Before dismissing the "old data", we should keep in mind that something that was true in 1994 will still be true today...and also in 2099!

I think that if the data are "real"** but makes no sense at all, you are definitely on to something.... 

** the assay is established, you know it works, you didn't mess up the reagents etc.

An excerpt from a book I am reading - "A Force of Nature- The Frontier Genius of Ernest Rutherford"
"The progress of science of [is] like the progress of man going through a swamp, with islands of firm earth in between. The advances would be very slow from week to week, but at the end of a year it would be great, and at the end of ten years, enormous..."   

Though somewhat painful at the time, I find that a manuscript invariably improves after a comprehensive review at a decent journal (even if it is rejected after review). Sometimes it improves a lot, making arguments clear and helping you see the differences between what you think your data says and what your data REALLY says (and the way others look at it).

However there are times when "peer reviews" are completely worthless, especially when they are provided as one-liners to the author (usually meant to help editors decide whether the paper is good enough for further review or not). One of the best one-liners I got from an esteemed cell biology journal was "The data are novel, but expected.....not suitable for the journal".  

Ponder upon that one. 

"In the classic movie It's a Wonderful Life, George Bailey is at the point of despair but regains his confidence through the wisdom and perspective of a guardian angel, Clarence. Doubt and setbacks also are bound to happen in science (as is true of other careers), but pessimism should not rule the day. It is a great profession and there are many happy endings."

Commentary by Ron Vale...read it at least once a month to make sure it sticks:
http://www.molbiolcell.org/content/21/1/11.full

Commentary on Susan Lindquist's views that I endorse.
http://www.nature.com/news/prions-and-chaperones-outside-the-fold-1.10026

(Colin Macilwain - Cell 2012)

Old but still very relevant. Highly entertaining and infomative piece on writing grants by "Sticky Wicket". There was a time I used to read Sticky Wicket every time, but not anymore. Never read anything for fun anymore....

Part 1: http://jcs.biologists.org/content/116/6/945.long 
Part II: http://jcs.biologists.org/content/116/7/1153.long


 

Like every new parent we had invested in an analog "video camera" back in the days when our first son was born (maybe 2001). This was the one with the tiny casettes etc., the type that is extinct now. Anyway, after recording hours and hours of baby footage, I promptly lost the electrical charger that was necessary to operate this camera.

Now this is one of the chargers that has complicated and unique pins on the other end, and you pretty much cannot fit any another charger on it. In comes my second son and his hobby is - yes, accumulating chargers. Like every American household, we also have a pretty decent collection of chargers for things that worked at one time or another, but are now compleletely defunct. And this little guy collects them, that's what he does. Several times I have berated him about this (wires everywhere in the living room!); but the other day, this utterly meaningless occupation bore fruit.

And to my utter amazement, this 4 year old pops into the garage, rummages through old boxes (like he always does), and rettrieves a charger that looks almost exactly like the one I had lost (but its not the same one). I put it in the video camera, and it worked! We spent a highly enjoyable evening watching videos of my 8 yr old evolving from a meningless blob into an actual person (much to his chagrin). But this got me thinking.

Hypothetically speaking, I have no doubt that my 4 year old's grant application ("collecting and characterizing electrical charging units") would be stamped "descriptive", and triaged. And yet, if he was not driven by his internal curiosity for chargers, we may have never seen my boys recite poetry in the bathroom.

Something to think about.....