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What is Wrong With This Picture?

Guest Editors: Buzz Baum, Karl Broman, John Brookfield, Shinichi Nakagawa

A picture is worth a thousand words - but in scientific research articles, figures can often miscommunicate the data that authors present to their readers, leading to the wrong conclusions. Histograms, linear regression graphs or microscope images, for example, can all contain different errors that may ultimately mislead readers in their interpretation of diverse data.

In this series, BMC Biology explores some common mistakes authors make when interpreting and presenting their results graphically. The examples shown here, based on real research articles, can be used as a guide in generating more accurate and informative figures.

Our emblem for the series is our own iconic image, shown here, itself egregiously misleading if taken literally: http://bmcbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1741-7007-10-76

  2. Western blotting is among the most common techniques used in molecular biology and a simple way of assessing the presence or absence of a protein. It is also commonly used to compare protein levels in differen...

    Authors: Graham Bell
    Citation: BMC Biology 2016 14:116
    Content type: Comment Published on:

  4. Any figure in a research article will typically represent only a small portion of the total data gained by a researcher for that experiment, and it is therefore key that the figure accurately reflects what was...

    Authors: John F. Y. Brookfield
    Citation: BMC Biology 2016 14:85
    Content type: Comment Published on:

  5. In this experiment, the authors were interested in testing the effect of a small molecule inhibitor on the ratio of males and females in the offspring of their model Dipteran species. The authors report that i...

    Authors: Graham Bell
    Citation: BMC Biology 2016 14:51
    Content type: Comment Published on:

  6. Protein X is a signalling molecule that stimulates apoptosis. Treatment of cells with Protein X results in five times higher levels of cell death than those seen in untreated cells (wild type), as measured by ...

    Authors: Graham Bell
    Citation: BMC Biology 2016 14:42
    Content type: Comment Published on:

  7. The authors of this paper were interested to see whether the expression of three proteins (A, B and C) was altered in a knockout mouse model of a gene encoding Protein X. Each experiment measured the expressio...

    Authors: Graham Bell
    Citation: BMC Biology 2016 14:28
    Content type: Comment Published on:

  8. Male crickets (Gryllus bimaculatus) establish dominance hierarchies within a population by fighting with one another. Larger males win fights more frequently than their smaller counterparts, and a previous study ...

    Authors: Emma Saxon
    Citation: BMC Biology 2016 14:4
    Content type: Comment Published on:

  9. Zebrafish are able to regenerate various organs and tissues after damage or amputation. To understand better the genetic controls of this process, the authors of this study investigated the expression of two g...

    Authors: Emma Saxon
    Citation: BMC Biology 2015 13:109
    Content type: Comment Published on:

  10. Oat plants grown at an agricultural research facility produce higher yields in Field 1 than in Field 2, under well fertilised conditions and with similar weather exposure; all oat plants in both fields are hea...

    Authors: Emma Saxon
    Citation: BMC Biology 2015 13:91
    Content type: Comment Published on:

  11. Oat plants grown at an agricultural research facility produce higher yields in Field 1 than in Field 2, under well fertilised conditions and with similar weather exposure; all oat plants in both fields are hea...

    Authors: Emma Saxon
    Citation: BMC Biology 2015 13:86
    Content type: Comment Published on:

  12. The pea aphid Acyrthosiphon pisum is an agriculturally important pest of leguminous plants including peas and broad beans. The widespread use of chemical pesticides impacts heavily on the environment, and increas...

    Authors: Emma Saxon
    Citation: BMC Biology 2015 13:83
    Content type: Comment Published on:

  13. Virus B is a newly emerged viral strain for which there is no current treatment. Drug A was identified as a potential treatment for infection with virus B. In this pre-clinical phase of drug testing, the effec...

    Authors: Emma Saxon
    Citation: BMC Biology 2015 13:68
    Content type: Comment Published on:

  14. Shear stress in arteries, which is a measure of the force exerted by blood flow on the arterial wall, is associated with the location of lipid plaques that cause heart disease. In this study, a mathematical mo...

    Authors: Emma Saxon
    Citation: BMC Biology 2015 13:62
    Content type: Comment Published on:

  15. Some steroid drugs are designed for clinical use to combat muscle-wasting diseases, but are also used by athletes to improve their performance by increasing muscle strength or endurance. This study investigate...

    Authors: Emma Saxon
    Citation: BMC Biology 2015 13:61
    Content type: Comment Published on:

  16. Probiotic treatments are thought to increase the levels of commensal bacterial species that populate the human gut, causing no harm to their host and playing an important role in maintaining gut health. This s...

    Authors: Emma Saxon
    Citation: BMC Biology 2015 13:60
    Content type: Comment Published on: