1/ In 2024, I filed a false claims act lawsuit against Elsevier, Springer, Wiley & Informa alleging they systematically overcharged US federal grants for article processing. The gov declined to intervene and now it's public. Some thoughts on what this is, and what it isn't:

A lawsuit filed under the U.S. False Claims Act accuses Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Informa of perpetrating a decade-long scheme to defraud the government by charging exorbitant article processing charges.

Federal lawsuit accuses four major publishers of extorting article processing charges

iStock A lawsuit filed under the U.S. False Claims Act accuses four major publishers of perpetrating a decade-long scheme to defraud the government by charging exorbitant article processing charges…

retractionwatch.com

Holy cow, I WON! @newyorker.com

Eric Schares@eschares.bsky.social · last mo.

Very happy to announce I'm a top three finalist in this week's New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest! You can vote through July 12 if you feel so inclined. You do need an account to vote. I also made finals back in June 2009, but placed second that time. www.newyorker.com/cartoons/con...

It's Mental Math Monday! If Eric can type 36 words in 24 seconds, how many words can he type in one minute? Please share your thought process in the comments. @eschares.bsky.social

It’s here! Most anticipated new book release of the year. @statmodeling.bsky.social @avehtari.bsky.social @rmcelreath.bsky.social @paulbuerkner.com

Very happy to announce I'm a top three finalist in this week's New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest! You can vote through July 12 if you feel so inclined. You do need an account to vote. I also made finals back in June 2009, but placed second that time. www.newyorker.com/cartoons/con...

Very happy to announce I'm a top three finalist in this week's New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest! You can vote through July 12 if you feel so inclined. You do need an account to vote. I also made finals back in June 2009, but placed second that time. www.newyorker.com/cartoons/con...

OpenAlex announces an improvement to their corresponding author assignment. Haven’t checked it out in detail yet, but big if true. This data field is one of the main gaps that cause me pain.

I met the real Lightning McQueen. From the movies. The actual one they used. He’s real.

Bought an electric car this week, a 2024 Hyundai Ioniq 5. We're calling it The Spaceship. I have never experienced Fahrvergnügen until now.

Researchers starting to realize the days of publishing wherever they want may be over. "the journals I used to recommend are now unaffordable. Why should I pay $8,810..simply bc the publisher has refused to allow zero-embargo (immediate) access to my peer-reviewed paper as req'd by federal policy?"

We published in Nature Medicine in 2025 for free. In 2026, it cost us $12,850

In 2025, Elizabeth Selvin and her colleagues published in Nature Medicine for free. In 2026, it cost them $12,850, she writes.

statnews.com

Journal of Research on Research (J·ROR) launches. Thoughtful editorial on process behind it and the new society Research-on-Research Association (RORATION). "J·ROR emerges, in part, from the defection of a core part of our leadership and editorial team from MDPI’s Publications in 2022."

Research on Research Association@roration.bsky.social · 2mo ago

We're excited to launch J·ROR, the Journal of Research on Research. A new open-access home for research on how research is funded, organised, conducted, communicated, and evaluated. Our first editorial: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... #ResearchOnResearch #MetaScience #OpenScience #STS

Following the recomendation from @andrew.heiss.phd, I've started playing with Espanso to make shortcuts for commonly typed snippets. Starting with R syntax of things I can never remember. Keyword of : followed by the phrase expands to whatever you want! Very cool. @espanso.bsky.social

Seems bad isaiprofitable.com

There's been a lot of chatter about proposed updates to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Federal Financial Assistance Rule, which is, to put it bluntly: destructive to the integrity of federally supported research. 🧵 thread...

Lots of puzzling things in the GAO report - the methodology, data source, the framing, a balloon chart?! Thanks to @jeffreybrainard.bsky.social for the opportunity to comment with @csmarcum.bsky.social and @amudditt.bsky.social.

Samuel Moore@samuelmoore.org · 2mo ago

“The report seems to say, publishers control all the power, so federal agencies just have to cough up more money for them. I’m a little bit mystified by that.” www.science.org/content/arti...

Also features a quote from your man @eschares.bsky.social

My dream job, kettle chip expert. Tim’s takes it for me. Can confirm Clancy’s is solid.

