Chemistry Wide Open

Timo Hannay recently gave a talk "Scientific Researchers and Web 2.0: Social Not Working?", which is reproduced in this Nascent blog post.

This is a sobering review of the state of social software in science and he lists several roadblocks to its widespread adoption. It is important to counterbalance the almost unavoidable hype that emerges from the enthusiasm of those energized by a movement.

However, it can be a tricky endeavor to attempt to define success or failure, especially within systems that are evolving rapidly.

I usually limit my book reviews to Goodreads or Shelfari but this one deserves much more attention.

In Happy Accidents: Serendipity in Modern Medical Breakthroughs; When Scientists Find What They're NOT Looking for, Morton Meyers reviews examples of the unpredictability of scientific progress.

This could just be a collection of interesting anecdotes - and some of the stories are truly fascinating. My favorite is probably the discovery of platinum compounds for the treatment of cancer.

Maxine Clarke highlights a bit of recent controversy regarding Open Notebook Science that has been bouncing around the blogosphere and FriendFeedosphere.

There are some who interpret the ongoing publication of our laboratory notebook as an expectation for the world to read it like a magazine. For someone who is not a collaborator or working in a related area that would make about as much sense as reading the phone book.

Here is an example of how an Open Notebook should be used:

I'm back from the UCSD workshop on New Communication Channels for Biology held June 27-28, 2008. The talks were recorded and are now available here.

The first day mainly consisted of talks while the second was very heavy on breakout sessions (see agenda). Probably the most beneficial part for me was seeing old friends or meeting in person several people I had only interacted with online previously. For example was nice to finally meet Dan Gezelter from the OpenScience project and Hilary Spencer from Nature Precedings. I also had a blast over enchiladas on Friday night with Mike Nieslen and Jen Dodd. Mike gave a very engaging talk on the Future of Science on Thursday night.

The presentations were recorded and should be available within a week on the wiki link above - I'll post an update here when I am made aware of it.

I was asked by the Institute for the Future to highlight a dozen "Signals" that may point to new trends in science as part of the X2 Project:
Today, science is entering another period of accelerated change, thanks to the growth of the Internet and dawn of pervasive computing; the explosive growth of new sciences like genetic engineering, nanotechnology, biotechnology, and simulation; the rise of new scientific powers in the developing world, the revival of amateur scientists, and the growth of citizen science movements in the United States and Europe; the growth of new institutions supporting scientific research and innovation, and changes in the structure and funding of universities, government, an

The Journal "Open Medicine" has published a very thoughtful editorial on "Open science, open access and open source software at Open Medicine" by Sally Murray, Stephen Choi, John Hoey, Claire Kendall, James Maskalyk and Anita Palepu.

Not only are they writing about it but they want to get their hands dirty as well:

The American Chemical Society will be offering a virtual poster session in Second Life from selected posters at the Sci-Mix session taking place April 6, 2008 at the next national meeting in New Orleans.

I'm helping out with that effort and I'm pleased to say that we have our first submission from Jodye Selco, Mary Bruno and Sue Chan: "Safe and economical chemistry inquiry for the K-12 classroom".

Collaboration is a requirement for the advancement of modern science. Researchers cannot be expert at everything and must specialize to make a unique contribution.

But if coordinating research within a group is challenging, effective collaboration between groups is even more so.

There is often a strong temptation for research units to treat each other like black boxes. There is some logic to this - the point of having a collaborator is to distribute the responsibility of tasks in a project. If I get involved with every detail of my collaborator's work I may as well do the work within my own group.

But problems can arise because of unstated assumptions between groups.

Michael Barton has posted a brief essay on Open Notebook Science on his research web site:
As you might expect from the name, Open Notebook Science (ONS) has similarities with Open Source Software. The clearest likeness between the two, is the belief that by sharing and collaborating, more can be achieved than through secrecy and competition.

From Bora Zivkovic's A Blog around the Clock:

The results are in.

Jiri Gut from the Rosenthal group has run 2 of our Ugi products and they both show inhibition of falcipain-2 (EXP165) and Plasmodium falciparum (EXP166) in the micromolar range.

To put this in context the activities are roughly 2 orders of magnitude lower than the positive control used for the enzyme inhibition and chloroquine for the parasite.

But it is a start.

Like last year, the North Carolina Science Blogging conference was a hit.

I moderated a session on public scientific data with Xan Gregg. Both of our talks were recorded and available here.