Scientific American, October 1, 2012
Peter lake lies deep in a maple forest near the wisconsin-michigan border. One day in July 2008 a group of scientists and graduate students led by ecologist Stephen Carpenter of the University of Wisconsin–Madison arrived at the lake with some fish. One by one, they dropped 12 largemouth bass into the water. Then they headed for home, leaving behind sensors that could measure water clarity every five minutes, 24 hours a day.
This post was originally published in “Download the Universe,” a multi-author blog about science ebooks edited by Carl Zimmer.
October 1, 2012
I was pleased to stumble across a site today that shares the spirit that gave rise to Download the Universe. New Books in Science, Technology, and Society is a series of interview podcasts conducted by Carla Nappi and Patrick Slaney of the University of British Columbia. It’s got a strong academic flavor, compared to, say, Fresh Air or Book TV, but the books cover some fascinating topics, ranging from Copernicus to the flu.
The New York Times, October 1, 2012
Last year the journal Nature reported an alarming increase in the number of retractions of scientific papers — a tenfold rise in the previous decade, to more than 300 a year across the scientific literature.
Other studies have suggested that most of these retractions resulted from honest errors. But a deeper analysis of retractions, being published this week, challenges that comforting assumption.
In the new study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, two scientists and a medical communications consultant analyzed 2,047 retracted papers in the biomedical and life sciences. They found that misconduct was the reason for three-quarters of the retractions for which they could determine the cause.
Continue reading “Misconduct Widespread in Retracted Science Papers, Study Finds”
A new look at retracted papers since 1975 paints a picture that’s none too pretty. Retraction rates are zooming up, and most of those retractions, a new study finds, are due to misconduct such as fraud and plagiarism. I write about the study in tomorrow’s New York Times. Check it out.
Originally published October 1, 2012. Copyright 2012 Carl Zimmer.
As I was putting together a talk today about our microbial world, I just came across this interesting paper in the August issue of The Journal of Virology.
A team of Korean scientists set up some traps to catch viruses and bacteria floating in the air. They set up their traps in Seoul, in an industrial complex in western Korea, and in a forest. Based on their collection, they came up with the following estimates…
Continue reading “The Infected Air (NSFH [Not Safe For Hypochondriacs])”