The hottest Scientific Publishing Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
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Top Science Topics

The Office of Research Integrity Should Investigate Nature Medicine’s Corrupt “Proximal Origins” Paper

The DisInformation Chronicle • 365 implied HN points • 13 Jan 26
🏥 Health Politics Scientific Publishing
  1. House investigators and public emails show Jeremy Farrar helped organize and lead drafting of the Proximal Origins paper but was not listed or acknowledged, which the piece frames as ghostwriting that meets federal plagiarism criteria.
  2. Because the paper disclosed NIH funding, the Office of Research Integrity has legal authority to investigate it for fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism.
  3. ORI currently relies on Scripps, Tulane, and other institutions to investigate themselves, and the article argues that if those institutional reports ignore the public evidence, it would indicate the ORI system is broken and needs reform.

How Nature Became a 'Prestige' Journal

Asimov Press • 548 implied HN points • 05 Jan 26
🔬 Science Scientific Publishing
  1. Prestige grew from more than merit: wealthy patronage, elite scientific networks, fast weekly publication, and an expanding international audience made the journal influential early on.
  2. Mid-century editorial reforms — faster processing, mandatory peer review, and deliberate selectivity — turned publication into a powerful career signal and a common focal point for researchers across fields.
  3. Today that prestige is contested: digital publishing, preprints, open‑access pushes, and concerns about errors and gatekeeping are forcing reforms like transparent peer review and tougher retraction practices.

The Alimonti Addendum

The Honest Broker Newsletter • 1266 implied HN points • 26 Aug 23
🔬 Science Scientific Publishing
  1. A scientific paper was retracted due to negative press and criticism, not due to substantive issues.
  2. The retraction was driven by a single sentence in the paper, not related to data or analysis.
  3. Peer review process irregularities and external influences impacted the retraction, highlighting issues in scientific publishing.

Accelerating American Scientific Enterprise

A Biologist's Guide to Life • 18 implied HN points • 13 Dec 25
🔬 Science Scientific Publishing
  1. Make grants faster, smaller, and easier by using short, sanity-check proposals and quick, staged payments so good ideas get funded fast and funders can adapt based on real results.
  2. End the traditional journal bottleneck and create a public platform for immediate researcher-led publication, using that system's metrics for hiring and funding to remove delays, costs, and points of sabotage.
  3. Reform intellectual property so scientists keep the majority of their inventions and share royalties with institutions, align business-developer pay with commercialization success, and tighten biotech patent rules with verifiable proof separating natural from engineered innovations.
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