If you’re attending the Society for Neuroscience meeting this year (#SfN13), join us for our panel discussion: ‘Tackling the terabyte: how should research adapt to the era of big data? Read more
We’re back! Apologies for the long radio silence – day job, what can I say. Read more
Our June editorial discusses the relationship between web traffic and citations. Specifically, can one predict how well any particular paper is cited years after publication, based solely on the number of downloads it receives immediately following its appearance online? Our preliminary analysis suggests that this relationship not only exists, but is surprisingly strong. Read more
I apologize for the long time between posts. Things have been busy and I hope to have more for you soon. In the meantime, I wanted to toss out something to tide you over. Read more
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: … Read more
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. Read more
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. Read more
Answers in Genesis, a self-described Christianity-defending ministry dedicated to enabling Christians to defend their faith and to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ effectively, recently launched a new publication, Answers Research Journal. Their mission: … Read more
A new policy in the Journal of Neuroscience demonstrates the current push towards open access publication. Researchers can pay to have their article freely available immediately upon publication, starting with all articles submitted as of January 1, 2008. It is interesting, because J Neurosci words the new policy a bit like an experiment, essentially telling the authors and funding agencies to put their money where their mouth is. If they want open access, as many are calling for, they can help support it. Hopefully we can return to this policy in 6 months or so to see how many authors took this option, and who funded those choosing to “pay for play.” … Read more
Since the recent fall-out of the recent NY Times OP-Ed piece discussing the use of fMRI to predict the inclinations and feelings of swing voters is still fresh in our minds, I wanted to simply provide the link to a recent PLoS ONE paper that touches on the general concept of the media reporting on science. Read more
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