TS Picks: August 10, 2015

WIKIMEDIA, MOHAMAD SAWAN

Selections from The Scientist’s reading list:

• Researchers are using computer simulations to better understand what people with sight-restoring retinal implants can see, MIT Technology Review reported last week (August 7). In a paper published this month in Philosophical Transactions B, the University of Washington’s Ione Fine and Geoffrey Boynton noted that “interplay between the stimulating technology and the underlying neurophysiology is likely to result in distortions of the perceptual experience.” Fine and Boynton also proposed ways scientists that are fine-tuning such bionic eyes might be able to minimize such distortions.
  
• “In the preparation of our paper we copied verbatim part of the introduction of Escobedo et al. (2011), and as a consequence we now retract our article,” wrote the authors of a 2015 Journal of Arachnology study, Retraction Watch reported last week (August 6). Journal editor Robert Suter told Retraction Watch that the authors were...