We would like to extend our congratulations to Regina Fölster-Holst, Section Head in Pediatric Skin Diseases, for winning first prize in the “Science Interactive” competition. Run by Science in Dialogue, this is an initiative to bring scientists into conversation with “people of all ages and educational backgrounds”, “committed to the exchange and discussion of research…
One of the first and most important things a neophyte scientist learns–or at least, is taught–is the importance of keeping a comprehensive and accurate record. We all know it’s a good thing, and yet I’d wager most of us struggle with it. Who hasn’t scribbled a calculation or a measurement on a handy paper towel,…
Via F1000 Member Earl Miller on twitter comes a nomination for an Ig Nobel prize: a note in Neuropsychologia, Thinking of God moves attention10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2009.09.029. The authors, at the University of Toronto, looked at target detection responses of people, finding faster responses when concepts of God or Devil were associated, respectively, with up/right or down/left spatial…
Certain classes of papers in our trade have a lot of coauthors. Indeed, the average number of coauthors on papers indexed in PubMed has risen from 1.5 to 5 over the last sixty years. No surprise, really, given the nature of research that is being carried out today, where one or two people can not…
The other week we were comparing notes on the seriousness of articles published in certain leading journals. One of the papers was reporting on a trial, Does the fly matter? The CRACKPOT study in evidence based trout fishing. Another was the notorious Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma related to gravitational challenge: systematic…
Who is that handsome fellow? It’s one of our Associate F1000 Members (AFMs) wearing the world-famous F1000 T-shirt: Richard Wintle is an AFM in Genomics & Genetics, working with FM Steve Scherer to cover (among other things) the journals Nature Genetics and Genome Research. Richard is assistant director at the Centre for Applied Genomics, The…
Another champagne moment; our 110,000th evaluation went live on the site yesterday. The paper in question is one in Science describing the generation of RNA equivalents of green fluorescent protein, which the authors call Spinach, leading to the line (from the paper), “Spinach is markedly resistant to photobleaching.” Thomas Kodadek in Chemical Biology submitted the…
Following David Drubins editorial in MBoC I gathered some likely looking characters to have a chat about the current state of review. Hear what they had to say.
In case you haven’t seen it already, there’s an intriguing new article in Infection and Immunity, Retracted Science and the Retraction Index. It’s by the Editor in Chief of Infect. Immun. Ferric C. Fang and Arturo Casadevall–Editor in Chief of mBio and long-serving F1000 Member in Medical Microbiology. Fang, with Casadevall, looked at retractions in…
It is with regret that we mark the death of Veronica Ravnikar, Section Head in Women’s Health. Veronica died suddenly but peacefully last month. Our condolences to her family and friends.
