The national Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) can look to Kaiser Permanente to see how comparative effectiveness research can enhance healthcare. Read More »

As the NSA PRISM debacle continues to unfold and spreads across continents it’s probably good to stop and think about the technology and philosophy behind it all. Because this is big data and analytics in its most potent and controversial form, and it’s certainly not the last time we’ll see this hit the headlines. Read More »

With April research showing medical interns spend very little time directly caring for patients, medical education is getting more bad press. Read More »

The patient perspective is an important part of the drug development process. Through social media, the Internet, and advocacy groups, patients have become more informed about how drugs and devices are developed. FDA is committed to using this information to help foster the development and availability of safe and effective drugs that meet the needs of the American public. Read More »

The days of businesses relying on locked-down operating systems and platforms tightly controlled by commercial organisations are numbered, according to Hadoop creator Doug Cutting.

Proprietary software platforms put businesses at the mercy of the platform vendor, often locking them into accepting regular price hikes, Cutting told ZDNet. Read More »

The Justice Department’s snooping on journalists working for the Associated Press is an abuse of power in the broadest sense. But one reason the whole episode is controversial at all is because the Obama administration technically broke no rules. Read More »

Companies and governments “trying to take control of the internet” are undermining the founding principles of the web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee has warned. Read More »

Ecologist Allan Savory blamed elephant herds for destroying African grasslands. It turns out, what all grasslands need to survive is more animals eating them. Read More »

Don’t we just love the fact that these days so much bioactivity data is freely available at no cost (to the end user)? I think we do. The more, the better. So, what would your answer be if someone asked you if you consider it to be a good idea if they would deposit some of their unpublished bioactivity data in ChEMBL? Read More »