Retraction Watch files a complaint, Ed Yong on chemotherapy and gut bacteria, reports on end of life care (both on in practice trends, and public opinion) are just some items that have caught my eye so far this month…

• Retraction Watch and WordPress’ parent company are suing to fight against the false copyright violation charges that forced the blog to be censored (removing a number of posts for two weeks) earlier this year.
• In yet another great post that translates new science for the non-scientist, Ed Yong’s Three Cancer Drugs Don’t Work Properly Without Gut Bacteria, explains two recent studies in mice that have recently hit the news, and why they offer new complexity rather than any immediate answers for doctors or patients. Continue reading →

A government shutdown and Open Access week, lots of excitement for this edition of Blog Buzz!

There is/was no shortage of posts on how the government shutdown impacted science and made it harder to find certain types of information. Thankfully, the shutdown itself is behind us, but here are a few of those posts:

• Jonathan Eisen posted a cringe worthy screenshot gallery of closed government web sites on his blog Tree of Life.
• The Scholarly Kitchen took the opportunity to point out that the above could happen to PubMed Central since it is government based. Yikes!
• NPR’s shots health news reported on the high cost of the shutdown for expensive lab mice who play a role in medical research.

And here are a few in honor of Open Access week:

• Science magazine had a special issue Communication in Science: Pressures and Predators with free news and reviews on the lack of scrutiny at open-access journals, the rarity of published negative studies, and publishing sensitive data. Do you agree?
• Curt Rice takes issue with one of the pieces in Science Who’s afraid of peer review?, over on the Guardian, saying the peer review system has broken down and that is the real issue. Peter Suber weighs in to dispel six myths about OA also at the Guardian.
• Sally Gore writes on this year’s OA week theme of altmetrics, and the altmetrics she is waiting for…the ones to help measure and communicate the value of librarians.

And some more about scholarly communication…

• Nature News reports that on October 22nd, the NCBI launched the pilot phase of PubMed Commons, a platform being designed to let researchers comment on published works under their real names. Will there be enough participation for it be a successful new arena for discussion? Perhaps if it does it can help address the problems below…
• From the Economist, a brief item about fraudulent academic publishing in China, fueled in part by a distorted ranking system that prizes quantity over quality.

• With Open Access week approaching, Jenica Rogers has started a very interesting discussion on her blog Attempting Elegance about OA and the future. A number of commenters have weighed in with worthwhile points. What changes will Open Access bring to the future of academic publishing, libraries and education? Do you agree with the statements that Jenica and her colleagues proposed as “possibilities or realities” for their discussion? How has, and how could OA change your information landscape?
• Google is 15 years old! Post from Google, and they have rolled out a new update called “Hummingbird” which is explained here by Phil Bradley.
• Due to a cell line mix-up a 2008 paper from Clinical Cancer Research has been retracted, more at Retraction Watch where the team is complimented for giving a detailed explanation.
• NPR’s Shots has this coverage detailing some of the details of the large amount of information released this week about how insurance will work under the ACA. Helpful links to refer patrons to services in their area can be linked to here.