Brazilian study highlights replication struggles

Fifty-six laboratories across Brazil have attempted to complete 96 replications total, covering 47 experiments in a bid to quantify how reproducible biomedical research is in the country. The experiments included reverse transcription polymerase chain reactions, colorimetric assays, and behavioral assays for rodents. According to the study results , which were posted on the preprint server bioRxiv in April, 6 years after the effort was initially announced , only 15–45% of the experiments were found to be reproducible, says study coauthor Olavo Amaral, a metascience researcher at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. “I am worried about that,” Amaral says, pointing out that solid science is difficult to build on if the literature is so difficult to verify. He notes that his results aren’t much different from those of previous replication efforts in the biomedical sciences . “I don’t think we have a number to compare whether our local reality