Leung Lab Blog

Nature Special Issue on “The Future of Publishing“

Neuroscience

1. Horikawa T, Tamaki M, Miyawaki Y, Kamitani Y. Neural Decoding of Visual Imagery During Sleep. Science. 2013 Apr 4. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 23558170.
2. Chung K, Wallace J, Kim SY, Kalyanasundaram S, Andalman AS, Davidson TJ, Mirzabekov JJ, Zalocusky KA, Mattis J, Denisin AK, Pak S, Bernstein H, Ramakrishnan C, Grosenick L, Gradinaru V, Deisseroth K. Structural and molecular interrogation of intact biological systems. Nature. 2013 Apr 10. doi: 10.1038/nature12107. [Epub ahead of print]
   • A new way of clearing tissue for imaging!
   • Commentary: Shen H. See-through brains clarify connections. Nature. 2013 Apr 11;496(7444):151. doi: 10.1038/496151a. PubMed PMID: 23579658.
   • From the New York Times: Brains as Clear as Jell-O for Scientists to Explore

Genomics

Zebrafish genome sequencing

1. Howe K, et al. The zebrafish reference genome sequence and its relationship to the human genome. Nature. 2013 Apr 17. doi: 10.1038/nature12111. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 23594743.
2. Schier AF. Genomics: Zebrafish earns its stripes. Nature. 2013 Apr 17. doi: 10.1038/nature12094. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 23594741.
3. Kettleborough RN, Busch-Nentwich EM, Harvey SA, Dooley CM, de Bruijn E, van Eeden F, Sealy I, White RJ, Herd C, Nijman IJ, Fényes F, Mehroke S, Scahill C, Gibbons R, Wali N, Carruthers S, Hall A, Yen J, Cuppen E, Stemple DL. A
   systematic genome-wide analysis of zebrafish protein-coding gene function. Nature. 2013 Apr 17. doi: 10.1038/nature11992. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 23594742.

Just come across these two great TED talks by Ben Goldacre that talks about how the information in scientific literature can be distorted and why not all information that is essential for medical advance can be found in the literature. It is really a flaw in the research system and human nature that positive and new findings will (preferentially) be rewarded. This has suppressed the appearance of negative findings and solid repeats that would validate ideas that would benefit human kinds. The reason behind this is partially because the scientists who conducted these kinds of studies will often be labeled non-productive (productive = getting positive findings) and non-innovative. Is there a solution to that?

I have been paying attention to the ongoing discussion on open access to scientific research in the news media and have collected a number of interesting articles.  Here I will keep a record of a few interesting ones

2012-11-08 From the Guardian: “Open Access: ‘we no longer need expensive publishing networks‘”

2012-06-19 From the New Scientist: “Set science free from publishers’ paywalls”

2012-04-17 From the Harvard Faculty Advisory Council Memorandum on Journal Pricing: “Major Periodical Subscriptions Cannot Be Sustained”

I once wrote about the difficulty in getting access to the research papers here and I had to ask my friends from my home country to download that for me. The expensive journal subscription is obviously one reason that caused the problem. Obviously publishing in high-quality, open access journals with publisher like PLOS and BMC can be a good solution. However for many practical reasons, i.e. to survive and be recognized, scientists often do not act what they advocate is good. Let’s hope the field can wise up and treasure what is actually important to us.