Recently I talked with Dave Davies, guest host on Fresh Air, about viruses and other things invisible. Our conversation airs tomorrow (Tuesday 4/17) on National Public Radio. More details can be found on the program’s web site.
Originally published April 16, 2012. Copyright 2012 Carl Zimmer.
Over at Download the Universe, we’ve posted a bunch of new reviews of science ebooks. We fell in love with some titles, we hated others, and we had a love-hate relationship with ebooks that were great in some ways and awful in others. When we started Download the Universe, we thought we were coming together to start something pretty straightforward: a book review dedicated to a neglected category of creations–namely, science ebooks. But ebooks are in such an early stage that our reviews often end up being contemplations of the form itself. In 10 years, I wonder if these questions will be sorted out, or if a new raft of questions will float in to take their place.
The New York Times, April 16, 2012
In the fall of 2010, Dr. Ferric C. Fang made an unsettling discovery. Dr. Fang, who is editor in chief of the journal Infection and Immunity, found that one of his authors had doctored several papers.
It was a new experience for him. “Prior to that time,” he said in an interview, “Infection and Immunity had only retracted nine articles over a 40-year period.”
The journal wound up retracting six of the papers from the author, Naoki Mori of the University of the Ryukyus in Japan. And it soon became clear that Infection and Immunity was hardly the only victim of Dr. Mori’s misconduct. Since then, other scientific journals have retracted two dozen of his papers, according to the watchdog blog Retraction Watch.
Continue reading “A Sharp Rise in Retractions Prompts Calls for Reform”
The New York Times, April 16, 2012
Naoki Mori, the Japanese cancer researcher who has had 30 papers retracted by scientific journals, was asked to give his side of the story. In an e-mail, he acknowledged that his colleagues “were lax in certain regards in the preparation of papers,” but he denied having committed a grave offense.
The studies were retracted because they used pictures from older papers, rather than from the experiments described in the studies. “I think this reuse is not a scientific misconduct,” Dr. Mori wrote.
He and his colleagues studied the response of human cells to infection by bacteria and viruses.
Continue reading “After Mistakes, Scientists Try to Explain Themselves”
This post was originally published in “Download the Universe,” a multi-author blog about science ebooks edited by Carl Zimmer.
Color Uncovered. Published by The Exploratorium.
Reviewed by Carl Zimmer
April 16, 2012