Scooped science gets a second chance

One of the biggest fears of scientist doing research is getting scooped by other scientist, making their research unpublishable. Now, there is good news to scientists, or at least biologist. PLOS Biology has a new policy when it comes to scooped research.

Scientific research can be a cutthroat business, with undue pressure to publish quickly, first, and frequently. The resulting race to publish ahead of competitors is intense and to the detriment of the scientific endeavor. Just as summiting Everest second is still an incredible achievement, so too, we believe, is the scientific research resulting from a group who have (perhaps inadvertently) replicated the important findings of another group. To recognize this, we are formalizing a policy whereby manuscripts that confirm or extend a recently published study (“scooped” manuscripts, also referred to as complementary) are eligible for consideration at PLOS Biology.

Being scooped is loosely defined as when two independent groups studying the same system produce the same or similar results, and one group publishes their work first. Being scooped is often considered to devalue the second, complementary study; many journals will reject it citing lack of novelty. However, there is a self-evident benefit to publishing complementary research, and at PLOS Biology, we consider that two papers from two groups independently identifying the same phenomenon in parallel increase the confidence in the results of the work.

This new policy, acknowledging the value of complementary studies, therefore addresses the current concern regarding the reproducibility, or lack thereof, of scientific findings. Currently, the gold standard for demonstrating that an article is based on solid results is a replication study. These studies are generally conducted after publication and are considered critically important for supporting and advancing scientific theories. We argue that the “organic” replication of a complementary study is even better than a post-hoc and often costly replication study for supporting conclusions. There are other efforts underway to improve reproducibility and encourage replication, such as the Reproducibility Project: Cancer Biology (https://osf.io/e81xl/), as well as endeavors to implement high-quality reporting. With consideration of complementary research, PLOS Biology will support and promote scientific reproducibility and replication.

Of course there is a time limit on publishing complementary results

Under our newly codified policy, authors of a complementary study have six months from the publication or posting (to a preprint server) of the first article to submit their manuscript to PLOS Biology. We hope that authors will use these six months to fully support and potentially extend the results of the first article. Complementary research submitted beyond the six-month period may still be considered, depending on individual circumstances. All submissions must still meet our editorial requirements for depth of study and potential impact.

I think this is a great move by PLOS Biology and as they say, it should help address the widespread concern with reproducibility of scientific results.

The time limit for complementary results makes sense, but I hope that PLOS Biology is open for papers reproducing older results, if the papers are important enough.

Lazy linking

A few thing I have found of interest.

SF will wipe thousands of marijuana convictions off the books

San Francisco will retroactively apply California’s marijuana-legalization laws to past criminal cases, District Attorney George Gascón said Wednesday — expunging or reducing misdemeanor and felony convictions going back decades.

The unprecedented move will affect thousands of people whose marijuana convictions brand them with criminal histories that can hurt chances of finding jobs and obtaining some government benefits.

Proposition 64, which state voters passed in November 2016, legalized the recreational use of marijuana in California for those 21 and older and permitted the possession up to 1 ounce of cannabis. The legislation also allows those with past marijuana convictions that would have been lesser crimes — or no crime at all — under Prop. 64 to petition a court to recall or dismiss their cases.

This is an important move. A lot of people have been jailed in the past for crimes which is no longer on the books, and it is only fair that they get released.

Science behind bars: How a Turkish physicist wrote research papers in prison

Thousands of academics in Turkish universities stand accused of either having supported terrorism or the attempted coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in July 2016. Theoretical physicist Ali Kaya is one of them. He was arrested three months after the failed coup and held for more than a year before his trial took place. On 20 December, a court declared him guilty of being a member of a terrorist organization and sentenced him to six years of imprisonment — but released him early owing to the time he had already served in prison while awaiting trial. Kaya says that he is innocent and is appealing against the verdict. In the meantime, he has been suspended from his academic post, and he has yet to learn whether his university, Boğaziçi University in Istanbul, plans to fire him or to await the outcome of the appeal.

This story shows how Turkey has become a totalitarian regime, and how scientists can persevere under horrible circumstances.

Your Grandma Was a Chain Migrant!

Jennifer Mendelsohn, a freelance writer based in Baltimore, has a low tolerance for bad faith. Last summer, after Stephen Miller, the White House senior policy adviser, went on television to support a bill that would penalize immigrants who didn’t speak English, Mendelsohn took to Twitter. “Miller favors immigrants who speak English,” she began. “But the 1910 census shows his own great-grandmother couldn’t.” Her tweet, which included a photograph of a census document indicating that Miller’s ancestor spoke only Yiddish, went viral. “It’s hilarious how easy it is to find hypocrisy,” Mendelsohn said. “And I’m a scary-good sleuth.”

