It's 2025.723 and scientists are still putting too many decimal places in their results.

When the zombie apocalypse starts in Brisbane

Peer reviewers are more likely to recommend accepting papers that cite their work — my latest for @cenmag.bsky.social: cen.acs.org/policy/publi... @aidybarnett.bsky.social

“I still yearn for the good old days…” From the latest Private Eye, out now.

Since search is dead, how soon do you think Google Scholar is headed for the Google Graveyard? I'm betting it's soon, and academia is NOT prepared

Reviewers are more likely to approve manuscripts if authors agree to cite their work than those who don't get cited. Thanks to @aidybarnett.bsky.social, @balazsaczel.bsky.social and @econfeld.bsky.social for chatting with me for this story! www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Don't miss out!

Sadly familiar story on the ABC over government interference in scientific results www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08.... I fully support the statistician (Adrian Baddeley) for quitting.

Retraction by ‪@mdpiopenaccess.bsky.social‬ of a paper in which a University of West Florida professor appears to have photoshopped his model airplane into a photo of a NASA wind tunnel mdpi.com/2226-4310/7/... pubpeer.com/publications...

If there's anyone listening from the Global Burden of Disease, your data is being used for trash studies and your reputation is heading down the toilet.

Care about #reproducibility in research & publishing? Join this webinar on Aug 27th, jointly organised by @aimosinc.bsky.social & @ausrepro.bsky.social on statistical reproducibility with @michelenuijten.bsky.social & @tomhardwicke.bsky.social Free - register here qut.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

A new preprint showing strong evidence of peer reviewers engaging in transactional peer review as some only approved a manuscript after requesting and then getting cited osf.io/preprints/os...

The NHMRC has today released a Good Institutional Practice Guide. I'm biased, because I was involved in its development, but I think it's a great document that the Australian research community really needs. www.nhmrc.gov.au/about-us/pub...

Today, our article "The entities enabling scientific fraud at scale are large, resilient, and growing rapidly" is finally published in PNAS. I hope that it proves to be a wake-up-call for the whole scientific community. reeserichardson.blog/2025/08/04/a...

Once upon a time, two science journalists had an idea for a blog about retractions. And on Aug. 3, 2010, Retraction Watch launched. And now, 15 years and 6,700 posts later, that work seems more important than ever. Happy 15th anniversary, Retraction Watch.

As a statistician, I am getting very "First they came" vibes here, but this is just rot and bonkers. I remember campaigning for Andreas Georgiou when the Greek government pulled a similar trick. I know the international stats community will rally together again, but will anything change?

Almost all my bug bears in one paragraph

Two thoughtful and rapid reviews, MetaROR is the best place for meta-research.

I’m thinking of starting a new field of research that compares lettuces. Its name? Cos-effectiveness.

Monday morning mood

The research literature is an unsafe workplace... flagging papers with verifiable errors will improve the safety of everyone working in the research literature. 🧬 search.app?link=https%3...

Australia's failure to enforce research integrity: "CSIRO chief executive Doug Hilton said the Smyth case clearly highlighted the need for an independent research misconduct watchdog instead of allowing universities to investigate allegations against their staff." www.smh.com.au/national/the...

Thrilled to welcome University of Bremen & the University of Oldenburg as new German #MoreThanOurRank signatories! Celebrate diverse excellence―learn more: inorms.net/more-than-ou... 🌍🙌 and shorturl.at/W6jja

“Australia joins 24 countries to demand immediate end to Gaza war” - better late than never. www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

An important paper on the growing issue of "one click science" papers that were only created to boost track records and have contents that are, at best, hollow and at worst dangerous. I have been a big advocate for open data, but some data sets are too open. www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

Time for your yearly reminder that “We need less research, better research, and research done for the right reasons”. #OTD 1948 Douglas Altman b (d 3 June 2018) “One of the most influential medical statisticians of the past 50 years” he led reforms in medical research reliability & reporting. 1/3

I am seriously concerned about the state of scientific research. It was bad before LLMs, but now the rubbish is the mode.

