
Wouldn’t it be terrific if manuscripts and published papers could be checked automatically for errors? That was the premise behind an algorithmic approach we wrote about last week, and today we bring you a Q&A with Jennifer Byrne, the last author of a new paper in PLOS ONE that describes another approach, this one designed to find incorrect nucleotide sequence reagents. Byrne, a scientist at the University of Sydney, has worked with the first author of the paper, Cyril Labbé, and has become a literature watchdog. Their efforts have already led to retractions. She answered several questions about the new paper.
Retraction Watch (RW): Seek & Blastn allows for “semi-automated fact-checking of nucleotide sequence reagents.” Can you explain what these reagents are used for, and what Seek & Blastn does? Continue reading Semi-automated fact-checking for scientific papers? Here’s one method.