need to see this bullying for what it is and raise their voices to reject it.

“Scientists, are you mad? Then stand up and say it.”

Four other prominent members of the Science Blogs community have already responded to her call, and other articles are likely to come in following days.   The Science Bloggers are:

PZMyers at Pharyngula:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/02/terrorists_of_the_animal_right.php

Orac at Respectful Insolence:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2010/02/animal_rights_thugs_researchers_children.php

Dr. Isis at On Becoming a Domestic as Laboratory Goddess:
http://scienceblogs.com/isisthescientist/2010/02/go_read_this_now_1.php

Nick Anthis at The Scientific Activist:
http://scienceblogs.com/scientificactivist/2010/02/here_we_go_again.php

(Please note that some of the posts link to animal rights websites.  If you wish to see what is connected to a specific link and are unwilling to visit activist sites, send us a note.)

How to respond to Dr. Stemwedel’s call to action?   A first step would be to participate in the lively discussion that is continuing in the comment sections of her blog and those of the other writers.  Also, sign the Pro-Test Petition if you have not already  – www.raisingvoices.net – and encourage your family, friends, colleagues and elected officials to do so as well. Consider becoming more involved in outreach about the research message, whether it is to schools or with adults in your community; we have a starter’s guide at www.amprogress.org/advocacy and would be delighted to send you materials and facilitate contacts with other research advocates in your area and with your interests.

Posted in Communication, FMs, Random, f1000 | Tagged: , | Leave a Comment »

On the run-12Feb10

Posted by rpg on 12 February, 2010

Cancer Causes Cancer!

Well, that was the headline we should have gone with. It is of course a hat tip to the Daily Mail, a tabloid publication that is desperate to tell the UK population that just about everything causes cancer. (I found that website by googling ‘cancer causes daily mail’, which is in itself quite a neat headline. Unfortunately I think we’re closer to curing cancer than curing the Daily Mail. Oh well.)

So, we know that tumours have this nasty habit of sending out malignant cells into the rest of the body. They break off from the primary site and get into the blood and lymphatic systems, occasionally washing up in convenient organs where they can settle down and create new tumours, or metastases. This is partly why cancer is so difficult to cure: you can cut out the original malignant growth, zap it with X-rays and take all sorts of evil drugs (‘evil’ because they are designed to kill cells, and you’re made up of cells; and discrimination between the cancer cells and normal cells is a huge problem); but if one metastatic cell survives, you have to start all over again. And if it’s managed to find a home deep in a bone, or the brain, or somewhere equally inaccessible, it’s game over.

It turns out things are even worse than that. Circulating tumour cells, if they find their way back to their original ‘home’, can actually stimulate growth of the original cancer. Nasty. As the authors say,

Tumor self-seeding could explain the relationships between anaplasia, tumor size, vascularity and prognosis, and local recurrence seeded by disseminated cells following ostensibly complete tumor excision.

‘Ostensibly complete tumor excision’—that’s right, because no matter how good your surgeon is, you can never be sure you’ve cut every last bit out; or that some cells haven’t already gone walkabout.

The good news is that certain cytokines derived from the tumour, IL-6 and IL-8, act to attract the circulating cells, and that they get back in via the matrix metalloproteinase collagenase I (MMP-1) and fascin-1 (it’s the actin cytoskeleton again! These guys get everywhere). If we can find a way to selectively block these pathways we should be able to start thinking about appropriate therapeutic approaches. Gentlemen (and ladies), start your (grant-writing) engines.

Kim, M., Oskarsson, T., Acharyya, S., Nguyen, D., Zhang, X., Norton, L., & Massagué, J. (2009). Tumor Self-Seeding by Circulating Cancer Cells Cell, 139 (7), 1315-1326 DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2009.11.025

Twitter storm

It’s been pretty hectic on the twittertubes this week. Following a random conversation at the Scholarly Kitchen I suggested writing papers in 140 characters would be a wheeze. I turned it into a competition, and we had an amazing response. Check back on Monday to find out who’s the lucky winner of a bag of f1000 swag.

Badger Wars

vermin shooting verminI don’t have a lot to say about badger culling to prevent/reduce bovine TB (except maybe to say that killing vermin with a high-powered rifle and decent ’scope is one of the most humane ways of doing this).