Ursula K. Le Guin, the spiritual mother of generations of writers; John Scalzi pays tribute

World’s oceans rise to hottest temperatures ever recorded ‘by far’

‘Long upward trend that extends back many decades does prove global warming’

Not that we really need any more evidence.

Spiritual hyperplane

How spiritualists of the 19th century forged a lasting association between higher dimensions and the occult world

Interesting bit of history.

Lazy linking

A few links I thought worth sharing

Republicans Have Lost Touch With Blue America

You know how the media are always carrying on about how Democrats are so woefully out of touch with red America? Of course you do. We hear it in one form or another every day from conservative bloviators, and the mainstream media pick it up because after three decades of such attacks it’s just automatically accepted conventional wisdom. And I acknowledge there’s some truth to it. But here’s the other side of the coin, which no one ever, ever, I mean ever talks about: Republicans are totally out of touch with blue America.

Who goes Nazi? Media edition

There’s an article I think about pretty much every day called “Who Goes Nazi?” It is by Dorothy Thompson, one of the few Western journalists to interview Hitler, and it was published in the August 1941 issue of Harper’s. It is the best article ever written, narrowly beating Lynn Hirschberg’s profile of M.I.A. and Lynn Hirschberg’s profile of Kurt and Courtney.

The article’s premise is very simple. Thompson imagines a dinner party attended by well-heeled guests. Then she tells us which ones she thinks are, or will become, Nazis. “Nazism has nothing to do with race and nationality,” she writes. “It appeals to a certain type of mind.”

The Making of an American Nazi

How did Andrew Anglin go from being an antiracist vegan to the alt-right’s most vicious troll and propagandist—and how might he be stopped?

The Strange Saga of Arrested Inauguration Protesters’ Seized Property

Nearly a year after the J20 protests, the cops don’t seem to know exactly what they took from those arrested, or from who.

The articles is written by Siobhan

Richard Smith: Strong evidence of bias against research from low income countries

We know from previous studies that the acceptance rates of articles is higher when first authors come from English-speaking high income countries; and articles from high income countries have higher citation rates. Indeed, an author’s affiliation with the United States can increase his or her citations by 20% (probably because citations are derived from databases that favour American journals and because Americans cite Americans just as Brits cite Brits). But all this could be explained not by bias but simply because research from high income countries, particularly the US, is better. What has been needed is a study that controls for the quality of the research and even for the reviewer. Now we have such a study.

The study, which comes from Imperial College’s Institute of Global Health Innovation, is a double-blind randomised crossover trial in which 347 clinicians reviewed the same abstracts a month apart with the source of the abstract being changed without their knowledge between low and high income countries. Only three clinicians recognised that the abstracts came from a different source.

Link via Retraction Watch

Harassment in the news

If there is one thing I think 2017 will be remembered for, it is how the climate has changed in regards to sexual harassment and sexual assault.

In the past, these subjects were often ignored or actively covered up, and in the rare cases where they made the news, it usually ended up with the victim’s reputation being attacked and life made hell.

In 2017 this has changed someone – now it is rare to read the news without new articles about sexual harassment and assault, and there is often consequences for the perpetrator.

Given how widespread sexual harassment and assault has been, and still is, I expect that we will continue to see more and more articles about these subjects.

Note content warning for all links: sexual harassment, sexual assault, rape, bullying

Today I have seen these stories:

‘A Complete Culture of Sexualization’: 1,600 Stories of Harassment in Higher Ed

She created a survey in which academics and former academics can submit their stories about sexual misconduct, and their responses will be shared anonymously online.

On Tuesday, 12 days after the survey was posted, more than 1,600 people had submitted stories. Academics wrote about being groped or kissed by Ph.D. advisers, being subjected to sexual comments in front of peers, being stalked by a professor.

…

Q. Did you anticipate it would be that many?

A. I am not surprised at the number. I am surprised at the severity of many of the stories. I expected more quid pro quo or handsy passes made after drinking at an open bar at a conference. I didn’t expect as many stories of rape and stalking and abuse.

The two expat bros who terrorized women correspondents in Moscow

Twenty years ago, when I was a Moscow correspondent for the Baltimore Sun, two Americans named Matt Taibbi and Mark Ames ran an English-language tabloid in the Russian capital called the eXile. They portrayed themselves as swashbuckling parodists, unbound by the conventions of mainstream journalism, exposing Westerners who were cynically profiting from the chaos of post-Soviet Russia.

