Science journalism by Leonid Schneider, on research integrity and academic publishing in life sciences and biomedicine
Science communication by press release. No paper is published, no data available, but a Max Planck Institute director is eager to announce a possible cure for COVID-19: artemisia extracts, by his own company.
With the German professor George Iliakis, I would like to celebrate all the grand old patriarchs of cancer research who built this gigantic field and saved the lives of many patients, with good, solid and hard work. In Photoshop.
“Publishing in natural sciences proceeds under structures similar to the mafia. Professors exploit the creativity of their subordinates. Predatory authorship increases the number of authors. This leads to a loss of scientific quality and destroys trust in science.”
Euroimmun founder Winfried Stöcker replies to criticism of his company’s publications: “Dr. Elisabeth Bik’s observations are not suitable to bring us into disrepute.”
EuroImmun is a German diagnostics biotech, founded by the most charming Professor Stöcker and recently sold to PerkinElmer. Elisabeth Bik checked some of company’s papers, many coauthored by Stöcker himself, and she raised questions. The company says this “testifies to a lack of knowledge of the matter”.
Suppose they gave a talk and no one came. It’s easy if you try.
The German Academy of Sciences, Leopoldina, advertises for Ashutosh Tiwari’s predatory conferences. Occasion: Academician Herbert Gleiter won an IAAM Award.
Germany recruits the very best of the best in international science to its elite institutions. Professor Alexandr Bazhin is one of them.
Katrin Amunts and University of Düsseldorf deploy lawyers to silence whistleblowers. After I was threatened with lawsuit, this post replaces the previous one. Learn the truth of who owns the brains in Moscow.
Katrin Amunts is director of Human Brain Project. Back when the Berlin Wall fell, this Moscow-trained young neuroscientist from GDR found a new mentor in Western Germany: Professor Karl Zilles. It is a remarkable story of a literal brain drain.
