Standards and Good Practice guidelines provide explicit criteria for maintaining quality and integrity in science. But research practices are now openly questioned. I defend the idea that the tension between norms and practices in scientific writing must be addressed primarily by the scientific community if quality of the sources in the process of science communication is to be guaranteed. This...

When Stephen Strittmatter discovered an unexpected link between key proteins in two devastating brain maladies — Alzheimer’s disease and Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (CJD) — researchers in the field agreed that he was on to something big. But a year on, conflicting results, including findings published in Nature this month, have clouded that rosy picture and highlight the challenge faced by resear...