Welcome to Nature Network
Matt Brown
Tuesday, 01 May 2007 15:28 UTC
Hello, I’m one of the editors at Nature Network.
Feel free to introduce yourself, talk to other newcomers, or ask questions in this area.
If you’re based in one of our city hubs (London or Boston at the moment) you can either chat in this area, or visit one of the other threads.
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Hi all,
Its nice that Nature group is trying to get all scientist to discuss in this site. I feel more comfortable posting without having my actual name appear. One could express more freely behind a screen name especially when protocols are going to be discussed. Some people might get into trouble with posting protocols.
Anyway, this site should be fun.
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Hi, thanks for your comment. We appreciate your desire to post comments anonymously on Nature Network, but we strongly encourage people to use their real names when registering and posting comments (we hope this will help maintain a level of decorum on NN).
We’ve had quite a few users put up questions and answers about protocols using their their real names.
How widespead of an issue is this: people getting in trouble for discussing protocols online?
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Some protocols which I have got were supposed to be very sacred to the person who actually gave them to me. The person insisted that I should not give it away. If I were to give, then to leave out some of the finer details so that its not easy for one to repeat the experiment. My PI would also be mad if I were to share all the methods & protocols (including some of the minor details) of my lab with everyone.
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Hi sco lix or whoever you are!
It is sad you cannot (I do not think you do not want) to share your/lab knowledge. Unfortunately, this is a trend in science which was slightly different 20 or more years ago. We have a tendency to forget the money we are using are comming primarily from tax-payers and/or charities. People who do not like to share the knowledge should join the companies which are doing research using their own money and therefore keeping their know-how secret.
Good luck!
Marek -
Hi Marek,
I would agree with you that everything in science should be shared. But have a look at the methods and material sections in papers which are published even in reputed journals. How many people can use that information and repeat the same experiment. People are forced to forget to include some important details in the methods section. I know that my former boss, could not even repeat his own experiment from one of his papers. I share my methods and materials using this name ‘scolix’. Even reputed labs, donot want to share plasmids which they have described in their papers and instead give out a completely different plasmid. Now a student repeatedly tried to work with it to find something is wrong and then approach the lab which confirms the material they have sent. The student eventually gets tired and sequences the plasmid to find that its the wrong plasmid. This reputed lab has wasted a few months of the student’s time by sending them a wrong plasmid. The original plasmid was never received by the student.
well, good luck to you in research.
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Sco lix, you’re raising some interesting issues here, something I think the Nature Protocols discussion forum might find interesting and could weigh in on. Why don’t you post something there, to see what other people have to say.
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Hi sco lix
It is a bit of sad comment on science as we all stand on the shoulders of others in developing ideas. Once it has published it should be preproducible by others, preferably from the methods in the paper or failing that, from feedback from the authors.
Perhaps it is just a reflection of age as I am old enough not to be certain what blogging is all about!
Tony -
Hi sco lix,
Sorry for late reply, I was on leave for a while.
I would say Nature Network is an excellent place where to bring up these issues (e.g. sending the wrong plasmid or no reply). Maybe NN leaders should establish a forum where everybody can complain about these events and probably take an action with authors of papers published in Nature Publishing Group journals. I think NPG have a power to change those habits. The correctness of methods and availability of published material is part of Terms and Conditions in some journals.
Best and good luck!
Marek -
Hello!
This network (David Basanta invited me) came at a really great time for me. I just finished my Ph.D. at UC Irvine (in computational oncology), and while it’s fun, it doesn’t seem quite right to hang out at the Ph.D. comics website anymore.
I hope to see this site flourish as a place to trade expertise, particular for those in interdisciplinary research! Thanks—Paul
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Welcome Paul, thanks for leaving a message. I don’t think there’s any shame in hanging out at the Ph.D. comics website.
Have fun on the site. We’ve got some new features coming very soon to make it even more interactive and useful.
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