A Bingdi lotus is in bloom
“Mr. Efferth firmly rejects the suspicion raised against him of involvement in paper mill activities and in the publication of automatically generated publications.” – University of Mainz
Tag: China
Mind over Antibody
“I considered whether I should email Abcam and ask them to change the name of the ab51243 antibody on their website to reduce confusion, but […] I will instead continue to watch the carnage, perhaps it has only just started!” – Sholto David
Graphyne Chronicles
“Black crap formed in all cases. None of it was graphyne. None of it contained any detectable sp¹ carbons” – Valentin Rodionov
The Kingdom of Rui Reis
“I think this story shows the debacle and corruption of entire research fields that become just a very expensive show of bad science-fiction. ” – Carabus Maleki
Crunchy Frog and Cockroach Cluster
“On one side: late-career scientists resorting to purchased promotion of their early-career papers. On the other side: whole new genres of paper-shaped artifacts that are little more than packaging for ever-larger citation cargoes, and papermillers no longer bothering to find buyers for naming rights on their products.” – Smut Clyde
Scientific Reports 2025: A Year in Review
“In this blog I write about papers published by Scientific Reports in 2025, so we could consider it to be a sort of “wrap-up” of highlights and special achievements in the world’s biggest scientific journal™ in 2025.” – Sholto David
The Lies of Mice
“The closer I looked, the worse it was. Not just because it’s sad to think too much about the poor lives of a laboratory mouse, but also because the researchers who used these mice didn’t have the decency to be truthful about their poor lives. ” – Viola Sheltonii
Not a single molecule
“Nothing helps more to happily resolve such “scientific controversies” than replacement data, and this is exactly what Prof. Guo and his group provided in their response. ” – Maarten van Kampen
The Heidelberg whistleblower
“Given Jost Jonas’ high productivity and his German origin, could it be that he somehow profits from helping Asian institutions with boosting their publication metrics?” – Aneurus Inconstans
Fady & Marian, or How to share a Photoshop license
“If you need a graphics designer with basic photo shop skills to tune up your data, they might be the right team for the job!” – Fabian Wittmers
For Better Science 