🚨 NEW ISSUE ALERT!!! 🚨
New Research articles and Outlook online now at Genes & Development.
Also in this issue, the first in a series of Review articles on Cancer Metabolism.
Click on the link to learn more:
➡️ https://genesdev.cshlp.org/content/40/5-6.toc
As a proponent of staring off into space as an essential component of ideation, this post resonated with me.
Your enthusiasm is shared by @southernculture.bsky.social youtu.be/dNnmt97YB-k?...
Reminder: bioRxiv's "no reviews/hypotheses" policy is something we had from the outset, because it would require subjective judgments akin to peer review (and rapid dissemination seemed less critical for this type of article). The ease of generating these with LLMs make me glad we have it. 2/n
Classic: youtu.be/IBfMLmNjFn4?...
SCOTUS Refuses Challenge to Human Authored Copyright Rule lunch.publishersmarketplace.com/2026/03/scot...
"Null results are essential to refutations [that] correct the scientific record...but data are not a democracy" www.life-science-alliance.org/content/9/3/...
The new issue of @genomeresearch.bsky.social is now live. Follow the link to new research on chromosome engineering in 8p syndrome, convergent evolution in arid rodents, and more! tinyurl.com/Genome-Res-3...
A new issue of CSH Protocols is out!
@cshlpress.bsky.social
The cover image highlights the work by Moss et al., who describe how to use fluorescence flow cytometry and specific AuxInYeast strains to study #maize auxin perception.
⬇️Links below
I don't think we have the capacity, nor the infrastructure to create and publish an entirely new set of workflows without significantly increasing costs to authors. This might be something you could try to get a grant for in order to help cover additional labor and development costs.
I worry that being "selected" would become a signifier of importance akin to publishing in a high JIF journal, and hence a target for researchers. Which would then lead to pay-to-be-selected journals, replication cartels, and replication mills. Campbell's Law is hard to avoid
I feel like there's a disconnect between the idea that only "important" experiments would warrant replication and the idea that only experiments that use basic techniques that are easily replicable warrant replication.
A 3D-styled pie chart illustrating the distribution of Research and Development (R&D) resources based on the NSF NCSES National Patterns of R&D Resources: 2022-23 Update. The chart is divided into six segments, listed here in descending order of their financial contribution: Federal Govt: The largest segment, shown in dark blue, accounts for 51% of the total, valued at $39.5 B. Higher Ed. – Institutional: A light coral segment accounting for 23%, valued at $18.2 B. Non-profit at Research Institutes: A dark red segment accounting for 8%, valued at $6.1 B. Higher Ed. – Direct Philanthropy: A bright red segment accounting for 7%, valued at $5.8 B. Business: A grey segment accounting for 7%, valued at $5.2 B. Non-Federal Govt: The smallest segment, shown in light blue, accounting for 4%, valued at $3.2 B.
Here's a chart showing who funds basic research in the US. It's easy to tell that private funding cannot make up for significant cuts to government funding.
Vulnerable to Huntington’s Disease, Nancy Wexler devoted her life to research that revealed the HD mutation and produced a test for susceptibility. Read her powerful autobiography published by CSHL Press: "My Life, My Science: Pursuing a Cure for Huntington’s Disease". Pre-order at: amz.cx/3c1w
Sharing the concluding chapter to my out of print book The New Analog - I wrote this some time ago, but consolidation in media seems to have made it only moreso dadadrummer.substack.com/p/listening-...
Wait, you expect me to read stuff before I form opinions on it? Pshaw!
Then isn't that an additional round of re-review?
So then not a useful process for journals that seek novelty and significance in papers?
Right, but would I know to include in my review "this paper is lacking a dosage curve" if I didn't know whether it was headed for a journal that requires one? How would the selecting journal know if the paper was appropriate?
I worked with a toxicology journal which had particular standards that they required for particular types of studies. I would be hard to recommend for acceptance a paper that lacked those data/curves for that journal, but possibly fine for other journals that didn't have those requirements
Right, but I need to know if I'm reviewing for soundness (e.g., PLOS ONE) or for significance (e.g., Cell).
Some journals have very specific requirements around different experiment types. Not knowing that context means I can't tell if the work done is adequate for the final publication venue.
One of the issues is that it is very difficult to review a paper out of context. If I'm reviewing it for a journal read by a general science audience, I would look at different things than a journal for a specialist audience. Some want significance evaluated, others don't.
Worth noting that journals have gotten a lot more expensive since peer review was first proposed.
Perhaps not "double", but if every experiment has to be done twice, with lots of coordination between labs and shipping of reagents, cell lines, animals, etc., I would suggest the costs are more significant than is described here. Not to mention the enormously increased publication costs.
I would worry that, like the Impact Factor, which was not initially meant as a means of evaluating research, the many bean counters of the world might decide to interpret your Reports in a different manner than intended.
So, more power in the hands of Nature and Cell? And if, as you suggest, one will get career credit for replication, wouldn’t you try to replicate everything you could and thus advance your career?
Who decides what’s “important”?
Can’t agree. More experiments is better than fewer. And with all the replication papers you’re proposing, doesn’t that mean more papers published?
Getting a scientist to write a review article takes a significant amount of arm twisting.
