Ever since the Science article about a sting operation to reveal the murky business that goes on in the name of Open Access journals came out, the academic world has been thrown into a tizzy. I decided to do a series of posts exploring the issue of predatory open access and the issues surrounding them. The first post … Continue reading
Category Archives: Research Blogging
Predatory Open Access: Part 1 – A Sting Op and Indictment of the OA Model
In the last couple of days, an article from Science has literally gone viral in the scientific circles. It is yet another indictment of what Jeffrey Beall has termed as Predatory Open Access. In a series of posts, I shall comment on this issue. In the first post of this series, I talk about briefly regarding … Continue reading
Penile Cancer: Another Reason to Stop Banging Animals: (Insert Zoophilia Joke)
First up, I cannot believe the numbers! This is awe-inspiring. I read the abstract three times in order to convince myself that I was not seeing things. More than the results of the study itself what intrigues me no ends is how the researchers got the participants to open up about screwing with Billy. Billy … Continue reading
National Conference on Students’ Medical Research
The Community Medicine department of Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram is organizing the 5th National Conference on Students’ Medical Research. The theme for this year is: Translational Medicine. Their website has more details. Here is their brochure: Their website (which is very chic, easy to navigate and user friendly, something we are not accustomed to while browsing … Continue reading
Why the BMJ Should Not Follow NEJM Author Ban Policy
Fiona Godlee has written a very interesting Editorial in the BMJ and this tweet of hers made me think on this issue: For a while in the 90s NEJM banned editorials and reviews from authors linked to industry. Should the BMJ try this? http://bit.ly/rczXJt — fiona godlee (@fgodlee) August 11, 2011 I oppose the blanket … Continue reading
Are patients really “worse off” with older docs?
In what appears to be a largely counter intuitive result, research by the American Journal of Medicine has unearthed that patients end up faring worse when treated by older doctors or more experienced doctors. This Reuters article delves into the issue and discusses several aspects of the study in great lengths. This study has also … Continue reading
Aaron Swartz: The Robbing Hood of Open Access?
Let me make it clear at the very outset that I am aware that AS is being indicted for hacking by the federal government on charges of “wire fraud, computer fraud”, etc and not for downloading too many journal articles off JSTOR (4.8 million, to be precise). Here is what the prosecution had to say: … Continue reading
