For Yet Better Science

“Citizen science,” or the participation of people outside academia in the production of scientific research, is on the rise. While citizen science projects have existed for decades, several enterprises  have appeared in the last decade alone. These platforms allow anyone to participate in data collection and classification for academic or government research projects.

A new paper, published recently in  PLOS Computational Biology  by a team including UMass Amherst researchers, seeks to help scientists structure their lab-group meetings so that they are more inclusive, more productive and, ultimately, lead to better science.  

Science is evolving. New tools and ideas are changing how discovery happens. Science Better is a collection of interviews with the vanguard — a repository of their best ideas and personal research habits.  

Much work has been done to promote sex and gender-based analyses in health research and to think critically about the influence of sex and gender on health behaviours and outcomes. However, despite this increased attention on sex and gender, there remain obstacles to effectively applying and measuring these concepts in health research. Some health researchers continue to ignore the concepts of sex and gender or incorrectly conflate their meanings. We report on a primer that was developed by the authors to help researchers understand and use the concepts of sex and gender in their work. We provide detailed definitions of sex and gender, discuss a sex and gender-based analysis (SGBA), and suggest three approaches for incorporating sex and gender in health research at various stages of the research process. We discuss our knowledge translation process and share some of the challenges we faced in disseminating our primer with key stakeholders. In conclusion, we stress the need for continue

Nature launchs  Nature Italy , a new digital magazine focused on Italian research and on the Italian scientific community. Written in both Italian and English, it will highlight the best and most impactful results coming out of Italian science, follow research policy and politics in the country, and give Italian researchers a new platform to debate and to make their voice heard.  

I’ve been aware of Leonid Schneider’s expose blog ever since the piece on the supposed  fraud of Nobel prize-winner Gregg Semenza  appeared on my Twitter feed. Schneider portrays himself as an  under-dog ; the self-styled “ failed scientist ” has taken a liking to pillaring the hypocrisies of the scientific establishment. To be honest, although criticisms of the undertakings of science are always needed, especially when it concerns matters of data integrity, publishing practices, and perverse incentives in academia, I am a bit weary of uncritically listening to someone who appears to have no established career in either science or science journalism (the only pieces published under his own name appear only on the blog he runs). It’s all too easy to make baseless accusations, especially with a medium like Twitter, which Schneider seems to do happily even going as far as  calling respected publishing journals he doesn’t like “predatory”.  Yes, science needs to be more open and transparen

“Better Science, Better Health” was established by Vital Transformation to facilitate international collaboration in new clinical regulatory pathways, sources of evidence, and harnessing real world data to improve the access of needed new medicines by patients.