Coming soon: Don’t be an asshole reviewer!

Gather the reviews that you got for your research papers and grant applications. Everyone has one or more of those Continue reading →

Pope’s resignation and scientific research.

You may wonder what has Pope Benedict’s resignation to do with scientific research. Well, not much. But the discussions that Continue reading →

Fire the editor.

If a paper is retracted because of falsified data the authors probably did terribly wrong things in the name of Continue reading →

One PI =One R01 grant.

The great economic crisis in the Western world has affected the academic and research institutions.  One of the major funding Continue reading →

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: The concert hall at Continue reading →

Scientific Research: A Ponzi Scheme.

Recently, a friend and colleague blurted out, “Man, academic scientific research is a Ponzi scheme”.  At first I laughed at Continue reading →

Profitable reviews: Nature Immunology defends reviews.

In one of my previous rantings (Click here), I wrote about how journals publish reviews to improve their impact factor. Continue reading →

Author ranking system: ‘Impact factor’ of the last author.

We all know that there is a very little room at the first author position on any scientific paper.  There Continue reading →

Scientific misconduct debate: The idea is getting traction.

We have all wondered about the debate over scientific misconduct and the utter lack of accountability demanded by the ‘system’. Continue reading →

Impact Factor: Who are you bullshitting?

At the lunch table, I was thinking of an experiment when my attention turned to a colleague whose paper was Continue reading →