Search

A letter to the editor is presented in response to an article related to ranking of India's top institutions on the basis of number of research papers in the Scopus citation database over the past five years in a 2015 issue.

The article discusses a research paper on mathematical models that help scientists with their decision on submitting their papers to ecology journals, which references a study published in a 2015 issue of "PLoS ONE," and cites ecology journals recommended by the researchers.

The article deals with the questions raised by a Drosophila genomics paper published in the journal "G3: Genes Genomics Genetics" which credited more than a thousand authors.

The article reports on the launch of "The Journal of Brief Ideas," which publishes scientific papers with 200 words or less, as of February 2015.

The article discusses about digitization of old research papers and journal archives by search engines have made scientists searching papers easier.

The article focuses on the impact a Russian amended law concerning state secrets is having on science publishing by Russian scientists. It states President Vladimir Putin used a decree in May 2015 expanding the scope of a law requiring scientists get permission from the Federal Security Service prior to publishing results which could have industrial or military applications. It reports Russian universities are requiring scientists seek approval to the publication of any findings without exception.

A letter to the editor about a 4R approach to assessing reported research is presented.

The article reports on a Twitter conversation between geneticist Yoav Gilad and geneticist Michael Snyder, which casts doubt on the conclusion of a genomics study which concluded that human and mice genetics are similar.

The article focuses on an article published on the open access publishing platform F1000Research and comments a recent microblog Twitter conversation casting doubts on the conclusions of a genomics study revived debate concerning the best method of publicly discussing potential research errors.

A blog is presented about the need to improve the style of scientific writing.

The author reflects on bibliometrics, a way of quantitatively analyzing scientific literature to assess its quality, and criticizes the way scientists are guided mainly by citation statistics. Topics include the negative effects of bibliometrics in terms of hindering the creative development of a research agenda and the need for scientists to focus on scientific merit versus journal impact factor by resisting dependence on bibliometrics in their decision-making process.

The article summarizes research published in a 2015 issue of "Advanced Materials" concerning the development of a flexible lithium-air battery using paper and lithium foil with a carbon-based ink which was capable of holding a charge even after being bent 1,000 times.

