Tag Archives: Nature journal
Rescuing superconductivity
From a paper in Nature Reviews Physics, December 19, 2024: One of the forefront fields of modern superconductivity research is that on hydrides at high pressures. Over the past few years, this research has attracted considerable publicity, of which a … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Science
Tagged Ashkan Salamat, BCS theory, carbonaceous sulphur hydride, lutetium hydride, Nature journal, Nature Reviews Physics, peer review, Physical Review Letters, Ranga Dias, room-temperature superconductivity
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The journal’s part in a retraction
What explains a journal’s peer-review producing two different results on two separate occasions? Continue reading
Posted in Science
Tagged Ashkan Salamat, Brad Ramshaw, James Hamlin, lutetium hydride, Nature journal, peer review, Physical Review Letters, Ranga Dias, retraction, room-temperature superconductivity
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Scientists’ conduct affects science
Nature News has published an excellent feature by Edwin Cartlidge on the “wall of scepticism” that arose in response to the latest superconductivity claim from Ranga Dias et al., purportedly in a compound called nitrogen-doped lutetium hydride. It seems the … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Science
Tagged Douglas Natelson, Majorana zero modes, Microsoft Research, Mikhail Eremets, Nature journal, objectivity, Paul Feyerabend, Ranga Dias, rationalism, Russell Hemley, self-correcting
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What’s with superconductors and peer-review?
Throughout the time I’ve been a commissioning editor for science-related articles for news outlets, I’ve always sought and published articles about academic publishing. It’s the part of the scientific enterprise that seems to have been shaped the least by science’s … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Scicomm, Science
Tagged academic publishing, arXiv, Jan Hendrik Schön, LK-99, Nature journal, peer review, preprint papers, Ranga P Dias, room-temperature superconductivity, Science journal
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A ‘bold’ vision
‘Support Europe’s bold vision for responsible research assessment’, Nature editorial, July 27, 2022: The Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment, announced on 20 July and open for signatures on 28 September, is perhaps the most hopeful sign yet of real change. … Continue reading
The cycle
Is it just me or does everyone see a self-fulfilling prophecy here? For a long time, and assisted ably by the ‘publish or perish’ paradigm, researchers sought to have their papers published in high-impact-factor journals – a.k.a. prestige journals – … Continue reading
Posted in Science
Tagged for-profit publishing, impact factor, Nature journal, peer review, prestige bias, prestige journals, publish or perish, scientific publishing
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Why are the Nobel Prizes still relevant?
Note: A condensed version of this post has been published in The Wire. Around this time last week, the world had nine new Nobel Prize winners in the sciences (physics, chemistry and medicine), all but one of whom were white … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Op-eds, Science
Tagged Abhijit Banerjee, Albert Einstein, Appa Rao Podile, Booker Prize, Brian Keating, Caltech, Chien-Shiung Wu, CV Raman, Esther Duflo, Fermilab, gender-based discrimination, Göran Hansson, Hindutva, Hugo Award, impact factor, Isaac Asimov, John B Goodenough, late capitalism, Lise Meitner, Margaret Atwood, nationalism, Nature journal, Nobel laureates, Nobel Prize, prestige bias, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, sexism, The Big Bang Theory, Vera Rubin
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Prestige journals and their prestigious mistakes
On June 24, the journal Nature Scientific Reports published a paper claiming that Earth’s surface was warming by more than what non-anthropogenic sources could account for because it was simply moving closer to the Sun. I.e. global warming was the … Continue reading
Posted in Op-eds, Science
Tagged carbon dioxide, climate change, climate geoengineering, morality, Nature journal, Nature Scientific Reports, retraction index, Science journal
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