The next installment of the Nature Network Neuroscience group journal club is now live. The paper proposes a new strategy to track the location of select synapses using split fluorescent proteins.
The contributor discussing this paper for the neuroscience group is Andrew Hires, a postdoctoral fellow at Janelia Farm Research Campus in the lab of Loren Looger. I want to thank Andrew for his participation.
When the community is overburdened by peer review, it’s everybody’s problem. As of today, Nature Neuroscience has become part of the solution by joining the Neuroscience Peer Review Consortium, a flexible system that allows voluntary participation by authors, referees and editors. Here are more details, from our April editorial:
The next installment of the Nature Network Neuroscience group journal club is now live. The paper explores the in vivo function of neurexins in the coordination of pre- and postsynaptic apposition using Drosophila.
The contributor discussing this paper for the neuroscience group is Margaret Ho, a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Molecular Biology, Academia Sinica Taiwan in the lab of Cheng-Ting Chien. I want to thank Margaret for her participation.
[This is the inaugural post for a new feature at Action Potential. Periodically, we will provide insights from a regional correspondent on the interesting news, changes, or issues particularly affecting neuroscience in a particular location. Today’s post is from one of our Asian correspondents, Haihong Ye of the Institute for Biophysics in the Chinese Academy of Sciences. She reflects on the dramatic changes that have occurred within Chinese neuroscience during her decade-long absence from this now-flourishing community. We examined these issues in our March editorial, but now invite you to provide your opinion. – N.G.]
Over the past 10 years, especially the last five, the whole world has been amazed by the Chinese economy. To me, however, the improvement in biological science research in China is much more amazing. In the summer of 1998 I left Beijing and went to the US to pursue a Ph.D. in neuroscience. In 2007, after nine years of graduate study and post-doc training abroad, I came back to Beijing, seeking opportunities for further career development. What a difference some strong funding and visionary directives, not to mention a decade, can make.
The next installment of the Nature Network Neuroscience group journal club is now live. The paper is on the role of insular cortex in drug craving and the behavioral signs of abstinence-related malaise.
The contributor discussing this paper for the neuroscience group is Ben Saunders, a graduate student at the University of Michigan in the lab of Terry Robinson. I want to thank Ben for his participation.
In the last couple of years, after the recent explosion in the number of resources where scientific discussions can take place rapidly and without boundaries (i.e., using the internet), one could easily have predicted that we were on the cusp of a revolution; the way in which scientists communicated with each other regarding data was about to change forever. Although poster session chatter at your favorite scientific meeting was never going to be replaced, now researchers could interact, trade ideas and get feedback from anyone, anywhere, at any time. Sounds pretty good, right? Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like neuroscientists are taking advantage of these cool new offerings. I could extrapolate to biology in general, but for more simplicity (and other obvious reasons), let’s stick to what we know best.
Nobel prize-winning neuroscientist Linda Buck has retracted a 2001 Nature paper. In the retraction in this week’s Nature, the authors report difficulty replicating the data and ‘inconsistencies’ between the original data and figures and data printed in the paper. Buck told Nature reporter Heidi Ledford that the figures and data in question were contributed by the first author, Zhihua Zou, who was unavailable for comment.
This is the highest profile retraction that I can recall in neuroscience, but so far, there has been little fallout. Perhaps that’s because the original findings were notable only in the neuroscience community rather than in the general public. Regardless, it indicates that neuroscience and its well known labs are not immune from fraudulent data. Although I admire Buck’s swift and direct action, it concerns me that the first author has been assigned the lion’s share of the blame. This seems like a familiar refrain, and I find it troubling.