Category Archives: science

NIH Director Francis Collins’ ridiculous “We would have had an Ebola vaccine if the NIH were fully funded” meme

By Michael Eisen | Published: October 13, 2014

Almost as soon as the African Ebola epidemic hit the headlines, NIH Director Francis Collins was making the rounds arguing that we would have had an Ebola vaccine by now, if only Congress hadn’t slashed the NIH budget. Lest you think I’m taking his words out of context, here is what he said to a House Energy […]

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On Nicholas Wade and the blurring of boundaries between science and fantasy

By Michael Eisen | Published: June 4, 2014

I just finished reading Nicholas Wade’s “A Troublesome Inheritance”, his latest effort to explain all of his personal racial prejudices in the light of recent human evolution. In this book he sets out to convince readers that many aspects of modern society – the English capacity for industrialization, Jewish intelligence, the inability to establish democratic […]

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On anonymity in science and on Twitter

By Michael Eisen | Published: January 20, 2014

A lot of people who I interact with on Twitter, and whose blogs I read, have chosen to tweet and write under pseudonyms. This puzzled me at first, but I have come to realize that there are a LOT of good reasons for people to mask their real identities online. Anonymity allows people to express […]

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Accepting nominations for the “Pressies” recognizing the most overhyped science press releases of 2013

By Michael Eisen | Published: December 15, 2013

Scientists get all sorts of prizes this time of year. Some win a Lasker. Others a Nobel or a Breakthrough Prize. The really lucky get a commemorative mug from PNAS. But the most important members of the scientific community get no recognition. I’m not talking about the graduate students and postdocs who actually do the […]

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FDA vs. 23andMe: How do we want genetic testing to be regulated?

By Michael Eisen | Published: November 26, 2013

Yesterday the US Food and Drug Administration sent a letter to the human genetic testing company 23andMe giving them 15 days to respond to a series of concerns about their products and the way they are marketed or risk regulatory intervention. This action has set off a lot of commentary/debate about the current and future […]

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PubMed Commons: Post publication peer review goes mainstream

By Michael Eisen | Published: October 22, 2013

I have written a lot about how I think the biggest problem in science communication today is the disproportionate value we place on where papers are published when assessing the validity and import of a work of science, and the contribution of its authors. And I have argued that the best way to change this […]

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I confess, I wrote the Arsenic DNA paper to expose flaws in peer-review at subscription based journals

By Michael Eisen | Published: October 3, 2013

In 2011, after having read several really bad papers in the journal Science, I decided to explore just how slipshod their peer-review process is. I knew that their business depends on publishing “sexy” papers. So I created a manuscript that claimed something extraordinary – that I’d discovered a species of bacteria that uses arsenic in its DNA […]

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NASA paywalls first papers arising from Curiosity rover, I am setting them free

By Michael Eisen | Published: September 26, 2013

The Mars Curiosity rover has been a huge boon for NASA – tapping into the public’s fascination with space exploration and the search for life on other planets. Its landing was watched live by millions of people, and interest in the photos and videos it is collecting is so great, that NASA has had to […]

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With its HeLa genome agreement, the NIH embraces a expansive definition of familial consent in genetics

By Michael Eisen | Published: August 7, 2013

I wrote before about the controversy involving the release earlier this year of a genome sequence of the HeLa cell line, which was taken without consent from Henrietta Lacks as she lay dying of ovarian cancer in 1950s Baltimore. Now, the NIH has announced an agreement with Lacks’ descendants to obtain their consent for access […]

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A CHORUS of boos: publishers offer their “solution” to public access

By Michael Eisen | Published: June 4, 2013

As expected, a coalition of subscription based journal publishers has responded to the White House’s mandate that federal agencies develop systems to make the research they fund available to public by offering to implement the system themselves. This system, which they call CHORUS (for ClearingHouse for the Open Research of the United Status) would set up […]

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