Negative results are to be expected in experimental science. Most researchers have lab books and files full of negative data, blurry gel photos and graphs showing no significant differences. When I was still working at the bench, the normal procedure was to shelve this data and keep working until you had "publishable results." You would tell your lab…

Announcing our Open Access Week event!

Open [access, data, source]: science & data in the 21st century

https://epcopen.eventbrite.co.uk …

There are a number of reasons why some countries publish more than others but it is no real surprise that the USA produces the most scientific papers. Over the period 1999-2009 there were 2.9 million scientific papers published in the USA according to Essential Science Indicators at Thomson Reuters (see infographic) (http://sciencewatch.com/dr/cou/2009/09decALL/). This is considerably more than the next two countries in the top 20…

Einstein once said, "A person who has not made his great contribution to science before the age of thirty will never do so."

Although Einstein himself did his most seminal work prior to his 30th birthday, this is not the case for all scientists. Alexander Fleming was 47 when he discovered penicillin, Andrew Wiles was 42 when he proved Fermat's theorem and Luc Montagnier was 51 when he discovered HIV with his colleagues. We have put together an infographic on this page showing 80…