From the shocking mortality rates in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria to the spread of fake news online, many of this year’s most important issues feature in the Altmetric Top 100. In this episode, we spoke to authors featured in this year’s Altmetric Top 100. The annual Altmetric Top 100 highlights research published in 2018 that has generated significant international online attention and discussion – from post-publication peer review sites and public policy documents to mainstream media, blogs, Wikipedia, and social media platforms.

Amongst our portfolio is robotic cloud laboratory platform Transcriptic. Alongside Ginkgo Bioworks, an organism company that designs custom microbes for customers, they were recently awarded a joint $9.5 M contract as part of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Synergistic Discovery and Design Program (SD2). The Synergistic Discovery and Design (SD2) program aims to develop data-driven methods to accelerate scientific discovery and robust design in domains that lack complete models. Ginkgo and Transcriptic will use machine learning, closed loop biology, and automated execution of protocols toward the goal of advancing biological experimentation and accelerating iterative testing for synthetic biology. I talk to head of product at Transcriptic, Ben Miles about the recent news. Host: Cameron Shepherd

A clear understanding of the attention published research has received online is now an essential part of the research process. Altmetric has offered the most reliable, functional and efficient way to monitor conversations and online citations of published research since it launched in 2012. In the latest Digital Science podcast Altmetric’s Head of Product, Jean Liu, and Founder Euan Adie are interviewed about the ideas and research community-driven ethos that underpin the development of Altmetric’s data curation, and the company’s role in providing responsible metrics.

Digital Science and Katalysis are pleased to announce the launch of a pilot project to test blockchain technologies to support the peer review process. They are joined in this pilot project by founding partner Springer Nature. In its initial phase, this initiative aims to look at practical solutions that leverage the distributed registry and smart contract elements of blockchain technologies. Later phases aim to establish a consortium of organisations committed to working together to solve scholarly communications challenges that centre around peer review. We sat down with our Director fo Special Projects Joris Van Rossum and Katalysis' Eveline Klumers and Alex Tran-Qui to talk about the recent partnership.

In this episode we’re talking about the 2017 Altmetric Top 100 - an annual list that showcases the most popular articles of the last 12 months based on how much attention they’ve received in the mainstream news, social media, and from other online sources. It provides a fascinating glimpse into which research has really caught the imagination of a broader audience! We cover diet, the mental health of academics and hospital re-admission and mortality rates with female vs male doctors. We also talk an editor about how a journal supports its researchers.

Digital Science has recently released a new report detailing the potential of the blockchain for research. In this podcast, we hope to summarize our findings and also discuss what a world with blockchain technology looks like. Guests: Dr Joris Van Rossum / Jon Treadway / Eveline Klumpers You may be aware of our catalyst grant - a twice-yearly call for innovative technologies within science and research to apply for our £25k grant. We are excited to announce a new catalyst grant specifically for blockchain technologies. So, if you have any early stage ideas or a fully developed product then please apply for our grant before the 15th of January 2018.

Figshare is a company that believes in open data. Users upload content including data sets, research outputs, figures and video and images - it is free to upload and free access. Last year, they released a landmark report detailing attitudes to open data around the world. To celebrate this year’s open access week, they have released a follow up report. In this podcast we hope to discuss the major findings of the report with its contributors and also look to the future in an attempt to predict developments in the world of open data.