Monthly Archives: June 2009

Nature Takes A Look At Science Journalism

Posted on June 30, 2009 by NextBio. Filed under Science Journalism

- Lisa Green

Today is the opening day of the 6th World Conference of Science Journalists (WCSJ2009) in London England. Nature, a publication that has been promoting scientific journalism for over 100 years, has produced a special edition on science journalism to accompany WCSJ2009.

The conference is sure to include a significant amount of reflection on how the profession has changed and speculation on what the future holds for scientific journalism. Nature’s special feature also addresses these issues.

Boyce Rensberger discusses the history of scientific journalism in his wonderful piece Science journalism: Too close for comfort. Rensberger portrays the role of early 20th century science journalists as passive translators of jargon who would never dream of questioning the word of a scientist.
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DNA Sudoku

Posted on June 25, 2009 by NextBio. Filed under Research

- Lisa Green

Researchers at Cold Spring Harbor Lab recently developed a sequence analysis strategy they call “DNA Sudoku”.

Cute name, right? I have to admit, it was the name that first caught my eye. But the Sudoko method is much more than just a cute name, it is a significant advance in multiplex sequencing.

Multiplex sequencing, or multiplexing, is a fairly recent development made possible by next-generation sequencers. Multiplexing relies on tagging DNA samples with short oligonucleotide “barcodes” which allow for the sequencing of many different samples at once. The advent of multiplexing was a substantial improvement over the previous techniques which could only sequence one DNA sample at a time. However, construction of a library of unique barcodes is expensive in terms of both time and money.
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The Four Musketeers

Posted on June 22, 2009 by NextBio. Filed under Guest Blogger, Science 2.0, Scientists

- Hope Leman

As I try to grasp the revolution in scientific and medial research that Science 2.0 and Medicine 2.0 are effecting I often find that I am literally being rendered sleepless by trying to keep up on the writings of the leading thinkers on the subject such as Cameron Neylon, Jean-Claude Bradley, Michael Nielsen and the new kid on the block, Steve Koch.

It is quite daunting to try to keep up with the many fascinating things they have to say and the many links they provide to their colleagues in the field such as Bill Hooker and Rich Apodaca (How I wish that the latter two would add “Follow me on Twitter” buttons to their blogs. They have fascinating things to say and I find that the best way by far to keep up with thinkers and doers is via Twitter. RSS is so 2006.)
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NextBio Elsevier Partnership

Posted on June 19, 2009 by NextBio. Filed under NextBio, Science 2.0

- Lisa Green

Last week the partnership between NextBio and Elsevier was officially announced!

Elsevier will be using our technology to enhance ScienceDirect. Elsevier is the biggest player in scientific publishing and ScienceDirect is used by millions of researchers. Their decision to incorporate our technology into their platform shows that they recognize the value of NextBio’s tools and we are very pleased to have the endorsement of such an influential company.

The new, enhanced ScienceDirect will utilize NextBio’s ontological framework so that users can search ScienceDirect’s literature along with publicly-available, experimental data, clinical trials, and news articles. There is a growing trend in the scientific community towards integrating multiple types of information. I believe that Elsevier’s decision to integrate literature, experimental data, clinical trials and news on the ScienceDirect platform is a big step in the right direction. Hopefully, we’ll soon see other vendors join the bandwagon.

The NextBio engineering team let me see a sneak peek of the enhanced ScienceDirect. Not to let the cat out of the bag, but there is a great interface that will let users easily navigate through the different types of content. You’ll be able to see the new ScienceDirect for yourself when it goes live later this summer!

Opening Science

Posted on June 4, 2009 by NextBio. Filed under Guest Blogger, Open Science

– Steve Koch

Thank you, Lisa, for inviting me to post a blog here! In thinking about what to write, I noticed two previous entries on this blog: the first was one by Lisa discussing Francis Collins possibly being the next director of the NIH. Francis Collins was the leader of the wildly successful, amazingly collaborative human genome project—an awesome project that demonstrates the huge accomplishments that can come from scientists openly collaborating. Dr. Collins was the principle investigator of the first lab I joined at the very beginning of my academic research career. He is one of my science heroes, and I am really hoping that he becomes the next director of the NIH. With Collins at the helm, I have great confidence that the NIH will be a strong leader in funding and promoting Open Science and Science 2.0 innovations. The second post that caught my eye was by Jean-Claude Bradley discussing the possible necessity of science blogging. Jean-Claude is a huge proponent of Open Science and a leader in Open Notebook Science. Reading these posts made me wonder whether readers of the NextBio would like to know, “what is open science?”
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