Monthly Archives: January 2011

Octogenarian

Posted on 28 January 2011 by Erika Cule

People your age, they often find old people…boring My great-aunt made this assertion, when I described the volunteer befriending role mentioned in my previous post. I am not absolutely sure that “boring” is the reason many young people avoid spending … Continue reading →

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Open tabs

Posted on 28 January 2011 by Heather

Welcome, briefly captive audience before the next click that takes you far, far away to a server in Bangalore or Vladivostok. I am going to do a tab-and-link dump here (a.k.a.

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Peering at review

Posted on 28 January 2011 by Frank Norman

The House of Commons Select Committee on Science & Technology have announced that they will conduct an inquiry into peer review. They list eight points starting with: the strengths and weaknesses of peer review as a quality control mechanism for … Continue reading →

Posted in Journal publishing, Open Access | Comments Off on Peering at review

Peer-review – I am beatin’ that horse until it dies!

Posted on 27 January 2011 by Sylvia McLain

I just published another post on peer review in response to Cameron Neylon’s post about peer-review here . Specifically I didn’t like his example in the post as I don’t think its a good allegory for peer-review. But to spare … Continue reading →

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Peer review – a bad example

Posted on 27 January 2011 by Sylvia McLain

Cameron Neylon has published one of 2 posts defending his opinion of peer-review – standing by the quote ‘it makes more sense in fact to publish everything and filter after the fact’ though he admits this is somewhat of an … Continue reading →

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More peer review. Zzzzzz.

Posted on 26 January 2011 by Austin

In which, late as ever, I remember to say something about peer review. There has been a bit of a flurry of commenting about peer review around OT just recently, with both RPG and Girl, Interrupting weighing in. The general … Continue reading →

Posted in History, peer review, Pseudoscience, Science policy, The Life Scientific | Comments Off on More peer review. Zzzzzz.

Macaroni and Montaigne

Posted on 26 January 2011 by Frank Norman

My Facebook page is looking very macaronic these days. Forget pasta; I’m talking language here. I am not an expert on Flemish vocal music from the Renaissance period, but I sometimes listen to a CD of music by Ockeghem and … Continue reading →

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In which we fail to meet expectations

Posted on 26 January 2011 by Jennifer Rohn

Sometimes you find yourself in a crowd, experiencing the unreal sense that you’re wearing a disguise, or acting out a part in a play, or watching yourself in a web-cam feed. Last week I attended the biennial meeting of Wellcome … Continue reading →

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The shove that dare not speak its name

Posted on 24 January 2011 by Stephen

The following is a commentary that has been published today (in a slightly edited form) in Chemistry and Industry. Only the excellent need apply. Such was the message on research funding from nobelist Sir Paul Nurse, incoming president of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Excellence, Pressure, science, Science & Politics, Science Funding, Temperature, Volume | Comments Off on The shove that dare not speak its name

Peer review here we go again

Posted on 22 January 2011 by Sylvia McLain

Once again the peer-review vs. science online debate appears! In an article by Peer review: Trial by Twitter – Apoorva Mandavilli talks about a lot of things but it mentions that science is getting ‘torn apart’ in the online media… … Continue reading →

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