Category Archives: Breaking News

Pulling back the editorial curtain on Nature’s papers

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After a brief resurrection during the 2012  Society for Neuroscience meeting, the time has come to get a more regular series going on the old Action Potential blog! There are a lot of great (neuro)science writers out there (just to name a few,) so here at Nature, we wanted to be able to offer something different, something unique to supplement your weekly intake of neuroscience knowledge. Therefore, my editorial colleague I-han Chou and I will regularly blog about the latest neuro papers we publish in the journal, with particular attention to the back stories and our reasoning for offering publication.

Every paper has a story and this will be your opportunity to hear them. We’ll be discussing why we believe a particular paper is a potential game-changer, why we highlighted a technical advance with no biological insight, how two papers with similar findings were co-published and when possible, we will also be inviting commentary from the authors themselves or critical experts in the field to provide balance on the issue of novelty and the future importance of a finding.

We hope you’ll enjoy this series and we’ll try to post something 1-2 times a week, depending on the scheduling of neuroscience publications. On slower weeks, we may re-visit past papers that have a particularly interesting story or lesson. You are free to also make suggestions on coverage (new and old papers.) You can always comment below or use the contact information in the “About this Blog” section.

Finally, for additional coverage, please make sure to bookmark the RSS feed (if you still use that,) circle the Action Potential Google+ Page, circle I-han or myself on G+ and follow I-han or myself on Twitter and let this experimental journey begin…

Vote for “Method of the Year”

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Last year, the editors of Nature Methods chose a “Method of the Year” (MOY) and the winner was next generation sequencing. This feature included an editorial, commentaries, news features and other types of content discussing the winning technique.

This year, the editors want input from the scientific community. Go here to see the nominees and cast your vote. Interestingly, you can vote positively or negatively for a technique as well as leave comments in discussion forums. Although the ultimate choice will still remain an editorial decision, at least the editors will get feedback from the community.

This is some great use of Web2.0 to get the community engaged and I hope that you will participate.

Retraction reaction

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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.

Harvard open-access policy – can you please be more specific?

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The Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) at Harvard University voted Tuesday to adopt an open-access policy, providing a free repository for finished papers, according to a recent press release. This move will allow for greater dissemination of scholarly work conducted at Harvard, says Stuart Shieber, a professor at FAS. Shieber states that a combination of a restrictive publishing system and the “astronomical” cost of journals have led the Harvard professors to support such a venture. An official description of the proposal that was actually discussed by the FAS on Tuesday is here.

As my colleague from Nature Precedings, Hilary Spencer, points out in a recent Nature Network forum, this entire policy is very vague with regards to what is meant by the scholarly article or the “final version.” Is that the final, journal-produced PDF? The peer-reviewed, unpublished, non-copy-edited version? The non-peer-reviewed pre-print? According to an analysis written up on TheScientist.com, this mandate would require that published articles be submitted. However, go back and re-read the original proposal and tell me where it says that explicitly.

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When it rains…it pours

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I don’t know what it is about Jim Watson and my blog posting, but every time I mention him (as I did in my previous entry), something else pops up and I have to talk about him again. While doing my morning reading, I stumbled upon an entry from the DrugMonkey blog that was simply too good to pass up. Jim Watson is more mixed race than anyone thought, with 16% of his genes likely to have come from an African great-grandparent, as reported in the Sunday Times.

[12/12 – MAKE SURE YOU CHECK THE UPDATE. CLICK BELOW TO CONTINUE READING.]

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Watson steps down from CSHL position – a lot of hot air

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In a statement issued today, Dr. James Watson resigned as Chancellor of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. This is an important event for CSHL, which is now relieved of making more difficult decisions regarding Dr. Watson’s future. Although Watson’s fund-raising abilities were unparalleled, and he built the lab to what it has become today, in order for CSHL to move forward, he had to leave.

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Dissemination before peer review.

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The physics community already has theirs. Now biology has its own site dedicated to the informal discussion of unpublished results. A new site launched this week, Nature Precedings, allows scientists to upload unpublished manuscripts while they are under consideration at a journal, perhaps inciting conversation and feedback regarding the work even before the article is accepted. In this day and age of caution and paranoia surrounding results (go to any scientific meeting these days and count the number of presentations that focus on published results vs. those that highlight unpublished ones), how do you think this will impact the neuroscience and publishing communities?

I see a definite place for this type of resource, providing a repository of additional data and user comments regarding techniques and discoveries, as a complement to the volumes of published papers that have undergone reviewer-mandated quality-control measures. But change comes slowly, especially when change involves freely releasing one’s precious data that have taken years to amass. I am skeptical as to how quickly this concept will integrate into the world of neuroscience. With the ease at which data can be anonymously reproduced and subsequently submitted, I feel that many neuroscientists will be cautious about what data they are willing to let go for free.

However, as a counter, this type of system works well for the physics and mathematics community (plenty of discussion fodder here)…

This is an experiment that should be interesting regardless of its outcome, my favorite kind.