For centuries, practitioners of origami ('ori', fold; 'kami', paper) and kirigami ('kiru', cut) have fashioned sheets of paper into beautiful and complex three-dimensional structures. Both techniques are scalable, and scientists and engineers are adapting them to different two-dimensional starting materials to create structures from the macro- to the microscale. Here we show that graphene is well suited for kirigami, allowing us to build robust microscale structures with tunable mechanical properties. The material parameter crucial for kirigami is the Föppl-von Kármán number γ: an indication of the ratio between in-plane stiffness and out-of-plane bending stiffness, with high numbers corresponding to membranes that more easily bend and crumple than they stretch and shear. To determine γ, we measure the bending stiffness of graphene monolayers that are 10-100 micrometres in size and obtain a value that is thousands of times higher than the predicted atomic-scale bending stiffness. Interferometric imaging attributes this finding to ripples in the membrane that stiffen the graphene sheets considerably, to the extent that γ is comparable to that of a standard piece of paper. We may therefore apply ideas from kirigami to graphene sheets to build mechanical metamaterials such as stretchable electrodes, springs, and hinges. These results establish graphene kirigami as a simple yet powerful and customizable approach for fashioning one-atom-thick graphene sheets into resilient and movable parts with microscale dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lignin is a heterogeneous aromatic biopolymer that accounts for nearly 30% of the organic carbon on Earth and is one of the few renewable sources of aromatic chemicals. As the most recalcitrant of the three components of lignocellulosic biomass (cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin), lignin has been treated as a waste product in the pulp and paper industry, where it is burned to supply energy and recover pulping chemicals in the operation of paper mills. Extraction of higher value from lignin is increasingly recognized as being crucial to the economic viability of integrated biorefineries. Depolymerization is an important starting point for many lignin valorization strategies, because it could generate valuable aromatic chemicals and/or provide a source of low-molecular-mass feedstocks suitable for downstream processing. Commercial precedents show that certain types of lignin (lignosulphonates) may be converted into vanillin and other marketable products, but new technologies are needed to enhance the lignin value chain. The complex, irregular structure of lignin complicates chemical conversion efforts, and known depolymerization methods typically afford ill-defined products in low yields (that is, less than 10-20wt%). Here we describe a method for the depolymerization of oxidized lignin under mild conditions in aqueous formic acid that results in more than 60wt% yield of low-molecular-mass aromatics. We present the discovery of this facile C-O cleavage method, its application to aspen lignin depolymerization, and mechanistic insights into the reaction. The broader implications of these results for lignin conversion and biomass refining are also considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A major challenge in theoretical ecology is understanding how natural microbial communities support species diversity, and in particular how antibiotic-producing, -sensitive and -resistant species coexist. While cyclic 'rock-paper-scissors' interactions can stabilize communities in spatial environments, coexistence in unstructured environments remains unexplained. Here, using simulations and analytical models, we show that the opposing actions of antibiotic production and degradation enable coexistence even in well-mixed environments. Coexistence depends on three-way interactions in which an antibiotic-degrading species attenuates the inhibitory interactions between two other species. These interactions enable coexistence that is robust to substantial differences in inherent species growth rates and to invasion by 'cheating' species that cease to produce or degrade antibiotics. At least two antibiotics are required for stability, with greater numbers of antibiotics enabling more complex communities and diverse dynamic behaviours ranging from stable fixed points to limit cycles and chaos. Together, these results show how multi-species antibiotic interactions can generate ecological stability in both spatially structured and mixed microbial communities, suggesting strategies for engineering synthetic ecosystems and highlighting the importance of toxin production and degradation for microbial biodiversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A major challenge in theoretical ecology is understanding how natural microbial communities support species diversity, and in particular how antibiotic-producing, -sensitive and -resistant species coexist. While cyclic 'rock-paper-scissors' interactions can stabilize communities in spatial environments, coexistence in unstructured environments remains unexplained. Here, using simulations and analytical models, we show that the opposing actions of antibiotic production and degradation enable coexistence even in well-mixed environments. Coexistence depends on three-way interactions in which an antibiotic-degrading species attenuates the inhibitory interactions between two other species. These interactions enable coexistence that is robust to substantial differences in inherent species growth rates and to invasion by 'cheating' species that cease to produce or degrade antibiotics. At least two antibiotics are required for stability, with greater numbers of antibiotics enabling more complex communities and diverse dynamic behaviours ranging from stable fixed points to limit cycles and chaos. Together, these results show how multi-species antibiotic interactions can generate ecological stability in both spatially structured and mixed microbial communities, suggesting strategies for engineering synthetic ecosystems and highlighting the importance of toxin production and degradation for microbial biodiversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 authors argue that a revival of universities in 57 Muslim-majority countries, part of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), would increase the presence of OIC individuals in science. Topics include the use of narrow content and outdated teaching methods in OIC university science programs, an increase in the production of OIC science papers despite the average remaining below countries with similar gross domestic product, and the launch a voluntary Network of Excellence of Universities for Science.

The article focuses on the reaction of epithelial cells lining the intestine to tight attachment of bacteria and how this influences the effector functions of TH17 cells. It mentions research published in two separate papers in "Cell" which found intestinal epithelial lining provides a conduit for communication between the immune cell and intestinal bacteria. It talks about the role of actin in altering Saa gene transcription and the activation of interleukin-17 expression by serum amyloid A.

The article discusses about peer-review rigging in which authors review their own research work. Topics include authors being invited to suggest reviewers for their research papers, author Hyung-In Moon reviewing his own work and using automated process ScholarOne's owned by Nature Publishing Group for a peer view system and to invite qualified reviewers.

The article discusses contributions by researchers in East and Southeast Asia to science and technology research. Topics include investment in the science and technology research made in the East and Southeast Asia, total article count and research spending in China and Japan. Research in physical science and chemistry in institutions such as Peking University in China are mentioned. Charts presenting details of the research papers are included.

The article reports that an independent investigation found papers authored by thoracic surgeon Paolo Macchiarini misrepresented the success of his experimental tracheal transplant procedure. It states that general surgeon Bengt Gerdin was commissioned by the Karolinska Institute to examine Macchiarini's clinical procedures and also discovered two of the papers had failed to receive the necessary ethical approval while a seventh misrepresented results.

The article reviews the paper "The African Genome Variation Project" by Gurdasani et al which appeared in page 327 of the issue. Topics include the timeliness of the paper in terms of characterizing genetic diversity across Africa, how the three major African ethnolinguistic groups studied represent key issues on the routes of early human migration, and the networked research projects in Africa such as the H3Africa Consortium.

