Weekend reads: Top science excuses; how figures can mislead; a strange disclosure

The week at Retraction Watch featured a primer on research misconduct proceedings, and some developments in the case of Joachim Boldt, who is now second on our leaderboard. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

• Here’s a list of top science excuses, courtesy of Paul Knoepfler.
• “What is wrong with this picture?” Emma Saxon explains “how figures and illustrations can mislead.”
• Here’s an odd disclosure statement, courtesy of Jeffrey Beall: “The authors confirm that this article content has no conflicts of interest.”
• The publisher that fell for John Bohannon’s chocolate-diet study has a history of other problems, says Matt Hodgkinson.
• Has peer review benefited you? Grumpy Geophysicist wants your story.
• Five tips for non-academics who publish in the scholarly literature, from Jay Daniel Thompson.
• Collaborations can boost citations, according to a new study (via The Scientist).
• Make peer review public: In Slate, we argue for how to make science more efficient and robust.
• “A scientific look at bad science,” from Bourree Lam at The Atlantic.
• U.S. courts aren’t that sympathetic to researchers who sue to prevent retractions, Monya Baker reports at Nature, picking up on the Saad and Tang cases.
• Richard Poynder interviews a product manager at Cyagen, which is offering $100 vouchers to any scientists who use their products and then cite them.
• The creators of Authorea describe the “collaborative platform for writing in research and education, with a focus on web-first, high quality scientific documents.”
• A new study uncovers flaws in a previous analysis that found a very high rate of autism in South Korea, Jessica Wright reports.
• “Are there too many meta-analyses?” asks Neuroskeptic.
• “[M]ost arthropod research cannot be verified,” according to a new study in PeerJ.
• How poor is the evidence for everyday clinical practice? Very, says Richard Smith.
• “A rancorous feud over a research grant leaves a professor with no regrets.” The Chronicle of Higher Education interviews the Alzheimer’s researcher at the center of a fight between the University of California, San Diego and the University of Southern California.
• “Science is not the sole source of wisdom, an oracle,” says Dan Fagin. “It’s the most powerful tool we have for understanding the world, but individual scientists are only human and subject to error. A little more humility would do us all a lot of good.”
• “[S]cience popularisations are always political,” says Maureen Burns.
• Could “diffing” — designed for newspapers — make journals more transparent?
• “The backlash against transparency is now underway,” write Charles Seife and Paul Thacker. The Union of Concerned Scientists responds.
• Here’s some of the current thinking on observational studies (via Andrew Gelman).
• You’re late with a peer review again. What should you do? Advice from journal editor Andrew Moore.
• What is “publication,” anyway? asks the Grumpy Geophysicist.
• “Do researchers understand their own explanations?” asks a researcher.
• Sociologists need to be better at replication, says Cristobal Young.
• There’s evidence that clinical trial registries are pushing back against positive publication bias, notes Chris Woolston, writing about reactions to a recent study.
• “A Clinician, a Blogger, and Now a Thorn in Coca-Cola’s Side:” A profile of Yoni Freedhoff in The Chronicle Of Higher Education.

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