No, we don't need better tools to detect AI - that horse bolted last year. We need to move upstream. Stop incentivizing volume, raise the bar for legitimacy, require verifiable provenance, and solve the identity validation problem. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Despite its importance, peer review is something rarely taught. HHMI have a new peer review training program that takes advantage of preprints openrxiv.org/peer-review-...

"We propose a fundamental change in what counts: researchers should be assessed not by journal publications or journal-based metrics, but by the outputs they have publicly shared themselves..." HHMI's pitch for a healthier research assessment paradigm 🚀 zenodo.org/records/1960...

I think I'm not old enough to be watching Euphoria.

"Maybe truly revolutionary theories must follow that trajectory. If a scientific idea is young and it’s not cringe, it probably has no promise. But if it’s old and it’s still cringe, it probably has no merit." www.experimental-history.com/p/nothing-ev...

Nature Publishing Group finding more dastardly ways to lock us in, well beyond what I complained about in my letter declining reviewing for them

This is hands down the best article I've read on this topic: the imperative to transcend the superficiality of the pdf for research outputs. "This is the bridge from search to understanding: from “find me a paper about X” to “help me reason whether X applies in context Y.”

GLP-1 agonists (eg Ozempic) are showing promise to reduce alcohol drinking and perhaps opioid use. This is, of course, a potential therapeutic success which arises from the random walking of science, not an “efficient” directed research program.

Preprints of pandemic potential - new historical piece from me on the history of bioRxiv/medRxiv, their role in the pandemic, and the way forward. 1/n journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Did slashing multiple vaccines from the childhood vaccine schedule bring the US in line with other countries? In a word, no. The US now recommends all kids be protected against fewer diseases than South Korea, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan & many more. www.statnews.com/2026/01/09/c...

"[Our current ecosystem] treats shared infrastructure like a free beer rather than a free puppy." An important read on the dangers of open purism, though I'm not sure I agree with the ultimate conclusion. Maybe creative solutions will emerge. rosalynmetz.substack.com/p/openness-h...

I rarely appreciate a bumper sticker...

petition to make the entire winter as liminal as the space between Christmas and New Years.

Damn, Wendy’s

Zoe Weissman - survivor of 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, FL Mia Tretta - survivor of 2019 Saugus High School shooting in Santa Clarita, CA Both are now students at Brown University in Providence, RI.

"Reforms should be implemented in a coordinated and collective manner; otherwise, [those] who depart from journal-based metrics may risk a decline in international rankings, thereby reducing their competitiveness [...]." Ay, there's the rub utppublishing.com/doi/10.3138/...

Nature Sci Rep publishes incoherent AI slop. eLife publishes a paper which the reviewers didn't agree with, making all the comments and responses public with thoughtful commentary. One of these journals got delisted by Web of Science for quality concerns from not doing peer review. Guess which one?

Image screening is going to fail. We need audit trails for data provenance.

"The actors with real power are funders (government, foundations) and institutions, who can set the policies that determine what can be published where, and who shape the incentive structures used in promotion and hiring." blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsoci...

We have to get serious about identity verification in scientific publishing. It is the fundamental problem at the core of many of the integrity issues we're seeing. I realize this is not straightforward... www.nytimes.com/2025/11/04/s...

RIP Jim Watson. You inspired many of us to pursue a life in research. I wish you had made it easier for us to celebrate your legacy.

I’m finding I’m now at lot less likely to correct my kids’ grammar/phrasing for school assignments. Fuck it - at least it’s obvious they wrote themselves.

Some of y'all have never heard the thing about letting the perfect be the enemy of the good - and it shows.

We just posted an impact story on policies at HHMI, Gates & Astera promoting #OpenAccess #OpenScience #OpenData. Powerful signals to other funders to accelerate discovery in science. Well done @madubs.bsky.social @openaccessmaven.bsky.social @pracheeac.bsky.social! sparcopen.org/impact-story...

New blog post. In which I analyze the new HHMI announcement and what it means for the science publishing ecosystem openrxiv.org/preprint-man...

(Part 1) Hear from @hhmi_news Investigator David Stern about his research program and what he's uncovering in the lab. Stern will join the Institute in February 2026, bringing his lab and HHMI appointment to Kansas City. @hhmi.org Read more: bit.ly/4np96Fb

Feeling profound gratitude for my incredible colleagues and getting to play a part in change that really matters. With the Immediate Access to Research policy, we are shifting our focus from journal-curated articles toward researcher-shared preprints. hhmicdn.blob.core.windows.net/policies/Imm...