The article presents Hong Kong's contribution to China's Nature Index based on weighted fractional count of scientific papers published in 2013, with the University of Hong Kong (HKU) as the city's largest contributing institution. HKU's main outputs are in microbiology, with topics such as the infectivity and transmission of avian and swine influenza viruses. The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology's papers deal mainly with the physical sciences, such as graphene and metamaterials.

The article focuses on citation analysis and an examination of works that went decades before they were cited as important. It comments on chemist Herbert Freundlich's paper "Concerning Adsorption in Solutions" which was published in 1906 but underwent a citation spike in 2002. It mentions that a 1935 paper on quantum mechanics by Boris Podolsky, Nathan Rosen and Albert Einstein only started to be cited extensively in 1994. It considers the importance of citations in academic influence.

The author comments on a working paper released by England's Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in 2015, which focuses on carbon emissions generated as government officials, environmentalists and scientists attend environmental-science conferences. The paper concludes that academics in the industrialized world are responsible for rising aviation emissions. The author believes that the arguments of the paper are powerful, and there are good reasons to pursue their recommendations.

The article presents Hangzhou, China's contribution to the Nature Index based on weighted fractional count of scientific articles published in 2013, with Zhejiang University as the city's largest contributing institution for papers on chemistry and physical sciences. The chemistry papers include the development of a special polymer to help detect gas leaks in refrigeration systems while the physics outputs include graphene and carbon aerogels with potential applications for thermal insulation.

The article discusses the Nature Index, a database of authors and their institutional affiliations used to track article contributions published in journals. Measures used by the index to track affiliation data include article count, fractional count, and weighted fractional count assigned to a country or institute for their authors' paper contributions. Altmetrics is used as alternative data source to measure the impact of a research paper by tracking the online sources that mention the paper.

The article focuses on transparency by researchers on plans and methods of genetically altering wild populations. It mentions a paper by J.E. DiCarlo and others and published in a November 16, 2015 issue of "Nature Biotechnology" on the use of gene drives (GD) that are unlikely to function in wild populations and which can the mutation undone with a second GD to overwrite it. It talks about the genome-editing system CRISPR-Cas9 and transparency on research into GD use against Lyme disease.

The article discusses the 1000 Genomes Project, an effort to study genetic variation in the human population. It references two papers published by the project elsewhere in the journal. Details on the project's findings regarding structural variants and variants in individual bases are presented. Particular focus is given to the project's implications for the future of population sequencing. Topics include single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), genome-wide association studies (GWAS), and population sampling.

A letter to the editor is presented in response to a previous letter by scientist Paul W. Williams regarding the authors' paper "Mid-latitude interhemispheric hydrologic seesaw over the past 550,00 years," which apeared in a 2014 issue of the journal.

The article discusses the development of biomimetic nanoparticles for use in drug delivery. It references a paper by scientist C.-M. J. Hu and colleagues which appears elsewhere in the journal and which reports that nanoparticles coated with membranes from blood platelets are protected from the body's immune responses and are able to bind to certain cells and tissues. According to the author, the technique has implications for both nanoengineering and biomembrane research. Other research on platelets is also discussed.

The article reports that mathematician Terence Tao has submitted a proof which he claims solves the Erdős discrepancy problem, a famous mathematical problem posed by mathematician Paul Erdős in the 1930s. Tao was working on a different problem when mathematician Uwe Stroinski commented on his blog suggesting its relationship to the Erdős discrepancy problem. Tao credits Stroinski in his paper, which he submitted to the arXiv preprint server and which has not yet been examined by experts.

The article presents several charts concerning interdisciplinary science research, including a chart measuring the level of interdisciplinarity various fields are, the percentage of interdisciplinary papers published in 10 nations, and a citation analysis of interdisciplinary research over time.

The article discusses the use of software to construct fossil databases directly from research papers by paleontologist Shanan Peters and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Topics include data scientist Chris Ré's development of the text-mining software DeepDive, a comparison of the human-generated Paleobiology Database to a computer-generated database created using custom Paleo DeepDive software, and limitations set by publishers on how results of text mining are published.

The article reports on how experts at the 2014 World Conference on Research Integrity swapped views on a retracted political-science study about same-sex marriage that was published in the journal "Science" in 2014. The study claimed that short conversation with a canvasser who is gay could encourage voters to support same-sex marriage. Other topics discussed include research misconduct, the paper's retraction and the need for better supervision by senior academics.

This section offers news briefs on science as of May 2015. A new rule proposed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration requires drug companies that sell veterinary antibiotics to track where their drugs are going. A record energy of 13 teraelectronvolts of protons was achieved by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) on May 20. An independent investigation found that surgeon Paolo Macchiarini committed scientific misconduct in several papers.

