science communication teams

Abstract: Systems such as The AI Scientist have shown that AI agents can carry out and write up research, but in those demonstrations humans chose the research area and selected the outputs to show. We study letting the AI formulate the research question itself, and we report every run. Our system gives an off-the-shelf coding agent an instruction document and two skills: one for formulating the question, in which the agent diverges from recent technologies into problems of other fields, screens its candidates for known failure modes and obtains a critique from a different model; and one for peer review, in which a reviewer from another model family reruns the study from its records before the agent revises the paper. Over 13 development runs, changes to the one or two sentences that set the research area coincided with large shifts in what the candidate questions and the chosen papers were about, which led us to the area of a new technology applied to a societal problem. We froze the system after a pilot run and report five consecutive runs: the pilot, counted by a disclosed amendment to the pre-registration, and four pre-registered runs. All five runs went from question formulation to a revised, re-computable paper, with local computation on a laptop and no research input from humans, and external AI reviewers reading only the papers judged them at or near workshop level. We release the system, the five papers and the records needed to reproduce them.

Abstract: Background: Despite the growth of bibliometric analyses, few studies offer guidance on how to report them, resulting in a lack of research transparency and completeness. To address this gap, we developed the Guidance List for the repOrting of Bibliometric AnaLyses (GLOBAL). Methods: An initial list of items for the GLOBAL was generated through a scoping review and refined through a modified two-round Delphi, as recommended by the EQUATOR Network. The guideline was finalized through a pilot test, where participants assessed their manuscripts using the checklist and Elaboration and Explanation (E&E) document, which outlines item expectations and provides examples. Results: The scoping review resulted in 32 items. In Round 1, 24 items reached consensus and thematic content analysis resulted in one additional item. This item, along with the eight items that did not reach consensus, were discussed in detail in Round 2. During the in-person meeting, one item was split into two, totalling ten voting items. Eight out of ten items reached consensus, five for inclusion and three for exclusion. Conclusions: The finalized 28-item GLOBAL (and its accompanying E&E document) provides users with a framework to report bibliometric analyses, aimed at promoting high-quality reporting of bibliometric analyses in scholarly literature.

Abstract: Biological models bring the molecular world of cells into view, enabling experts and the public to explore and understand biological discoveries. Building mesoscale models requires organizing many molecular components into spatial arrangements that can be revised as evidence and interpretations develop. We present MesoCraft, a browser-based tool for structural biologists centered on interactive procedural modeling. User-defined rules generate collections of molecular instances, while a geometry-node editor and visual feedback support authoring and revision of their spatial relationships. Beyond model construction, MesoCraft integrates exploration and communication, enabling researchers to inspect molecular organization and create guided animations that highlight key spatial relationships. By connecting modeling, exploration, and explanation in a unified workflow, MesoCraft allows insights gained during exploration and communication to inform iterative model refinement, supporting the development of mesoscale models into visual narratives of cellular organization. A demonstrative deployment of the tool is available at https://mesocraft.kaust.edu.sa/.

Abstract: On 1 July 2025 the National Institutes of Health began requiring that funded articles be publicly available in PubMed Central on the day they are published, ending the 12-month embargo that had applied since 2008. Comparing NIH-supported articles with articles in the same journals and months that reported no US federal support, before and after the policy, the share available in PubMed Central within a week of publication rose by 5.6 percentage points more for NIH-supported articles (95% CI 1.9 to 9.6). The change was concentrated in journals outside the Directory of Open Access Journals, where the share of NIH-supported articles in PubMed Central within a week doubled from 11% to 22%, with no differential change in DOAJ-listed journals. A pre-policy comparison showed no difference. For articles published in early 2026, the policy had made NIH-supported research available sooner, and most NIH-supported articles in journals outside the Directory were still not in PubMed Central a week after publication.