This month, bloggers respond to a number of issues: shaky peer-review, condemned geneticists, GINA, and even electronic notebooks.
Demanding Answers
Out on the Web, people are still wondering what was going on at the journal Proteomics to have Mohamad Warda and Jin Han's paper, entitled "Mitochondria, the missing link between body and soul: Proteomic prospective evidence," slip through the peer-review process. Though the paper was retracted — citing plagiarism as the reason — bloggers PZ Myers, Stephen Salzberg, Attila Csordás, and Lars Juhl Jensen find that inadequate. "The plagiarism is bad all right, but my main concern was that such a blatantly goofy paper made it through peer review. How?" writes Myers. The bloggers are awaiting an explanation from editor-in-chief Michael Dunn.
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula
http://genefinding.blogspot.com
http://larsjuhljensen.wordpress.com
http://pimm.wordpress.com
Listing Sins
Not only has the Vatican come up with new deadly sins that include genetic experimentation, bloggers have come up with their own set of deadly sins. Sciencebase's David Bradley made a list of deadly sins for scientists which includes plagiarism (and self-plagiarism), lying, vanity, and procrastination. Eye on DNA's Hsien-Hsien Lei focused her list on the deadly sins of genetics, including: believing that genes are deterministic, eugenics, fabricating results, and blogging about DNA. Bradley's readers also add working grad students too hard, inflating budget proposals, being a "smarty-pants," and having "delusions of competency" to the list.
http://www.eyeondna.com
http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog
Notebooks Minus the Paper
Derek Lowe and PhilipJ are impressed by digital lab notebooks. At In the Pipeline, Lowe writes that he can easily draw chemical structures and search for specific data, and at Biocurious, PhilipJ likes their ability to store digital images and bits of code — as well as being much more legible. At Omics! Omics!, Neil Saunders has a related post on how to think about data. If scientists can structure their data generically and coherently, he says, that will make using electronic notebooks a breeze.
http://pipeline.corante.com
http://biocurious.com
http://nsaunders.wordpress.com
Need Protection?
The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act may have passed the US House of Representatives, but it's not yet law. Genetic Future's Daniel MacArthur blogs about what he considers a well-reasoned opposition opinion to the bill: that better information will lead to better management of risk. Texas, meanwhile, passed a new law that Jere Odell of PredictER says might make GINA more germane — the law requires that insurance companies give employees' health records to their employers. Odell points out that local media outlets in Texas are reporting that genetic test results are already protected, leading him to wonder what difference GINA will make.