The article presents science-related news briefs for the week of May 28, 2015. It states that a new rule proposed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration would require drugmakers to collect data on how their drugs are being sold and used in various livestock. It mentions the U.S. Air Force launched its drone spaceplane, the X-37B on May 20 on a classified mission. It reports an independent investigator found surgeon Paolo Macchiarini committed scientific misconduct in six papers.

The article focuses on broken hyperlink references in research papers (reference rot) and methods to combat this problem. It states online archiving services like the Internet Archive and Harvard Law School Library's web-archiving service Perma allow researchers to store permanent copies of webpages as they viewed it when preparing manuscripts. It talks about the web archive project Memento which provides users access to all saved version of the web page and allow access to web-at-large links.

The article discusses the April 18, 2015 publication of research on gene editing in human embryos by Junjiu Huang and others in the online journal "Protein & Cell", noting that the paper was rejected by the journals "Nature" and "Science" due to ethical concerns and editorial policies related to the peer review process.

The article presents science news briefs as of April 23, 2015. Germany's ruling political parties have agreed to increase funding for science by €5 billion between 2018-2018. The journal "Meccanica" has retracted 11 papers authored by engineer Alberto Carpinteri over a conflict of interests stemming from Carpinteri's views on nuclear fission. Mexican President Enrique Peña announced a plan to save the vaquita, an endangered species of porpoise.

The article discusses a paper published by Sz Borsanyi et al which reports a breakthrough progression on problem of required calculations for the mass difference between neutrons and protons. Topics discussed include how neutron-proton mass difference can be calculated in terms of more fundamental inputs and how it is a milestone achievement in the inclusion of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) and quantum electrodynamics (QED) accurately in the calculation since the techniques used are different.

The article discusses a text analysis of biomedical papers which revealed that young researchers are much more likely than older scientists to study innovative topics. It found that senior researchers are more likely to publish when they are supervising a younger scientist. The study was conducted by Mikko Packalen of the University of Waterloo in Canada and Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford University in California and published by the U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research in February 2015.

The article discusses a research paper on the use of reflected seismic waves generated by explosive sources in boreholes to image the Pacific plate ascending beneath New Zealand. It references a study by T. Stern et al., published within the issue of "Nature." It discusses the effect of temperature on the viscosity of rocks, the presence of water or melt in the channel and the occurrence of water availability from phase transformations or melt ponding.

The article discusses a research paper on climate-sensitivity determinations from the warm Pliocene epoch compared to those from the cold Pleistocene epoch. It references a study by M. A. Martínez-Bóti et al., published within the issue of "Nature". It discusses the method used by the researchers and the use of the instrumental temperature record to narrow the equilibrium climate sensitivity range.

The article discusses a research paper on the key enzymatic steps to install the sulfur atom of the antibiotic lincomycin A during its biosynthesis in the bacterium Streptomyces lincolnensis. It references a study by Q. Zhao et al., published within the issue of "Nature". It discusses the role of mycothiol as a sulfur donor and the involvement of ergothioneine in the chemical activation of the carbon atom that will bear the sulfur.

The article discusses a research paper on the occurrence of regime shifts from corals to macroalgae in response to coral bleaching. It references a study by N. A. J. Graham et al., published within the issue of "Nature". It discusses aspects of reef ecology that incfluence the likelihood of this shifts, the occurrence of coral bleaching, and the challenges facing reef managers in protecting coral reefs from human threats.

The article discusses a research paper on small molecules that mimic the pharmacological properties of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs). It references a study by P. J. McEnaney et al., published in a 2014 issue of the "Journal of the American Chemical Society". It discusses the success of mAbs as pharmaceuticals and the evolution of tripartite Y-shaped antibodies.

The article discusses a research paper on the development of fully three-dimensional-printed light-emitting diodes based on quantum dots for printing of three-dimensional electronic devices. It references a study by Y. Kong et al., published in a 2014 issue of "Nano Letters". It provides information on quantum dots, improvements in device performance and applications of the technique.

The article discusses a research paper on a technique that could help biologists to control organelle positioning and movement in cells. It references a study by P. van Bergeijk et al., published within the issue of "Nature." It discusses the organization of the cell's membranes, the use of optogenetic tools in regulating interactions between selected protein domains in areas of a cell or tissue and testing of the "tug-of-war" model for positioning organelles in neuronal protrusions.