All retracted articles should immediately become open access.

Innovations in #ScholarlyCommunication and #ResponsibleResearchAssessment need to go hand in hand. New guest post by @jasonchin.bsky.social, @ludowaltman.bsky.social, and Kathryn Zeiler, editors at @metaror.bsky.social, share insights on these connections. Read more👇 sfdora.org/2025/07/08/m...

The MJA is proud to publish a Special Issue on Indigenous Health titled “Carving our path with spirit, strength and solidarity” Available online at buff.ly/O5ARJkz or as an eJournal at buff.ly/BUAR6CA #NAIDOCWeek #NAIDOC2025

🖇Today, we look at a paper whose "authors examine reproducibility and replicability in qualitative research". According to the assessment, "both reviewers found the article to be technically sound, interesting, and of likely value to the field." 👇 Read the assessment, reviews & full text on MetaROR

Last day to come along and say hello and grab a copy of the Practical Guide to Implementing Responsible Research Assessment at Research Performing Organizations and an @dorassessment.bsky.social brownie! And come along to the session at 11.30 on the many dimensions of research assessment

@metaror.bsky.social is a scholar-controlled peer review service for metascience research. Check us out! Metaror.org #metascience2025 (I am an associate editor at MetaRoR) @ludowaltman.bsky.social @aidybarnett.bsky.social

If you’re in London and interested in metascience-y things, there’s more going on than just the official conference! Please help spread the word! #metascience2025

Strong recommend

On a writing retreat at QUT’s research station in the bush. Just perfect.

Two websites, one journal. The Journal of Informetrics has been hijacked. This is not just any journal, it's a well-known title published by Elsevier. More journals from reputable publishers are being hijacked since recently. Guess which screenshot belongs to the original journal? HT: Paul Donner

On #WorldRefugeeDay, we stand in solidarity with all refugees & reaffirm that … ‘HEALTH IS A HUMAN RIGHT’, not a privilege. Everyone deserves access to safe, dignified, culturally sensitive & affordable care. #HealthForAll 👉 bit.ly/4kQoVDu

Radical new stats methods section for those who desire to be different: “Statistical non-significance was set at p > 0.05.”

“In all my discussions with scientists across every sector, exactly zero think the journal system works well.” Some will disagree with aspects of Seemay’s analysis but this point is undoubtedly true open.substack.com/pub/asterain...?

I have a file called "statistical review.txt" for reviewing papers using regression models. The first line is: "There was no model checking, such as residuals checks or checks of influential variables." I rarely need to delete this line.

Perfect “winter” morning with Waffles

Australian friends! I'm going to be visiting Sydney in just over a week. I'll be at UNSW on June 23-25th and Macquarie on June 26-27th. I'd love to catch up with people in person, and also will be giving (at least) two talks at UNSW. The first is science-of-science modeling talk, on June 23:

Join @aimosinc.bsky.social and @ausrepro.bsky.social for our next webinar ▶️ Preventing statistical errors before publication ⏰ 4-5 PM AEST 27th August 🗣️ Dr Michèle Nuijten & Dr Tom Hardwicke 🎟️ Free - register here qut.zoom.us/meeting/regi... @michelenuijten.bsky.social @tomhardwicke.bsky.social

New paper. Trends in scientific writing. More noun chunks and sensational language. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Confused about linear regression assumptions? Our latest study breaks down the top misconceptions and offers practical tips to avoid them. journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

Just had a flick through the ‘Top 100 Scholars’ in the ScholarGPS citation rankings. Only one is female and she died in 2017. So before you promote your institution’s ‘Top Scholars’ stop and think whether being male and highly cited is really your definition of ‘top’. scholargps.com/highly-ranke...

Read more: chaser.com.au/world/trump-...

Glorious Friday afternoon

#RFK wants to start his own journal. How about the "Journal of Knowledge Emancipated"?