I just like the sound of a ‘randomized badger culling trial’. Oh, and when someone ‘explains’

This trial was undertaken in very specific circumstances and it could be misleading to extrapolate the findings to any future control program.

you can be pretty sure there’s a vested interest or extreme prejudice somewhere. Even when the trial shows that there’s no economic benefit.
Jenkins, H., Woodroffe, R., & Donnelly, C. (2010). The Duration of the Effects of Repeated Widespread Badger Culling on Cattle Tuberculosis Following the Cessation of Culling PLoS ONE, 5 (2) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0009090

Valentine’s Day

Just a reminder to all you chaps out there—it can’t hurt to buy some flowers, even if you don’t want to buy into the whole commercialization thing. A nice dinner doesn’t cost you much either, and could pay dividends in the romance stakes. But at the very least, show you really care by getting checked out:

Take a test for #Valentine’s Day. Sexual health appointments across Lincolnshire within 48 hours. Call 01522 539 145

It gets pretty lonely up there in Lincolnshire. Have a good weekend, and I hope it’s full of lovehearts and kisses. Failing that, a beer or three can have much the same effect.


Posted in Friday afternoon, Literature, Medicine, Random, Science | Tagged: | 1 Comment »

On the run—15Jan10

Posted by rpg on 15 January, 2010

A quick round-up of all that’s new and approved in the world of f1000. Or at least my corner of it.

M’learned colleague Steve P is in North Carolina today, hobnobbing with the geeks at Science Online 2010. I decided not to go because I’d done quite a bit of travelling just before Christmas (admittedly not as much as last year), and having had a bit of a nightmare November personally, frankly I thought could do without the hassle.

However, those of you who are disappointed at not seeing me (hah!) will get their chance at the London equivalent of Science Online, Solo10. Yup, following the success of Science Blogging 2008 and Solo09 (not to mention Fringe Frivolous), we’re doing it again this year! I know this because I met with the inestimable Lou Woodley earlier today, along with Matt Brown and the Mendeley guys (and Martin Fenner by Skype), to discuss dates and all sorts of necessary weevils.

The programme is of course a mere glimmer in the distant sky, but I can tell you we’re looking at a two day (Friday/Saturday) event, and there will be a large collaborative component (indeed, we reckon that we can devote the Saturday morning to an ad hoc unconference). So there’s plenty of scope for plenary and parallel sessions, and you should start thinking about what you’d like to do/see. Matt Brown is likely to be running some pre-conference pub-crawls events, and we’re hoping to have a fringe pre-conference again (although I’m making no promises about me and Flip cameras, one way or the other).

Keep an eye on the Science Online London website,  and I’ll let you know about hashtags and whatnot in due course.

While in Crinan Street I was able to meet with Ian Mulvany (the brains behind Connotea) and discuss a couple more projects. First, he showed me what’s in store for the users of Nature Network: we’re getting MT4! This is a long-anticipated improvement in the platform there, and has acquired something of a mythical status. But I saw it!—on the staging server, at least.

The second thing is a little more ephemeral. I’m not at liberty to say much about it, but wouldn’t it be cool if you read an article in your favourite journal, saw that it had been evaluated on f1000, and could make a comment? And that comment then appeared next to the evaluation on f1000? Or maybe you could read an evaluation on f1000 and see what people were saying about that paper all over the web, and join in the conversation?

Like Google Sidewiki, but done properly?

Yeah.

Other things that have happened this week include us sending test data to PubMed Central. You can draw your own conclusions from that little snippet of information.  I’ve also spent quite a bit of time writing and polishing a press release about Sarah Greene. More on that next week; it’s now time to take our Dev team to the pub, methinks.

Posted in Conferences, Friday afternoon, Meta, Random, Science | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

oh carolina, my spidey senses are tingling

Posted by stevepog on 12 January, 2010

Inspire or scare your grad students! Credit to zazzle.com for original button

Ah North Carolina, home to sweet potatoes, Krispy Kremes, Pepsi, the Wright brothers’ first flight, old-time music (whatever that is) and Venus Fly-Traps. And for four days in January, also home to the moderately sized gathering that is the Science Online 2010 conference.

