Record number of journals banned for boosting impact factor with self-citations
More research journals than ever are boosting their impact factors by self-citation. Read more
More research journals than ever are boosting their impact factors by self-citation. Read more
Let’s start with the bad news. With every technological development that helps make the world a better place, criminals and terrorists are out there to apply it to their own ends. Hence the use of satellite communications and a hi-tech operations centre that allowed the Mumbai terrorists in 2008 to track and maximize their massacre of 172 men, women and children; hence the encrypted national communications infrastructure constructed by Mexican drugs barons; hence the threat of synthetic viruses… … Read more
Hydraulic fracturing, or ‘fracking’ as it is popularly known, presents a “very low risk” of contaminating drinking water or triggering forceful earthquakes in the UK, and can safely be performed so long as companies engage in different practices to those that have produced concern in the United States. Read more
Tomatoes bred to have a uniform colour are not as sweet as their more mottled counterparts. Decades of selecting fruit that begin life with pale green skin may have inadvertently contributed to the bland flavour of the modern supermarket tomato. Read more
Mark Walport has been named as theUK’s next chief scientific advisor. Walport, a professor of medicine, has been director of the Wellcome Trust, theUK’s largest medical charity, since 2003. He will replace John Beddington, a population biologist who has been in the advisor post since 2008. Walport’s term begins in April of next year. Read more
A Massachusetts stem-cell bank will close when it runs out of public funding this year. Read more
The Wellcome Trust has made good on pledges to toughen up its policy on open access publication. Read more
How many different nuclei are out there? If you just take the number of distinct elements, you get 114, as of last month. But then there are the isotopes—elements which have an extra neutron (or two, or three, or more). The number of isotopes discovered so far is somewhere in the neighbourhood of 3,000. Read more
In a 5-4 vote on the signature legislative achievement of Barack Obama’s presidency, the US Supreme Court today upheld the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, including the central, controversial provision requiring the uninsured to buy health insurance. Chief Justice John Roberts, who usually votes with the court’s conservative majority, switched sides for the crucial fifth vote that upheld the law — and delivered a decisive victory to the Obama administration. Read more
Are Africa and Asia silently driving demand for opium, raising prices for producers, despite the traditional markets stagnating? Read more
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