I’ll be spending the weekend enjoying the sunshinereminiscing over holiday snaps catching up with tweets from #CancerCongress, #PPCConference, #COSA2014 working on an ethics proposal. If you’re looking for something to do, try this reading list.
The Conversation takes a look at problems with peer review. “Many now believe that long-standing metrics of academic research – peer review, citation-counting, impact factor – are reaching breaking point. But we are not yet in a position to place complete trust in the alternatives – altmetrics, open science, and post-publication review.”
This TED Talk “How Not To Be Ignorant About the World” by Dr Hans Rosling (@HansRosling – Swedish medical doctor, statistician and Professor of International Health) and his son Ola Rosling is an entertaining and eye-opening look at how our biases and intuition lead to misconceptions. (For the record, I vote like a Swede – not a chimp.)
The beautiful poem Japanese Maple by the Clive James (written while he is dying) has been all over my social media feeds this week. Here’s The Guardian‘s take on why it’s resonating with people.