Data sharing and publication is a topic we need to consider carefully, and weigh the risks, costs, and benefits, as well as the complexities.
Despite the feeling that the factory has turned out just another from the same template, Gladwell’s new book turns out to be refreshing, surprising, and thought-provoking.
A contemplation of constraints — how some have vanished, how others are needed, how new ones are emerging, and the benefits constraints deliver.
Legal issues are an inevitable part of publishing cutting-edge information in a world as political as academic research. However, the role of publishers in these matters, and their important contributions, are often concealed within necessary discretion.
The “publish or perish” culture has created a major mega-journal. But are its boundaries and standards built properly to avoid becoming an enabler of that culture?
A study of journal advertising support in large, multi-specialty journals fails on many key fronts.
The Jack Andraka story develops further. SSP pages on Wikipedia are taken down by a disgruntled commentator. And Andraka’s draft paper gets a preliminary review, and both the reviewers and Andraka admit it’s less game-changing than the media has led us to believe.
The vaccine-autism papers were a hoax. But a lingering controversy around the diagnosis of a celebrity’s child and her insistence on preserving her version of the facts only shows how stubborn misinformation can be.
A strange trip down memory lane, when scientific articles funded by page charges were considered advertisements. Are we entering another era of “articles as advertising,” only this time without any limitations?
The story of a teenage science whiz who used free information sources to create a novel cancer screening test may be full of holes. Whether it is or not, it no longer seems the clear, happy story the media wanted to tell.
A new poll finds that trust in scientists and science journalists is fairly low. But are the two questions separable when it comes to the general public?
As requested, here is a summary of all the things found so far through the FOIA requests regarding PubMed Central — from eLife to BMC to JMLA to conflicts of interest to coverups. It’s quite a fetch.
Our measurements of online advertising and online usage seem concrete and definitive, but they may obscure a larger truth about actual engagement and usage, leading to that subtle distinction between precision and accuracy.
The Internet rewards scale and creates clear competitive disadvantages for niche businesses. Now that a long-term economic downturn has made for starker realities, the effects of this basic set of facts seem inevitable.
The editor of eLife, on the eve of accepting his Nobel Prize, publishes an article designed to give his journal a competitive advantage. Unfortunately, the errors, lack of disclosure of his incentives, and inappropriate dismissal of incentives made the social graph light up with derision.