Interesting info in there about how stars are analyzed, too.
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This happened to pop up in my recommendations today⌠going all the way back to 2016, but has a better explainer of how the optical illusions that were mentioned a while back actually work.
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Interesting â not that I really understand it, but I am curious about dark matter and dark energy. But why do they use some sort of equation processor to label the hexaquark?
Wouldnât d*(2380) work just as well? Or am I missing something?
D-2380? Whoa. Thatâs like the ultimate D&D dice, man.
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Site contains animation, but:
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Looking at one quote from the paperâs author:
Currently, the sun moves closer to the Earth during summers and autumns in the Northern hemisphere. This is why we feel higher temperatures in the summers and autumns and colder one in the winter and springs. In the Southern Hemisphere the situation vice versa, of course.
So, they apparently donât realize that the sunâs closer to earth in the northern hemisphereâs winter, not summer. Or that the earthâs distance from the sun canât possibly cause both the northern and southern hemisphereâs seasons at the same time.
And theyâre lecturing other people about being biased by their ideas.
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Thanks a lot 
â I just wasted a hour going through the PubPeer argument between the author and the ones trying to educate her. She refuses to give in, insults everyone, and apparently used plagiarized figures in non-retractions on her universityâs website. I pity her students.
It is fascinating to see the back and forth of the scientists, though.
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I just got to the RetractionWatch article, and the authorâs statement:
We said that the Sun-Earth distance would change UP to 0.02 au not that it would change BY 0.02 au.
I guess that âbarely changes at allâ would be consistent with âchanges by UP TO 0.02auâ, but I still wouldnât classify that as a reasonable statement.
And I definitely agree about pitying any students. This seems to be someone who just absolutely cannot, under any circumstances, accept being wrong no matter how much evidence is shown.
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Iâm fairly certain the glam publishers put out this type
of nonsense on purpose to drive up page clicks. Iâd be interested to see the actual pre-publication reviews, but those are confidential.
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Only if itâs open access.
Now, there are prestige outlets (new york times, economist, new yorker) that have limited paywalls, and this sort of thing encourages punters to waste their allotment on fluff, instead of the in depth analysis that the âprestigeâ supposedly implies. But neither Nature nor Science go in for that sort of thing. The free stuff is curated. (As well it should be)
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Iâm not really sure what youâre trying to say here. Both the open access and non-open articles can and do show ads. Different journals negotiate ad sales based on different stats. The publisher I work most closely with mostly uses download stats, but for larger publishers that do things like operate subsidiary news services and job boards, click stats arenât unheard of.
Again, not sure what you mean by âthe free stuffâ, but open access fees are typically paid by the author, not ad sales. Iâm on track to pay 5600 in OA fees this year, for instance. To the extent that that content is curated, it is curated by the ability of an author to pony up.
I donât really see the publication model as analogous to traditional media houses like the New Yorker. Scientific publishing is inherently parasitic, relying on unpaid labor and author wealth.
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editorial content, opinion, stuff published for charity.
It would seem that scientifc reports has failed its stated mission.
To be published in Scientific Reports , a paper must be scientifically valid and technically sound in methodology and analysis. Manuscripts are not assessed based on their perceived importance, significance or impact; the research community makes such judgements after publication. We are happy to publish papers of niche scope, that lie between disciplines, report negative results, or scientifically-justified replications.
Here we have a paper that wasnât technically sound, and may have been published on the âbasis of perceived importance, significance or impactâ
Thereâs a bit of trickery in that phrasing: most journals will ask each reviewer to directly rate the paper on importance (sometimes called relevance). The glams typically ask reviewers to also rank on ânoveltyâ. So itâs an actual score in the review form. They might very well be doing that, just informally. I reviewed for another glam a couple years ago that dropped ânoveltyâ from its criteria. The editor summary still breathlessly praised the boldness and novelty. But hey - I didnât check a novelty box so woooohoooooo.
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Is there any difference between journals that get sold to libraries, or institutions (and have the price to match) and journals that get sold to individuals?
I canât think of a journal that doesnât have both individual and enterprise (university, government, industry) subscription packages. Usually journals are sold in bundles from publishers, but some (Science, Nature, Cell) might be sold indepently. IME, few institutions get access to Scientific Reports because itâs sort of known to be a clearing house for stuff you thought would get into Science, but it didnât. So no one is pushing their library to pay the extra 15k or whatever for it.
Itâs increasingly common to see open journals that make all their money from author fees and none from subscriptions. My society is exploring this model right now. Iâve published in these before and they have advantages and disadvantages.
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https://www.elsevier.com/journals/institutional/tetrahedron/0040-4020
This journal does not feature personal pricing and is not available for personal subscription.
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Thatâs weird as hell. Weekly is, outside of glam journals that get thousands of submissions, really weird. My editorial in chief wants each of the associate editors (first level editors) to handle one MS at a time, preferably about one a month per MS. Not always possible. The type of labor needed to have this many papers monthly is really suspect. The impact factor is low, but not that low. Itâs not uncommon for a specialized journal in my field to have this impact factor.
All publishing houses are shady. They mostly make money on investment, not scientific content. I refuse to review for this publisher, Elsevier, due to their known investment in the international arms trade. My guess is that if they donât offer personal subscriptions, the publisher has deemed it not worth devoting man power to manage those subscriptions. Journal backend software is awful. Absurdly awful. Most journals have an assigned person to support user issues. Given the impact factor, my guess is Elsevier decided it wasnât worth the salary.
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I dug through some OA papers in this, and their annual conference. I just have more questions.
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