Saturday, August 14, 2010

the scientific process on the internet

Hey internet, long time no see. Sorry I've been such a delinquent blogger!

Two things related to the peer-review process:

1. A new blog worth following: Retraction Watch, a blog that follows retractions from refereed journals:

The unfolding drama of Anil Potti — a Duke researcher who posed as a Rhodes Scholar and appears to have invented key statistical analyses in a study of how breast cancer responds to chemotherapy — has sent ripples of angst through the cancer community. Potti’s antics prompted editors of The Lancet Oncology to issue an “expression of concern” — a Britishism that might be better expressed as “Holy Shit!” — about the validity of a 2007 paper in their journal by Potti and others.

(via Metafilter)


2. I recently randomly stumbled across a really great and detailed experimental (PDF) for the collodial synthesis of bismuth sulfide nanowires, hosted on the personal site of a post-doc. For anyone that has tried nanomaterial synthesis, I think you'll appreciate the detail provided that is unfortunately missing from most nanomaterial experimentals. The author specifies which reagents you need to buy, how to set up the glassware, what to do if things go wrong, etc. You can compare to the published experimental here if you have access to Angewandte.

Everyday Scientist previously blogged about the trouble with Supporting Information.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

It really is amazing how powerful secondary resources like this can be...I'd love to see retraction data collected by blogs like Retraction Watch long term...at the very least to validate/quash the typical "retraction stereotypes" (we all have 'em...).