bad science and bad science comm (and how to get them better)
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Transcranial Direct-Current Stimulation is a technique that involves passing low-level electrical currents through parts of the brain.
Brain stimulation hits the mainstream – commercial tDCS device available soon for $249 | NeuroBollocks
17 February 2012 Last updated at 17:16 GMT By Pallab Ghosh Science correspondent, BBC News Government science agencies exist to serve the public good and usually do It is more than a little embarrassing for the Canadian government to be accused of "muzzling" its own scientists when it is hosting one of the world's largest scientific conferences in Vancouver. The allegation made at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting is that there has been unprecedented interference by the Canadian government in the free flow of scientific information.
Risks of placing scientists 'on message'
Recently I posted a comment on a PLOS ONE article for the first time. As someone who had a decent chunk of his career before post-publication peer review came along — and has an even larger chunk of his career left with it around — it was an interesting experience.
Reflections on a foray into post-publication peer review | The Hardest Science
“What I find offensive is not that they plagiarized us, it’s that they did it so badly” | Retraction Watch
Retraction Watch readers may be familiar with the work of Brian Nosek , a University of Virginia psychologist who has taken a tough stance about many of the problems in his field and coordinates the Reproducibility Project . So it must have seemed quite ironic for Nosek and his co-authors to learn today that one of their papers had been outrageously — and badly — plagiarized. Here’s the abstract of the work by Nosek, Jesse Graham , and others, which hasn’t been published in a journal yet but is posted at Nosek’s website :
Why We May Never Beat Stigma
When public figures want to display penitence for their bad choices—see under "Woods, Tiger" and "Gibson, Mel"—they go to rehab.
Cardiff University has confirmed that it is to launch a formal investigation into alleged research misconduct in the laboratory of its dean of medicine. The university set up a screening panel last month to carry out a preliminary investigation of allegations of image manipulation in at least six papers produced in the laboratory of Paul Morgan (referred to in his publications as B. P.
Formal investigation launched into work at dean's lab
Susan Savage-Rumbaugh , famed primate researcher and executive director of the Great Ape Trust (GAT) in Des Moines, Iowa, has been suspended in the wake of allegations that she is a danger to the trust's seven bonobos – including Kanzi, a bonobo genius that has developed his own "words" and mastered the art of making stone tools On 9 September, 12 former GAT employees – including 10 former ape caretakers, a former PhD researcher and the former head of public safety – sent a letter to both the GAT board of directors and the local newspaper The Des Moines Register . In it they stated their belief that "Savage-Rumbaugh is not in a state fit to safely oversee the laboratory and bonobo care". In a more lengthy statement dated 14 September , the 12 also allege that Savage-Rumbaugh locked apes outdoors without access to water, and exposed apes to visitors who did not have the necessary vaccinations.
Ape researcher suspended amid welfare concerns - life - 18 September 2012
Faking it
A renowned immunologist whose life was turned upside down when it emerged that one of his postdoctoral researchers had falsified experimental results tells Paul Jump that the sector needs a culture change if it is to fulfil its duty to expose research misconduct Throughout most of 2007, Tony Segal felt like he was banging his head against a brick wall.
T he new pamphlet—it would be too strong, and not only quantitatively, to call it a book—by Parag and Ayesha Khanna, the techno-babbling power couple, gallops through so many esoteric themes and irrelevant factoids (did you know that “fifty-eight percent of millennials would rather give up their sense of smell than their mobile phone”?)
Evgeny Morozov: The Naked And The TED
Jonah Lehrer is one of the hottest science writers around. But this week, in a dramatic fall from grace, he resigned from his staff position at the New Yorker , and his publisher has removed his latest book, Imagine, from sale. The catalyst for these dramatic events is the fact that he fabricated quotes from Bob Dylan, as uncovered by the online Tablet magazine .
What Jonah Lehrer reveals about popular science writing » Daniel Bor | Daniel Bor
New Yorker's Jonah Lehrer quits over fake Dylan quotes
31 July 2012 Last updated at 01:21 GMT Jonah Lehrer was a rising star at the New Yorker, focusing on science reporting A staff writer for the New Yorker has resigned after he admitted inventing quotes by Bob Dylan in a recent book. Jonah Lehrer, 31, acknowledged in a statement from his book publisher that some quotes he used did "not exist", and others were misquoted. The resignation came after the online magazine Tablet wrote an in-depth piece on the quotations used in Imagine: How Creativity Works. Shipments of the book, which was published in March, have been halted.Viewpoint: The spectre of plagiarism haunting Europe
24 July 2012 Last updated at 20:18 ET By Debora Weber-Wulff Professor of Media and Computing, University of Applied Sciences, Berlin Bucharest university says it cannot withdraw the PM's PhD without education ministry approval A spectre is haunting Europe, and this time it is the spectre of plagiarism and scientific misconduct. Some high-profile politicians have had to resign in the last 18 months - but the revelations are also shaking respected European universities. Many European countries, especially Germany, have long considered it unnecessary to give plagiarism more than a cursory look.In what appears to be a first, two papers have been retracted for including citations designed to help another journal improve its impact factor rankings. The articles in The Scientific World Journal cited papers in Cell Transplantation , which in turn appears to have cited to a high degree other journals with shared board members. Here’s publisher Hindawi’s statement on the matter , which involved their publication The Scientific World Journal : Statement Regarding Two Cases of Citation Manipulation It has been brought to the attention of The Scientific World Journal that two articles which were previously published in the journal (“ A Showcase of Bench-to-Bedside Regenerative Medicine at the 2010 ASNTR ” and “ Regenerative Medicine for Neurological Disorders ”) included a large number of references whose primary purpose was to manipulate the citation record.