Closing out my year with a journal editor shocker 🧵 Checking new manuscripts today I reviewed a paper attributing 2 papers to me I did not write. A daft thing for an author to do of course. But intrigued I web searched up one of the titles and that's when it got real weird...

Wow Amazon prime video sucks. I pay for Prime, and then I get to watch stuff packed with adverts?

We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing: a 🧵 1/n Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820 Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/... Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...

The importance of scientific sleuthing (although, why was this paper published at all?) Apple Cider Vinegar For Weight Loss - A Study That May Never Have Happened At All open.substack.com/pub/gidmk/p/...

EASE have contributed to an @editageinsights.bsky.social article for #OpenAccessWeek Read comments from @ivagaeditor.bsky.social, @dnjournals.bsky.social @roohighosh.bsky.social @rachinams.bsky.social and @hoohar.bsky.social on the meanings of community impact www.editage.com/insights/ope...

Mathematical discovery in the age of artificial intelligence They consider how artificial intelligence tools are reshaping the way mathematical research is conducted and discuss how future developments of this technology will transform mathematical practice. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Y'all. I just got ChatGPT to do everything in R for this manuscript. I mean EVERYTHING. And it's all legit and reproducible. I'm shook. How are we mentoring our trainees in statistics now? Who needs to learn coding in R line by line, and who doesn't? scienceforeveryone.science/statistics-i...

My co-author Lennart Meincke had GPT-5 Pro look over a paper before we submitted it to a journal. It caught a tiny error in the citations that we missed (apparently it estimated the volume) A big difference from constant hallucinations, especially GPT5 Pro; though not error-free.

In general I think it's hard to combat scientific misinformation when some of the best research is locked behind an academic paywall, while lots of nonsense gets published free for everyone to read in predatory journals.

This is why I say patience is key when working with language models. If the output is directionally correct, or even just wrong in an interesting way, let it keep iterating and see where it goes! scottaaronson.blog?p=9183

We need new rules for publishing AI-generated research. The teams developing automated AI scientists have customarily submitted their papers to standard refereed venues (journals and conferences) and to arXiv. Often, acceptance has been treated as the dependent variable. 1/

#PredatoryJournals just look different. But the biggest difference in #GraphicDesign was that PDFs from legitimate journals were much more likely to be made with Adobe apps. PDFs from predatory journals much more likely to be made with Microsoft Office. doi.org/10.1007/s111...

Everyone wins! #alttext #accessibility

Partnership Alert! Cactus Communications has partnered with CSIRO Publishing, Australia’s leading science publisher, to support authors with access to expert language and writing services through our flagship brand, Editage. Read the full announcement here: cactusglobal.com/media-center...

Guest Post – Code Plagiarism and AI Create New Challenges for Publishing Integrity - The Scholarly Kitchen

I'm going to be in Chicago the first week of September - come and find me and talk peer review, the ethics & implementation of AI, and turning submission backlogs into $$$.

💯 This is exactly what I've been trying to say in like 100 workshops and videos on research posters. State a conclusion, then defend it. Versus working up to it over 500 words that people won't spend the time to read.

My conclusion from this is that preprint servers (and journals!) are entering a new phase of cat and mouse trying to contain AI slop (n.b., not mundane AI use, but nonsense generation). Peer review as a filter scarcely does better to ID this stuff. We need new & better tools to ID trustworthy works.

Can anyone recommend a book which acts as a lay persons guide to anaesthesia? My understanding is that large parts of it work, but we don’t know why and I’d love to find out more. Thx

Could hidden AI prompts game peer review?

This kind of smart, walkable, mixed-use development is illegal to build these days.

@camsell59.bsky.social congrats on the success of your book. 13 million sales is quite something.

I always felt my (mainly irritating mostly Quixotic) quest to get peer reviewers paid was correct. And the more I see scientists struggle financially, the more distasteful I find external demands to access their time for free. But that’s one part. There is another and it’s getting worse.

"Book publishers, especially those of nonfiction and textbooks, also told me they anticipate a massive decrease in sales, as chatbots can both summarize their books and give detailed explanations of their contents."

