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The article reports on the two papers which were linked to an extortion attempt and originated from the laboratory of Peter Schultz, a prominent chemist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, San Diego, California. The papers claimed to describe the successful incorporation of amino acids linked to sugars at specific positions in proteins made by the bacterium Escherichia coli. Related issues are further discussed.

The article discusses a research misconduct case that damaged the reputation of the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology (CDB) in Kobe, Japan. Topics include papers on pluripotent stem cells in the journal "Nature" that discussed the use of the stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency (STAP) technique by biochemist Haruko Obokata, a committee report led by materials scientist Teruo Kishi, and the impact of media scrutiny on the scandal.

The article focuses on souring relations between Russia and Western countries and how Russian President Vladimir Putin's isolationism and anti-Western rhetoric may negatively impact Russian science. It states Russian research institutes and universities have started to instruct scientists to gain permission from the Federal Security Services prior to submitting papers or giving talks at scientific conferences. It mentions concerns of foreign-funded foundations they could be placed on a list of undesirable organizations.

The article presents several issues and developments related to nature conservation. Senators John Cornyn and Joe Lieberman have introduced as bill which would require researchers with public funding to make their papers freely available. Japan have created a major medical research prize wherein such prize will go towards research and clinical work on disease prevalent in Africa. The European Bioinformatics Institute has launched a project called FELICS (Free European Life-science Information and Computational Services).

The article presents Changchun, China's contribution to the Nature Index based on weighted fractional count of scientific articles published in 2013, with Jilin University as the city's largest contributing institution. Jilin's outputs include the design and synthesis of porous materials for water purification applications. Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry's papers include topics on artificial enzymes, catalysis and cell imaging and development of enzymatic fuel cells to produce energy.

The article presents Hefei, China's contribution to the Nature Index based on weighted fractional count of scientific articles published in 2013, with the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) as the city's largest contributing institution. USTC's contributed papers include topics on chemistry such as the development of graphene-like materials and carbon aerogels, and on physics like quantum optics. The Hefei University of Technology focused on engineering topics like nanowires.

The article reports that post doctoral fellow Kristin Roovers has been suspended by the Ottawa Health Research Institute after learning that she had manipulated and falsified data published in several papers in the United States. In July 2007, the U.S. Office of Research Integrity concluded that Roovers manipulated 19 panels of western blot data while a graduate student and postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Roovers had used Photoshop to copy a set of bands and paste them into other blots representing data from different experiments.

The article presents the author's perspective pertaining a good research value. With this, the author suggests that to summarize the paper and highlight its strengths and essential significance shows a proper sense of engagement and helps both author and editor to benefit from a fresh perspective. However, critical comment that a referee genuinely adds value, comments must be constructively and collegially expressed.