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Do It Again

The US National Institutes of Health and a number of scientific journals have come up with guidelines aimed at the issue of irreproducible studies, the Chronicle of Higher Education reports.

The Chronicle's Paul Baskin notes that neither NIH nor the journals have released a draft of the agreement, but Francis Collins, the director of NIH, briefly described a few aspects of it at an advisory committee meeting. The discussion, Collins said, in part revolved around the need to publish articles that point out reproducibility problems in previously published studies.

Collins added that there are other initiatives underway to better understand and deal with the reproducibility issue, Baskin says. For instance, NIH will be meeting with pharmaceutical industry representatives to get their advice and perspective on the issue.

The Scan

Foxtail Millet Pangenome, Graph-Based Reference Genome

Researchers in Nature Genetics described their generation of a foxtail millet pangenome, which they say can help in crop trait improvement.

Protein Length Distribution Consistent Across Species

An analysis in Genome Biology compares the lengths of proteins across more than 2,300 species, finding similar length distributions.

Novel Genetic Loci Linked to Insulin Resistance in New Study

A team reports in Nature Genetics that it used glucose challenge test data to home in on candidate genes involved in GLUT4 expression or trafficking.

RNA Editing in Octopuses Seems to Help Acclimation to Shifts in Water Temperature

A paper in Cell reports that octopuses use RNA editing to help them adjust to different water temperatures.