"Tylenol can't cause autism, autism came first!" This is a terrible argument, stop making it. There are GOOD arguments against the claim, but this is obviously missing the point and makes you sound extremely ignorant to anyone who has looked into the issue.

AI can now generate fake microscopy images that are nearly impossible to detect. A serious threat to scientific integrity—and we’re not prepared for it. Commentary in @natnano.nature.com #nanotechnology

This year, my kid’s school has rolled out a house system a la Harry Potter. The houses are named for constellations: Phoenix, Hydra, Orion, Pegasus, and - wait for it - Draco! 😣 Yes, I know it’s the Dragon but was there no better option?! IYKYK

A lovely write-up of our panel at CSE on the Future of Scientific Editing and Publishing www.csescienceeditor.org/article/the-...

FlyBase, a Drosophila database, will lose a third of its team in early October because the Harvard grant that covered the employees’ salaries was canceled. Scientists warn that losing FlyBase could devastate fly research. By @claudia-lopez.bsky.social www.thetransmitter.org/community/ha...

Dolly Parton has sent my daughter a new book every month for years as she does for thousands of children. She help fund the development of the Covid vaccine. She’s not a billionaire. I think as non wealthy people it’s hard to even imagine how much billionaires *could* be doing with their money.

"A system that showcases only the sanitized outcomes of editorial selection gives us just half the picture. We can – and must – aim higher." blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsoci...

Academia may be a prestige economy but it wasn’t some choice of scientific leadership- we do it to ourselves, every day. Leadership rarely makes tenure criteria too down - it’s a committee of peers that sets it up for institutions. Leadership doesn’t sit on study sections - it’s peers doing it!

I’m petrified about today’s science news. Genetically modifying crabs to have cheetah genes? This could go sideways fast.

Possibly the most worrying part of this story is that the authors using this hack are assuming that reviewers are using LLMs to write their reviews (and they're probably right) 😣 asia.nikkei.com/Business/Tec...

Springer-Nature launched a series of "Discover" journals that closely mimic MDPI titles -- sharing *identical* journal names, and likely similar business model. What is going on, and why researcher will - as always - fall for it? A 🧵 the-strain-on-scientific-publishing.github.io/website/post...

must be incredibly frustrating and disheartening to have federal funding that was promised to you for important work suddenly and arbitrarily ripped away

Brilliant

It's all so farcical. Nobody could seriously believe that there's some plan here which goes step 1: cancel all foreign student visas at Harvard, step 2: ?????, step 3: increase replication rates in biology. The lie is so transparent as to be insulting.

The level of surveillance and policing demanded by transphobia will always be more disruptive to your life than the rights and demands of trans people ourselves

Michelle and I are thinking of the entire Biden family. Nobody has done more to find breakthrough treatments for cancer in all its forms than Joe, and I am certain he will fight this challenge with his trademark resolve and grace. We pray for a fast and full recovery.

Just learned of this effort to crowd-source a mega list of examples of benefits to health, prosperity, and national security resulting from federally-funded research. 41 examples listed to date. Please share and send ideas! publicusaresearchbenefits.com h/t @carlosbrody.bsky.social

DeLAURO: Are you planning to break the law by impounding appropriated funds? RFK Jr: If you appropriate the funds, I'm going to spend them D: We have! You're cutting the NIH by $18b. Congress appropriated those funds. How can you justify cutting billions from the biomedical research budget?

BILL GATES: “The picture of the world’s richest man killing the world’s poorest children is not a pretty one.” @financialtimes.com www.ft.com/content/bdd9...

If you're having a good day, let me ruin it by noting that there are entire journals out there filled with a majority of fraudulent studies - even RCTs - that impact patient care and very little is being done to address the problem.

Maybe if we published negative reviews people would be more careful about when and what they submit and we’d all be better off for it

📢 Today I was supposed to be in DC, highlighting what the NSF Social, Behavioral, & Economic Sciences delivers to US taxpayers. NSF had one of the highest returns on investment (ROIs) of federal grantors 👏🏻 (1) and NSF SBE funded 63% of US social and psychological science research (2). 🧵

I would like to see an example of a single preprint on a screened server that could not have conceivably appeared in a "peer reviewed" journal? scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2025/04/17/g...