This is the book that I am currently reading – a monologue of the world famous journalist Tiziano Terzani – who describes at the end of his life his view of the “scientific” medical approach at MSKCC, the achievements but also shortcomings. “Un altro giro di giostra”.
While Nature magazine is preparing something about Darwin’s enduring legacy here is a piece from Darwin’s own writings
doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?
which can be found in Continue reading Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind?
Science fails if there is no gain in knowledge. At least in my research field the majority of papers does not provide any significant new knowledge leading even to the incredible notion “Beam me up”. Paper output is reaching an all time height as reported in a recent Nature commentary [1, 2]. Continue reading When science fails
A recent study published in nature genetics study highlights a ß-defensin gene where increased copy numbers are related to psoriasis. The normal range is 2 – 12 copies with the risk increasing with each extra copy. I don´t know if the given explanation is really correct: more genomic copies lead to more RNA, lead to more antimicrobial peptide, lead to skin inflammation. Maybe there is an unknown intermediate step: more antimicrobial peptide -> induce other inflammtory interleukins -> skin inflammation.
In any case, Continue reading New psoriasis gene would have been missed by testing linkage only
Scientific correspondence has always been important – as part of the dialectical and hermeneutical process of interpreting data. The value of scientific letters recently dropped for several reasons Continue reading Write letters – they are important
I have been asked to give an evening lecture about science and religion here at a local congregation. At the first moment, I did not want to do that, but finally promised to take up this challenge – there are so many heroes where I could get some inspiration. I remember having read a wonderful paper by an author but could not recall his name. Continue reading In memory of Peter Lipton
That was even worth a note in Nature News that finally a free journal-ranking tool entered the citation market. The attack came by an article in JCB (“Show me the data“), the response was weak. Sooooooo we have a choice now which of the metric indices is being the worsest way to rate a researcher (if you can’t understand otherwise what she/he his doing).
BTW individual IF reporting was never intended but ISI but is now common use in many countries. I don´t believe (as Decan Butler explains) that there is so much difference between popularity and prestige – but there is a big difference between popularity and quality.
is one of my favorite quotes by Plutarch. Here is a view from my first exercise-book. On the right page I tried to erase an error that was awarded a small devil Continue reading The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be ignited
Today I watched the full length video of the Nobel prize ceremony last week. I had to think of Stefan Zweig saying in “Sternstunden der Menschlichkeit” (my own translation)
No artist is always an artist during 24 hours of daily life; everything that is important, ever lasting and successful, happens within a few and rare moments.
in other words Csikszentmihalyi’s “flow” that we are always chasing, surfing the ultimate wave, yea, yea.
Zotero is a browser plugin that I am currently exploring as it can recognize PUBMED or PLoS entries and knows about Endnote/Refer/BibX export in UTF-8 format. The Open Office 2.1 insert reference macro produces a runtime error here and importing 100 references freezes my computer for about 5 minutes. Nevertheless Zotero follows a promising concept and holds much premises for the future; just discovered that data are stored in “…\zotero\zotero.sqlite”, great! one of the best available databases. This is the reason why I will
yea, yea.
As there is no central Zotero server, I wonder how I could access my local installation from different sites. The recommended portable Firefox is not really an universal solution. As with other open source databases, surrounding code of SQLITE is getting commercialized but there seems to be a free? sqlite server for download.
This is a more philosophical remark on science publication: With a technical sound solution for online referencing I expect that science blogs will get more influence while printed papers will loose their importance. Post publication peer review (attached comments) is certainly as good as pre publication peer review (that kills many new ideas, always delays publication and costs a lot of money better spent for research). You can cite me for that idea ;-)
Steven Pinker complains in this week Nature about the recent review of his book “Stuff of Thought“.
The fact that I (like most cognitive psychologists) have not signed up to these views is the only point of contact between my book and her review.
While Pinker could have got at least his opinion through, my comments on ORMDL3 remained stuck although I also claimed that the authors of this paper
free-associate to her own beliefs.
Yea, yea.
or in German “wes Brot ich ess, des Lied ich sing’ – the recent PLoS blog is about Continue reading He who pays the piper calls the tune
Is there a working alternative to Endnote(R) or Reference Manager(R) for Open Office (noR)? The Bibliographic Project Homepage says that Continue reading bibliographic.openoffice.org.call
We always need replication in scientific studies. I therefore can´t understand why there is now such a fuzz in Nature as they
… took the unusual step of soliciting an independent verification of the paper during the process of peer review. This is the first time that Nature has obtained second-party replication ahead of publication.
this could have saved thousands of dollars if it would have been also applied to other studies before, yea, yea.
Dedicated to honor Professor Dr. Kurt Spohn, former director of the Department of Surgery, Städtische Klinikum Karlsruhe from 1960-1984 (where I worked from 1978-1985). Continue reading In honor of Professor Kurt Spohn (1919-1998)