Mastodawn

You'd think after nearly 40 yrs in development, Excel wouldn't continue to be such a menace.

Interesting one today, as I downloaded some point data from silo, with the years as yyyy-mm-dd. I briefly opened it in excel to have a quick geeze, and unbeknownst to me Excel changed the dates from 1900 onwards to dd/mm/yyyy, but left the pre-1900 dates as yyyy-mm-dd.

The most baffling part is that this persisted when I then loaded the .csv into R. HOW does that happen? Data science truly brings me so much joy.

Dorothy Bishop Apr 13

Recording of my keynote at OXFOS26 (Oxford Forum for Open Science) on benevolent and malevolent consequences of open science.
https://go.glam.ox.ac.uk/OxFOS26-KeynoteLecture

Glam URL Shortner

Web site created using create-react-app

Dorothy Bishop Apr 7

Enfys J. Book [they/them]Mar 14

I'm pleased to share with you the greatest advancement in bottom-sheet technology since the invention of elastic.

Dorothy Bishop Apr 1

BMJ have at last retracted that BMJ stem cell paper that had numerous comments on Pubpeer about dodgy data etc. Remarkably, they issued a correction to remove 2 UK authors from author list immediately prior to the retraction
https://retractionwatch.com/2026/03/31/bmj-retracts-cardiac-stem-cell-paper-removes-authors-months-after-sleuths-flag-data-mismatch/

BMJ retracts cardiac stem cell paper, removes authors months after sleuths flag data ‘mismatch’

The BMJ has retracted a paper on stem cell therapy for heart failure after sleuths flagged the work for “serious” inconsistencies in data. Published in October, the paper reported the results of a …

Retraction Watch

Dorothy Bishop Mar 28

New post giving update on Wellcome LEAP’s $50 million FORM programme: fundees announced and it’s going as badly as I anticipated
https://deevybee.blogspot.com/2026/03/update-on-wellcome-leaps-50-million.html
#autism #microbiome

Update on Wellcome LEAP's $50 million program on autism and the microbiome

Exactly five months ago, I blogged about a program entitled Foundations of a Resilient Microbiome (FORM) that Wellcome LEAP was funding to ...

Dorothy Bishop Mar 24

Had read Markus Englund's piece on copy-paste errors in Excel data https://www.sciencedetective.org/scientific-datasets-are-riddled-with-copy-paste-errors/ but hadn't realised it affected #microbiome research that had already attracted criticism for weak stats etc.
Covered here: https://www.thetransmitter.org/academia/data-duplications-flagged-in-highly-cited-gut-brain-studies/

Scientific datasets are riddled with copy-paste errors

Initial results from scanning through Excel files belonging to 600 published scientific papers.

Science Detective

Dorothy Bishop Mar 24

when should a correction be a retraction?
https://retractionwatch.com/2026/03/23/guest-post-a-call-to-end-the-impact-on-conclusions-test-for-retraction/
incisive piece by Eugenie Reich
#publishing #researchintegrity #retractions

Guest post: A call to end the ‘impact on conclusions’ test for retraction

The Ship of Theseus paradox asks, if you replace all the wood in a ship, is it still the same ship? Likewise, is it possible to change all the facts inside an article without altering its conclusio…

Retraction Watch

Dorothy Bishop Mar 23

UniversalCompendium Mar 23

Crest ablaze, beak obscured, eye gleaming with a fixed, unblinking stare: the Guianan cock-of-the-rock.

https://universalcompendium.com/gen_images/ucg/1animals/guianan-cock-rock-bird.htm

#photography #wildlife #birds #weird

Dorothy Bishop Mar 12

I've just updated the catalogue for my blog.
https://deevybee.blogspot.com/2012/11/bishopblog-catalogue-updated-24th-nov.html
Main topics are neurodevelopment, reproducibility, publishing and research integrity

Bishopblog catalogue (updated 12 Mar 2026)

Source: http://www.weblogcartoons.com/2008/11/23/ideas/ Those of you who follow this blog may have noticed a lack of thematic coheren...

Dorothy Bishop Mar 7

An interesting development in CNRS - changing from metrics to review researchers
https://www.cnrs.fr/en/update/cnrs-breaking-free-web-science

The CNRS is breaking free from the Web of Science

From January 1st 2026, the CNRS will cut access to one of the largest commercial bibliometric databases, Clarivate Analytics'

CNRS