A better description is this: The eXile was juvenile, stunt-obsessed and pornographic, titillating for high school boys. It is back in the news because Taibbi just wrote a new book, and interviewers are asking him why he and Ames acted so boorishly back then. The eXile’s distinguishing feature, more than anything else, was its blinding sexism — which often targeted me.

Sir Peter Jackson: Harvey Weinstein made me blacklist stars

Sir Peter Jackson has described the Weinstein brothers as “second-rate Mafia bullies” and accused them of orchestrating a smear campaign that led him to blacklist actresses Ashley Judd and Mira Sorvino.

Jackson, speaking to Stuff for the first time since multiple sexual assault allegations emerged against the disgraced Harvey Weinstein, said he had “no direct experience or knowledge of the sexual allegations” against the Hollywood powerbroker, but had earlier made a conscious decision to never work with him again.

The later story is particularly interesting, since I think it could be the basis for a lawsuit against the Weinstein brothers by Ashley Judd and Mira Sorvino. If that happens, I hope they take everything from the Weinstein brothers.

Comic book suggestions?

I am trying to find new comic books to read – unfortunately, the algorithms at Amazon are good for discovering things that are related to stuff you’ve already bought, but it is not great for making suggestions for completely new stuff.

So, I thought I’d ask people here. What comic books do you suggest I check out?

I’d prefer stuff I can buy in tradeback (but single issues on comiXology also works), and stuff that isn’t too heavy on super heroes in the traditional DC/Marvel sense.  I will obviously read superhero comics, if they are good enough, but I don’t feel like having to follow an entire superhero universe.

Comics I have read in the past and enjoyed, include:

  • Saga
  • Chew
  • Y: the Last Man
  • DMZ
  • The Goon
  • Locke & Key
  • Sandman
  • Transmetropolitian
  • Umbrella Academy
  • Manhatten Project
  • Morning Glories
  • Strontium Dog
  • Judge Dredd/Judge Anderson
  • The Runaways
  • The Rat Queens
  • Paper Girls
  • The Wicked + The Divine
  • Most Alan Moore stuff

I have also tried getting into the Walking Dead series, but it didn’t work for me.

 

 

For the Jazz lovers

It might come as a surprise for many people, but Copenhagen used to be one of the Jazz capitals in the world, with many major jazz musicians living or at least frequently playing in the city. Much of this was due to Jazzhouse Montmatre.

Dexter Gordon was probably the musician who played most frequently in Copenhagen among the Jazz giants of the time – usually he played for several weeks during summers in the late sixties.

One of those concerts was filmed, and I thought I’d share it.

Sexual harassment is everywhere

Content note: Sexual harassment and sexual assault (especially at the linked stories)

More and more stories about sexual harassment and sexual assault is coming out.

It has been happening for at least the last 36 years at the US olympic sports organizations

More than 290 coaches and officials associated with the United States’ Olympic sports organizations have been publicly accused of sexual misconduct since 1982, according to a Washington Post review of sport governing body banned lists, news clips and court records in several states. The figure spans parts of 15 sports and amounts to an average of eight adults connected to an Olympic organization accused of sexual misconduct every year — or about one every six weeks — for more than 36 years.

The figure includes more than 175 officials convicted of sex crimes as well as those who never faced criminal charges and have denied claims, such as Andy Gabel, an Olympian and former U.S. Speedskating president banned from the sport in 2013 after two women alleged he forced himself on them; and Don Peters, the 1984 Olympic gymnastics coach banned after two women alleged he had sex with them when they were teenagers.

It happened at TED

I was a member of TED’s Office Culture Task Force, a committee of people appointed to help make the office a desirable place to work. While I think we did a great job planning fun activities, the committee functioned beyond it’s intended scope. It was the default HR team – TED didn’t have HR for most of my time there.

While in that role, many people told me in confidence how they were harassed. We all felt conflicted – do we tell our stories and risk losing our job at TED and the community surrounding TED that we love so much, or do we carry on and deal with it as best we can?

It also happened at DC comics

Eddie Berganza, a top editor at the company who oversaw Superman and Wonder Woman properties, faces allegations from several colleagues

And of course it happened at Hollywood, at Fox, at Congress, and everywhere else. Now, it seems like it might have consequences ( but then, Trump is still the elected president of the US)

Remembering

Came across this tweet, and thought I’d I share it

Wikipedia has a fairly good article on the 1973 student uprising.