The current global panic about Zika is a “data gap” issue: a vacuum of information due to gaps in understanding of its spread and pathogenesis , and gaps in sharing the research data and specimens that will enable the global research community to keep one step ahead of the disease spread.

That Was The Review Week That Was If you’ve seen the #peerrevwk15 hashtag on social media, you may have noticed this week is the first ever Peer Review Week.

Open Science has emerged into the mainstream, primarily due to concerted efforts from various individuals, institutions, and initiatives. This small, focused gathering brought together several of those community leaders.  The purpose of the meeting was to define common goals, discuss common challenges, and coordinate on common efforts.

Sheer Heart Attack Diagnosis is key to beginning treatment for preventing coronary heart disease, the most common cause of heart attacks. One useful tool in the fight against this leading killer is magnetic resonance imaging, which allows the direct examination of blood flow to the myocardium of the heart.

Using big data to understand the tree of life New work just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and GigaScience reveals important details about key transitions in the evolution of plant life on our planet, and present a huge cache of computational results, data and tools for plant biologists.

Researchers release a treasure trove of data on the developing retina, pushing the boundaries of neuroscience publishing by presenting it dynamically and reproducibly. A new paper in GigaScience today demonstrates a major step forward for reproducible research and public data-sharing in the neurosciences with the publication and release of a huge cache of electrophysiology data resources.

Our whistlestop summer conference tour circumnavigating the globe has come to a jetlagged end, with the final conference being last weeks HUPO (Human Proteomics Organisation) congress in Geneva.

Latest stop on the GigaScience magical mystery conference tour is Science Online London, and this year they have tried to make the format more interactive by organizing several interactive workshops and breakout sessions, including one on blogging that this is posting is a product of. One of the main themes running through the meeting has of course been open science (especially in the great keynote by Michael Nielson), and open-data