No laughing matter
A small, highly specialized medical journal makes its first attempt at satire in 21 years. The New Year’s Eve spoof paperContinue Reading
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Frontiers Christmas Carol
The Swiss academic publisher Frontiers, owned by the EPFL professor Henry Markram and his wife Kamila (plus some investors, includingContinue Reading
Berlin12: closed society at an open access conference
Richard Poynder, British independent journalist and open access (OA) activist of many years, has reported on December 17th 2015 about the recent Berlin12Continue Reading
Optionally transparent peer review: a major step forward, but which direction?
A journal of the Nature Publishing group (NPG) has recently announced “Transparent peer review at Nature Communications”. Transparent peer reviewContinue Reading
Post-publication peer review: signed or anonymous?
The post-publication peer review (PPPR) has become a heated discussion topic. Precisely, the issue is not whether PPPR is necessary (the oppositionContinue Reading
Is EMBO funding misconduct?
This is a NEWS post. My Twitter feed recently showed that the highly respected European research organisation, EMBO, is funding aContinue Reading
Stem cell cures for everything, Made in Germany by TICEBA
The Heidelberg-based company TICEBA (abbreviated from Tissue & Cell Banking) is not your ordinary run-of-the-mill cell bank. This German company,Continue Reading
Open Science, Open Scientists
On the evening of December 5th, I participated at the OpenCon Satellite Event in Berlin. It was organised by Jon TennantContinue Reading
Future of PhD: rabid social Darwinism and wicked concepts for more power abuse
Nature News made a survey and asked scientists about the perspectives of PhD. The tag line goes: “There are tooContinue Reading
Undeserved authorships: Blog + Poll
Recently, Nature News brought an article about the issue of scientific authorships. A Twitter discussion was started by Dorothy Bishop,Continue Reading
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