WIKIMEDIAIn June, when The Scientist first contacted University of British Columbia’s Paul Pavlidis for comment on a PNAS paper in which he was not involved, he expressed concerns regarding the statistical approach applied in the study, which purported to identify sets of genes associated with altered communication between the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex. Once the paper was published, Pavlidis reached out to the authors—Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg from Central Institute of Mental Health Mannheim, Germany, and this colleagues—to discuss his concerns. Upon reanalyzing their data, the authors decided “we had to retract,” Meyer-Lindenberg told The Scientist, because “the analysis could not be used to make any conclusions with the required statistical confidence.”
Their retraction was published in PNAS last week (August 29). The researchers are now further reanalyzing their data.
WIKIMEDIA, KIM QUINTANOIf you’ve scrolled through your social media feeds or flipped on the news in the last month, you’ve likely caught a bit of unusual footage—folks dumping buckets of ice water on their heads in support of patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Beyond bringing widespread awareness to the neurodegenerative disease the world over, the Ice Bucket Challenge has generated millions upon millions in charitable donations to ALS patient care and research organizations. The ALS Association (ALSA) alone, for instance, received more than $100 million. The question, of course, is how that money should be spent: How might advocates, caregivers, and researchers use these buckets of cash to do the most good?
“With that money comes tremendous responsibility,” ALSA spokesperson Carrie Munk told The Scientist.
“Most research doesn’t go for only two years,” added Jeff Rothstein of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the Robert Packard Center for ALS Research. “So any program that invests money has to be cognizant [of that]. . . . When that money [runs] out, what happens?”
NHGRIIn an opinion article adapted from a Briefings in Bioinformatics paper published this week (September 2), David Roy Smith from the University of Western Ontario presented a first-time buyer’s guide to commercial bioinformatics software. He shared his experiences shopping around, comparing the specifications and prices of different packages, while contemplating floating licenses, plugins and apps, cloud computing, upgrades, and support.
