I have four recent posts up at the AAAS MemberCentral website:
Should a scientific journal article be retracted if its conclusions are wrong?
When should a paper be retracted? Certainly if the results were fabricated but what if the results are wrong for other reasons? And what if the results are right but the conclusions are wrong?
Identify new galaxies, explore the deep oceans, and categorize bat calls with Zooniverse: Zooniverse lets citizen scientists analyze large datasets
These projects are so awesome that sometimes I wish I were retired so I could be a citizen scientist (instead of a real one). In the time since I wrote this post, four new suns were discovered by ‘armchair astronomers’ working on one of the Zooniverse projects and Zooniverse launched a new project where people can classify cancer cells. You don’t need any scientific background to work on these projects, and you might discover something new and really fascinating. Hat tip to Kyle Willett, a college friend of mine who is a postdoc working on the GalaxyZoo project, for introducing me to Zooniverse at his wedding.
In Guam, more snakes means fewer birds — and many spiders
This post looks at how an invasive species created a “natural experiment” for ecologists studying ecosystems in Guam.
Scientists experiment with a new way to fund their research
Ethan Perlstein really, really, really wants you to help fund his meth lab.
Summer E. Allen, PhD 