For #TidyTuesday this week, we're looking at Crossref metadata 🌍️ I decided to look at how Crossref members (with and without ORCID iDs) vary across different regions 📊 #RStats #DataViz #ggplot2

“I can’t go back,” said Prasad, the only working scientist to ever voluntarily click Enhanced PDF. “Standard feels dead to me now. Static, like a cave painting.” He could not identify a single feature that distinguishes the enhanced PDF from standard, but insisted the difference is “obvious.”

Scientist Encounters Enhanced PDF, Now Refuses To Read PDFs That Are Not Enhanced

SEATTLE, WA—Reporting that the experience has fundamentally altered his relationship with the scientific literature, postdoctoral researcher Dr.

open.substack.com

Having AI read graduate names in a commencement ceremony deeply depersonalizes something that is profoundly personal & human for these graduates. Why remove personal recognition & connection at a time when the personal can & should be celebrated? This isn't a technical glitch. This is a poor choice

Alex Hanna@alexhanna.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Sir, another graduation ceremony in which the students booed AI has dropped. "College graduates were pissed after their school used AI to announce graduates’ names and missed hundreds of names" (via @/FearedBuck on Twitter)

Something that would really help nearly everyone at a track meet (ATHLETES, parents, spectators, etc) is putting the schedule of events on the board and walking through what's on and what's up next. I don't know why this isn't something that's done, at least at the meets I've been to.

I only just learnt "green" open access was named after a traffic light. Wrote about this and other word association crimes #academicsky 📚

Open Access and Colour Theory

What's in a name? And other questions you were too confused to ask

hannahshelley.neocities.org

Been working with the { legendry } package this week to configure a nested x-axis on fake data. Works pretty well! teunbrand.github.io/legendry/

If it sounds too good to be true... Whistleblower alleges Finnish startup’s vaunted solid-state battery isn’t what it claims | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...

Whistleblower alleges Finnish startup’s vaunted solid-state battery isn’t what it claims

Donut Lab’s assertions of lightning-fast charging and high energy storage have led to a criminal complaint

science.org

A pound of Wagyu ground beef ($7.36) was cheaper than the regular stuff tonight ($7.89), so I got that instead.

Today I learned of The Ink Spots from Paul Simon on Colbert, and I'm nearly certain I've heard this play over the end credits of a TV show. www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkHd...

The Ink Spots - I Don't Want To Set The World On Fire (Official Audio) | Featured in Fallout

YouTube video by All Seasons Music

youtube.com

Proud to have contributed even a little bit to this massive study. I helped reanalyze results for the "Robustness" paper. Kudos to @briannosek.bsky.social and team for managing such a large undertaking with clear instructions and updates. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Investigating the analytical robustness of the social and behavioural sciences - Nature

When 100 social and behavioural science claims were examined, 34% of reanalyses closely matched the original results, with 74% reaching the same conclusion, revealing limited robustness of single...

nature.com

Jeffrey Brainard@jeffreybrainard.bsky.social · 4mo ago

The credibility of scientific journal articles might be bolstered if they carried a score capturing their rigor, such as whether the findings could be replicated. But constructing a telltale indicator of replicability remains a challenge. #openscience @science.org www.science.org/content/arti...

Claude source code leaks. I can't say I understand all the details, but someone I trust has been giving a detailed review and reaction and is gobsmacked at how truly terrible the code is. scholar.social/@jonny@neuro... @jo.nny.rip

dragosr@dragostech.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Anthropic accidentally leaked Claude Code's source code. Researcher Chaofan Shou found a .map file in the npm package linking to the full, unobfuscated TypeScript files in an R2 bucket. The internet is now rapidly downloading and analyzing the logic behind the CLI tool. github.com/nirholas/cla...

Lots of news about ORE last week. Good to see the expanded support and the cooperative funding model. But it's important to note that articles submitted to ORE can't be submitted anywhere else. It's an absorbing state. Also unclear if publishing in ORE is a *requirement* of EU funding or an option.

Claes de Vreese@claesdevreese.bsky.social · 4mo ago

New move in academic publishing: The @ec.europa.eu is launching Open Research Europe (ORE), an open access publishing platform for research funded by all EU programmes. @academic-chatter.bsky.social research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/news/all-res...