One of my favourites, published last week, is a study that advocates eating kiwi fruit in order to manage chronic constipation, evaluated by Kewin Siah, Reuben Wong and Kok-Ann Gwee from the Gastroenterology & Hepatology Faculty. They’ve managed to sneakily insert a few puns into their evaluation, which makes for amusing reading:

These studies tell us that sometimes it is important to revisit the old arsenal.

Simple dietary intervention, in this case, increasing fiber intake in terms of kiwifruit, can still be fruitful in managing chronic constipation.

Meanwhile, by way of introduction, I’m Adie Chan, Editorial Manager at F1000, and I shall be taking over Naturally Selected from the inimitable Richard Grant. In addition to other members of the F1000 team, freelance journalists, and scientists, I shall be posting my thoughts from time to time on the people and papers in F1000.

If there are any issues or topics you would like to see more coverage on, or if you would like to contribute a guest post, please leave a comment below, or email me at [adie dot chan at f1000 dot com].

In the meantime, a few older favourites:

…evidence that monogamous birds are, well, not that monogamous…

Daniel Promislow discusses the genetic correlations that lead apparently monogamous female birds to seek extra-pair matings.

Is there an optimal alcohol consumption level for publication success?

Joachim Claudet on publication success and its correlation with increasing beer consumption.

Reading this paper filled me with glee; at long last an editor who gives clear cut directions to referees so that they produce constructive reviews.

Etienne Joly evaluates a paper in Molecular Biology of the Cell discussing the process of peer review.

I certainly wouldn’t like to be on the receiving end of a late fine from any of these warrior librarians!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2HJDGudAnU]

See how long you can stifle your giggles. And rest assured in the knowledge that the book-cart-drill-team contest will be held again this year at the ALA annual conference.

It’s been a great experience being involved in a forward-thinking project like f1000 and getting stuck into the social media side of PR (like it or loathe it, PR has a place amongst the Twitter, Youtube, Facebook generation)

But aside from meeting some brilliant people through Twitter (@scicheer, @tallscientist, @boraz, @sciencegoddess, @ritarubin to name a few), this humble blog is where most of the action has happened.

And so allow me to reflect back on some of the inspiring, thought-provoking or just plain amusing posts from my six months here.

Most recently, Callum’s post stirred up controversy on all sides with the Pubmed and PLoS discussion from a few days back, on a day where our usual daily hit count doubled due to the massive interest from the science community.

Richard’s weekly roundups have been getting a lot of interest as he, obviously, looks over the  week’s happening at f1000 and in the broader world of science.

His post on the Faraday Prize Lecture would have excited anyone with multiple passions into maths, music and science while the new competition on scientific mistakes, while not drawing the same enthusiastic responses as his #sci140 comp, has still been kicking along.

For my own part, the most enjoyable pieces I had the chance to write involved anything from the Great Garbage Patch to periodic table-chanting cheerleaders, how music can make us smarter and scientists with fantastic beards.

http://twitpic.com/13xbgb

I’ll leave you with this shot of my Science Online companions and I at the Chapel Hill campus of the University of North Carolina, which we visited during the SciOnline 2010 conference in January.

There’s some historic significance to this well that we are still unsure of but apparently it’s the place where freshmen kiss each other for luck. We declined to participate in the ritual (owing to being neither freshmen nor single) and instead opted for this memento.

It’s one of the good memories I’ll take away from my time at f1000, along with the all-too-regular Friday afternoon cakes and of course the dedication and enthusiasm of work colleagues towards making f1000 a quality database for post-publication peer-reviewed biology and medicine research.

I’m off to travel Europe for five months and then head home to Australia. Thanks to everyone for the support, keep reading the blog and, in the words of my friend Darlene, GO SCIENCE!

**PS I’m on Twitter at @stevepog for anyone wanting to keep in touch and my sports-focused blog is http://stevepog.blogspot.com

Many spurious claims have over the years been splashed across the UK Daily Mail’s front page, prompting backlash from organisations such as the National Health Service, Cancer Research UK and even the appearance of a Facebook group with more than 40,000 members criticising the Mail’s cancer cure/cause agenda.

But the recent news that pharma giant Roche was revising its position on Avastin after the drug failed in a late-stage study, evaluating the blockbuster as a treatment for advanced stomach cancer, was an example of where the stock market, media expectations of a miracle cure and a pharma giant collided.

The Wall Street Journal said the announcement had the effect of:

‘undermining market expectations the drug could reach annual peak sales of more than eight billion Swiss francs ($7.48 billion)’

Roche’s PR team has had the very difficult job of trying to push the share price back up and regain investors confidence. One of their newest stabs at this crisis communications was a release today stating that

‘the eyesight of two patients with a rare condition was saved through the groundbreaking use of the drug Avastin’

At the time of writing, the news is only 20 minutes old so and there is little detail contained on how many people have been involved in trials by Southampton ophthalmologist Dr Andrew Lotery, only to state that his research on treating Sorsby’s Fundus Dystrophy (SFD) has been accepted by US journal Retinal Cases & Brief Reports. The release goes on:

He (Lotery) said it was the first time the drug had been used to treat the rare genetic condition(SFD) which caused the two patients, both in their 30s, to suffer blurred vision and a general deterioration of sight.
Avastin halts the growth of blood vessels and stems bleeding and is commonly injected with good results into the eyes of patients with “wet” age related macular degeneration (AMD) – the leading cause of blindness in the western world in people over 50

Avastin has already been trialled successfully in conjunction with chemotherapy in ovarian cancer sufferers so the prospect of another potential target would be welcomed by the shareholders but more importantly, by sufferers of the targeted conditions. But this is a situation where the media needs to tread carefully and wait for stronger research to appear before latching onto another cure-all drug.

New antibiotic treatments for gastric cancer

On another cancer story, Yoshio Yamaoka, an F1000 Medicine faculty Member from Japan, has looked recently at the use of various drugs to treat Helicobacter pylori infection, which often leads to gastroduodenal ulcers, gastric cancer and associated diseases.

While there are positive signs from a large multicenter trial in Japan of H. pylori antibiotics on patients with gastric cancer, Yamaoka warned that practitioners should exercise caution with regard to widespread antibiotic treatment saying,

‘if all infected persons are to be treated, we should consider the increase in frequency of antibiotic resistance and unexpected consequences such as esophageal adenocarcinoma, asthma, and autoimmune disease’

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.

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.

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

I 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.

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.

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.

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:

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.

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.

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.

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.