📢 Webinar Alert! AI is reshaping the future of scholarly publishing, but how do you implement it responsibly and effectively? Secure your spot now: www.airmeet.com/e/9fc043b0-4...

If you send me a "hi john" on Teams without a follow up of what you're needing... I'm not responding... the conversation will stay at "hi john" for eternity. Please stop doing this people

It’s that time of year again to cross reference DORA signatories with press releases about impact factors (*sigh*)

Been thinking a lot about academic journals and their Editorial Boards recently. Specifically, how useful they could become in the age of AI… 🧵 1/9

If this is you, talk to me. Cactus offers 7-day, human-only peer review using our worldwide network of 4,500 peer review experts.

Anyone at #aupresses25 should take a look at this >>>

Peer review is genuinely not a fraud detection mechanism and shouldn't be taken to be. It's not really a knock against a peer review system for failing to pick up when data is faked. The system is already over worked if we did data forensics at scale as a standard part of review it grinds to a halt.

Should LLMs be used to review papers? AAAI is piloting LLM-generated reviews this year. I wrote a blog post arguing that using LLMs as reviewers can have bad downstream consequences for science by centralizing judgments about what constitutes good research. bryanwilder.github.io/files/llmrev...

"A literature that's ...polluted with junk is not only no good to anyone, it's a source of real harm, and it lends itself to ... bad-faith attacks on scientific research in general... We need to speak up more about this situation and we need to start cleaning house more vigorously" #Papermills 🧪

Chirag Jay Patel will be speaking at #SSP2025 on two key themes: Practical applications of AI in publishing and the need for robust policies for responsible AI use. Catch Chirag in Baltimore and don’t forget to drop by Booth 102, we’d be glad to see you there. #ScholarlyPublishing #Academia

This is a must-read. Csaba Szabó, the author of Unreliable, was approached by a paper mill, and he decided to conduct a sting operation. He documented how paper mills operate. forbetterscience.com/2025/05/19/a...

Been reading about Norilsk, the second-largest city inside the Arctic circle, and boy - is it a weird place. Here's what they listen to on the radio:

It’s rare to get quality journalism devoted to academia ( and publishing) outside of Nature and Science, but The Conversation is a rare beast!

What songs am I missing here in describing the academic research paper publishing process? Have at it pop pickers: open.spotify.com/playlist/1Mq...

By now, I'm hoping most academics know about the pollution our literature is suffering from paper mills and their fake papers. But there's another problem! Another that is created by the whole research assessment strategies we have: fake patents. Dive in: edintegrity.biomedce...

Apparently the GOP and WH were sleeping their way through Econ class in the 1980s. “Did the tariffs raise or lower taxes? Anyone? anyone? They Raised taxes. And did they work? Anyone? Anyone? They did not work and it plunged the economy deeper into the depression.” youtu.be/Yk3-Vb7CH-o?...

@azeem.bsky.social bringing the LOLz this morning.

Should universities make misconduct reports public? This paper argues they should; in my view, at a minimum they should share them with journal editors and publishers. We’d live to collaborate more and openly. It’s in everyone’s interest, in the end #AcademicSky www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Just checking out both BAR publishing and the Fulcrum content platform and got thoroughly derailed by this book. A fantastic read on all aspects of death. Did not expect to read this this morning! www.fulcrum.org/concern/mono...

These three characters need to be sent back to the pavilion immediately.

India’s One Nation One Subscription programme opens up access to all journals to all researchers in the worlds most populous country. How are you going to stand out?

Hey @mixcloud.bsky.social is there really no way to subscribe to channels on the iOS app? Why not?

They have some pretty cool illusions at World of Illusions in #Dublin. This one’s a black and white photo with a coloured grid superimposed. You perceive the image in colour. (Zoom in to see the details.)

us government went from telling miners “learn to code” to telling coders “learn to mine” in less than ten years

Interesting read: New research from HBR, from 2024 to 2025, the top #AI use cases have become: Therapy/companionship Organizing my life Finding purpose Big drops: Editing text Search specific hbr.org/2025/04/how-...