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.
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.
As consumers, we are often seduced by the apparent simplicity of the products we use. This can lead us to believe that products are as easy to make as they are to consume — and that is a mistake.
A somewhat strange anonymous letter raises questions, both intentional and unintentional, about the Copyright Clearance Center.
The pursuit of transparency and use of disclosures in place of actual ethics may be creating a culture of accommodation rather than one fostering independence. Where does transparency belong?
In a decision that may have deep and wide-ranging implications for the publishing industry and for future applications of the fair use doctrine, Judge Denny Chin has dismissed the Authors Guild’s eight-year-old lawsuit against Google over its Google Books project.
The PMC NAC, facing controversies about its oversight functions and seeing the focus of its oversight embroiled in a public scandal, said nothing about these topics at its latest meeting.
A long, thoughtful essay by a UK academic contemplating open access merits attention, for obvious and subtle reasons.
Using free government infrastructure that’s not available to everyone else raises questions of fairness, which lead to questions of harm. But who is harmed may be both obvious and subtle.
Thoughts on the future of the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC).