Reproducing studies, gene patents, Wiley’s OA program, and more a-buzzing this week!

To address the problem of published studies that cannot be reproduced, how about a new system to match scientists with labs for replicating research and have open access collections publish the validating results and store the data? That is the gist of  the Reproducibility Initiative, Science Exchange’s partnership with PLOS and Figshare. The program is discussed in an interesting piece in The Daily Scan, which links out to other items covering the announcement.

Wiley announced immediate changes to the licenses on their Open Access journals, which will now allow commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution license. Here is coverage from the UK’s The Bookseller and a press release from Wiley.

Many tweeters and bloggers have been commenting on research findings showing that Triclosan, an antibiotic used in household and personal care products, causes muscle impairment in mice and fish. Here is a story from Science 2.0.

Gene patents for BRCA1 and BRCA2 were upheld by a DC court in the Myriad case. Coverage from Forbes and Nature News Blog.

From the Wall Street Journal, an entertaining story about science, language, and science bloggers –  Here’s an Omical Tale: Scientists Discover Spreading Suffix.

Interesting news from the blogs and elsewhere this week…

Jonathan Eisen over at The Tree of Life gives a great analysis of the new Google Scholar “Updates” feature and gives it a 9.4 out of 10 when it comes to sifting through science literature for relevant content! Here’s more information from the official Google Scholar Blog.

Scientists at the University of Wyoming have discovered a possible new way to target certain genes for anti-cancer therapy using nematode worms. They used worms that carried a gene mutation “similar to one that is inactivated in some human cancers”. The gene is thought to be linked to tumor progression and cancer cell growth. LabSpaces has more about the study.

Have you noticed? In its latest issue, NLM’s Technical Bulletin highlights updates to PubMed Central, now known as PMC, and gives details about the popular site’s cleaner, more organized feel. Check out what’s new and improved.

To continue our coverage of the Open Access debate… Bo-Christer Björk and David Solomon have published “Open access versus subscription journals: a comparison of scientific impact.” As an open access article itself, perhaps not surprisingly, it is available for free from BMC Medicine.

Here are a few blog highlights from this week:

One aspect of the Affordable Care Act that is the buzz of many a blog these days is the expected doctor shortage due to the influx of 33 million currently uninsured Americans who will enter the healthcare system in 2014, as well as the economic advantages for medical students choosing specialized fields over primary care. WSJ’s Health Blog, NY Times and the Washington Post’s Wonkblog have more on this.

Ed Yong over at Not Exactly Rocket Science had an interesting recent post about a cancer drug that has been discovered to “awaken” dormant HIV cells, which could provide a big step forward in the evolution of HIV treatment.

Shhhhh! Dr. Pauline Chen of the NY Times’ Well blog discusses the effect of hospital noise on patient recovery.

NLM has just introduced a new search feature that allows searchers to look for structured abstracts in PubMed.