Skim over the program here and try to contain your jealousy at the thought of all those techy web science people squeaking about how microbiology and microchips can join together in glorious harmony. My cynicism aside, it sounds like a great lineup – though if anyone dresses up in a Spiderman outfit to take the web/science mashup too far, I’ll head straight to the bar.

Closer to home, Richard’s discussion on author listings in scientific papers has generated some interesting debate, especially as one academic suggests cage fighting as a method to solve ordering issues. Brings to mind images of a Celebrity Deathmatch between Watson and Crick or Curie and McLaren. Could make the punters more interested than the usual war of words ever does.

*As for all the spidey talk, I did rewatch Spiderman 3 last night and, like Avatar, found it a bit too touchy-feely to be a great action film. Though being a long-time fan of Venom, his appearance made it ploughing through worth the glossy Hollywood coating. But I’ll save further movie analysis for another blog in another place.

Posted in Communication, Conferences, Random, Science, f1000 | Tagged: , , , | 2 Comments »

“What about the oceans?” Climate change reversal scheme has its doubters

Posted by stevepog on 16 December, 2009

With most of the science media, green movement and world leader attention focused on Copenhagen and climate change right now, it would be remiss of us not to mention a new evaluation which looks at one of numerous papers promising new ways to tackle the greenhouse effect.

The reviewer, Robie Macdonald, from the Institute of Ocean Sciences in Canada, looked at a paper in Geophysical Research Letters that discussed stratospheric geoengineering as a way to curtail greenhouse gas emissions.

MacDonald said:

This paper estimates the costs of putting sufficient aerosols into the stratosphere to slow down or reverse global warming. For possibly as little as several billions of dollars per year, one might cool the planet, stall or reverse ice melting, thwart sea-level rise, and increase the terrigenous sink for CO2 through enhanced primary production.

MacDonald quite rightly has issues with this proposed technique, as it may on one hand help produce planet-cooling sulfate aerosols but on the negative, as Ars technica also reported, “it would also produce more droughts and worsen ozone depletion. And, crucially, it would do nothing to reverse ocean acidification”.

In a time when the media is not quite sure which side of the climate change `debate’ to be on and newspapers are running unchecked stories which deny climate change exists, alongside comment pieces from an unqualified former vice-Presidential candidate (Sarah Palin) to anti-skeptics (George Monbiot), stratospheric geoengineering could take off as the next big thing in climate change reversal (if there could ever be such a beast).

*By the way, the suggested methods of using military aircraft and artillery shells to save the planet sound a little too Armageddon for my liking.

Posted in Communication, Journals, Random, Science, f1000 | Tagged: , , , | 3 Comments »

Is it follow the leader, a heads-down mentality or something more obscure?

Posted by stevepog on 7 December, 2009

Reproduction of an artwork by Andrzej Krauze

Vitek Tracz, chairman of the Science Navigation Group (of which f1000 is a member), is a fan of compatriot Polish artist Andrzej Krauze, who is known for his humorous calendars and cartoons in the New York Times,  New Scientist and Sunday Telegraph.

Krauze amused our leader with this cartoon, which Vitek has had reproduced in the f1000 reception area for all to view as they enter.

Much speculation has already been thrown around about what it means: follow the leader, keep your head down, look beneath the surface, stick your head in the sand (bit obvious that one). The man in charge is keeping his view to himself. Any suggestions are welcome.

Posted in Random, f1000 | Tagged: , , | Leave a Comment »

More to Online than just Information

Posted by stevepog on 2 December, 2009

I visited the cavernous confines of Olympia Grand Hall in west London yesterday, totally unprepared for the mammoth event that is the  Online Information Conference (#online09 on Twitter).

Not sure what I was expecting: maybe a few stands with bored sales reps handing out flyers on data management and XML development (they had some of those) but the last thing I thought I’d see was an actual Formula One car and an F1 driving simulator, thanks to the big-spending crew at Thomson Reuters. The simulator was a tricky beast with very light handling but of course I didn’t try it as I was there to work hard (but somehow scored a top six placing anyway).

