Some items of interest in the blogosphere…

Attention JAMA readers! Have you seen the new JAMA platform? The Krafty Librarian shares information about a free AMA webinar hosted by Elizabeth Solaro of the AMA.  Register now and check it out on August 2!

Over at Byte Size Biology, Iddo explains the frequent misuse of the journal impact factor (JIF) metric and why it shouldn’t be used to evaluate individual researchers’ achievements in “Taming the Impact Factor“.

John Halamka, on Life as a Healthcare CIO, shares a technology tool we think is more scary than cool, as well as a lovely post about new beginnings as he and his wife mark the end of their cancer journey.

And for some light Friday entertainment in honor of the London Olympics, here’s “What Cricket Looks Like to Americans“, via the Scholarly Kitchen. Go Team USA!

Open access announcements, the gene patent debate, and an ORCID rollout date, OH MY!

It was a big week for open access announcements. The UK announced a plan for open access of all publicly funded research in two years on Monday. (In a post on her blog, Maria Pretzler asks who will pay.) Following hot on their heels, the European Commission released recommendations for member states on access to and preservation of publicly funded scientific research Tuesday. The New Scientist also covered the topic.

According to the NY Times, gene therapy is nearing regulatory approval in Europe.

The Daily Scan reports on James Watson’s amicus brief in the ACLU-Myriad gene patenting case. Nature News has a piece on how the case could affect personalized medicine.

The ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) registry, the goal of which is to “solve the long-standing name ambiguity problem in scholarly communication” has announced it will go live this October!

MSKCC’s Public Affairs department has launched a new blog, On Cancer: News and Insights from Memorial Sloan-Kettering. The blog posts news and announcements about cancer research, profiles of MSKCC doctors and staff, as well as events and resources at the Center. There are a number of ways readers can stay up-to-date on the latest posts (RSS, newsletter, twitter) and connect (comments and facebook). Be sure to check it out!

In an interesting post that touches on the challenges to data storage and sharing in the sciences, PLoS Biology has announced a partnership with Dryad (a repository of data sets behind peer-reviewed articles in basic and applied biosciences). According to their post, through a “partnership with Dryad, PLoS Biology can offer authors a seamless tying together of an article with its underlying data; we can also provide confidential access for editors and reviewers to data associated with articles under review (see Depositing data to Dryad guidelines).” Exciting news for open science and there is certainly more to come!

There is a related post over on the e-Science Community Blog, Dryad for Science Librarians.

From the just-for-fun-bureau comes the wonderfully illustrated Brief History of the iPad: Prologue.