As an Open Science journal, one of the main aims of GigaScience has always been to break down barriers. Both in the access of research and the underlying data and code supporting it, and the barriers holding back the researchers themselves. See our recent Review centering on inclusivity on the organization of meetings to see how it is important from an Open Science perspective.

This week is International Open Access Week, and with the theme “It Matters How We Open Knowledge: Building Structural Equity”. This aims at highlighting the individual and collective action required alongside the decisions, actions, and investments in knowledge sharing to ensure that equity is foundational.

A new article published today in GigaScience demonstrates that machine learning can yield “proxy measures” for brain-related health issues from large population data, without the need for a specialist’s assessment.

More and more experts are calling for the broken and destructive academic journal system to be replaced with modern solutions. This post summarizes why and how this task can now be accomplished. It was first published in German on the blog of journalist Jan-Martin Wiarda. Front cover of the now-vanished Australasian Journal of Bone & Joint Medicine . Source: Scan from the-scientist.com website

Genomics is a powerful technology that helps us understand the Tree of Life. Biodiversity Genomics 2021 was a virtual conference that took place on 27 ^th September-1st October 2021 that demonstrated how genomics can inform conservation and food security, and can additionally help us understand evolutionary novelties such as symbiosis.

Embracing identity in Peer Review The COVID-19 pandemic has brought into stark focus is the importance of both a speedy dissemination of research (something our participation in the C19 Rapid Review Consortium has tried to tackle), and the need to be able to trust the validity of this information.

According to a recent study, employee surveillance is rampant in today’s corporate work environment. This study documents how, often under the pretense of cybersecurity or risk analysis (sort of like academic publishers, actually), companies analyze the behavioral data they collect from their employees to help them make “evidence-led”, i.e., algorithmic employment decisions.

Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB) conference is an annual gathering for scientists from bioinformatics, molecular biology, and data science and provides a multidisciplinary environment for disseminating recent research and development in computational biology.

A new “multi-modal” data set on arm motion control, published recently in GigaScience , is an important contribution to develop robotic prosthetic devices and other tools at the interface between human and machine. Robotic arms and other devices that support limb movements are getting ever more sophisticated.

A recent OASPA guest post reminded me of something I have been wondering about for several years now. What sinister time travel device is keeping some sections of the scholarly ecosystem from leaving the past and coming back to the present?