Simulator similar to the one at Online Information conference

Apparently the heavily-branded car relates to their sponsorship of the AT&T Williams team, though beyond that it was anyone’s guess what it had to do with the conference itself. Apparently even Williams F1 driver Kazuki Nakajima was dropping in today for a visit. No, that’s not him in the car.

Apart from the overly large TR presence, it was great to meet up with my American counterparts from science conferences and library journals to discuss whatever people like us talk about (i.e. telling everyone how amazing f1000 is and encouraging them to write and talk about us to their colleagues and audience).

Many of the free seminars at the rear of the building filled up quickly but one I did catch from start to finish was an admirable effort on social media by iCrossing’s Mark Higginson.

Mark had stepped in at the last minute due to a sick colleague, which had some of us expecting a dull diatribe on how Twitter and Youtube work. And given that everyone who’s ever used Facebook thinks they can give a talk or write a book on the magical world of social media, I wasn’t feeling too enthusiastic.

But thankfully Mark actually provided some useful statistics and went into detail on what kind of web traffic is important. As he said, it’s all very well for  Facebook to say they account for 1 in 7 web page views in the UK but it’s what visitors do after they hit the homepage that’s important. So it goes that constantly updating and improving content on your landing page is a big key to a website’s (and hopefully company’s) success.

For those who are starting out in science blogging, his points were adaptable to our area: look to see who the most influential and interesting bloggers are, where they are (the obvious scienceblogging.com, researchblogging.com or more specific sites) and what media they are using (straight-up long form blogs, micro-blogs, video sharing etc). Get involved in the conversations they are having and create your own unique content. For those who are experts on a subject such as nanotechnology, commenting on a piece on the Wired website and referring back to your own blog is one way to drive more traffic to your site.

Overall very interesting afternoon out and for anyone who scored better than a 1.57 on the simulator (and I’m sure by now there will be quite a few), I hope you take away more from the conference than a mousemat or free pen.

Posted in Communication, Random, Website, f1000 | Tagged: , , , | Leave a Comment »

The invisible conference

Posted by stevepog on 26 October, 2009

It’s not easy for any large gathering of people to almost completely bypass the interweb these days but the conference I attended last Thursday seemed to have achieved the anonymity MI6 spies could only dream of.

Sure, there are thousands of conferences (in the real world and online) that go on daily in this city and others round the world but even the smallest and most insignificant seem to have a hashtag dedicated to them on Twitter, a Facebook page and at least 20 hits on an average Google search.

Unless the details being discussed are a matter of national security, in an age when even the BNP’s secret agendas are being retweeted, it did seem odd that an international biotech meeting (intelligently titled Biotech 09), attended by government and industry leaders, was virtually nonexistent on the web.

And yes, while it was very dry with only a few speakers who deigned to tell a joke (thank you, Sir Mark Walport, Wellcome Trust director) and way too many sales pitches disguised as serious industry updates, there were still some very interesting, newsworthy or at the least bloggable points being made.

Conference sponsor PepTcell’s CEO Gregory Stoloff tackled the UK government policy on pandemic flu, warning the audience of impending doom if New Labour didn’t approve his company’s flu drug for general consumption. While a bit theatrical (in the ‘Merchant of Venice’ rather than ‘Avenue Q’ sense), the stats quoted from the southern hemisphere’s winter experience of pandemic flu were thought-provoking and slightly scary: 1 in 3  down under caught the flu and 1 in 25 were hospitalised. If the numbers were converted for the UK population, at least 16,000 would need intensive care – a slight problem given there will only be 4000 intensive care beds in the UK by Christmas.

Sir Mark nicely alluded to the NHS’s current inability to contribute to the ‘future knowledge economy’, in his opinion owing to the masses of patient data the NHS collates but does not use to assist biotech development.

A Socttish accent and attitude can help to liven the atmosphere and Fergus McKenzie from ITI Life Sciences did an admirable job of making their £9.6 million stem cell technology program interesting enough to actually attract some rare audience questions.

At this point I’d try to post a link to another blog/news site with more informative discussion on the conference but, as you might have guessed,  there isn’t any I could find. Note to the organisers: invisibility doesn’t mean exclusivity and if no one is talking about you, it generally means they don’t find you interesting.

Posted in Conferences, Random, f1000 | Tagged: , , , | Leave a Comment »