WIKICOMMONS, NICKLAS BILDHAUERJust one of 268 randomly selected biomedical research studies containing empirical data contained a complete protocol, according to an analysis published in PLOS Biology this week (January 4). Examining 441 total papers published between 2000 and 2014, all selected at random, researchers from the Stanford University School of Medicine and the National Cancer Institute also reported on a lack of conflict-of-interest and other disclosures, as well as of instructions for accessing authors’ full data.
“What was most surprising to me was the complete lack of data-sharing and protocol availability,” study coauthor John Ioannidis of Stanford told The Scientist. “That was worse than I would have predicted.”
“It is commendable of the authors to put this study together,” said Arthur Caplan of New York University who was not part of the work. “It’s unique and a useful baseline of transparency, conflict of interest, and reproducibility [in the biomedical literature].”
DANNEMANN ET AL./AJHGWe humans may have our Neanderthal and Denisovan ancestors to thank for some innate immune genes, according to two studies published in The American Journal of Human Genetics this week (January 7). Two independent groups have found genomic evidence to suggest that present-day people inherited versions of several toll-like receptors (TLRs) that recognize pathogens through the interbreeding of human ancestors with Neanderthals and Denisovans.
“At least partially, Neanderthals may have harbored already adaptive mutations, mutations that rendered them more resistant to infections,” said Lluis Quintana-Murci of the Pasteur Institute in ...
