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Retracting my paper was painful. But it helped me grow as a scientist

February 16, 2023

Science

By Jaivime Evaristo

"My phone rang after I boarded a plane at the Amsterdam airport, on my way to visit family in the Philippines. It was my former Ph.D. adviser calling to tell me a preprint had just been posted that identified flaws in a paper we’d published in Nature looking at how forestry practices affect streamflow. My stomach dropped as he told me the authors of the critique were demanding a retraction. We couldn’t talk long—the plane soon took off. I spent the 16-hour flight processing a mix of emotions—disbelief, embarrassment, frustration—and wondering what this would mean for my career."

Escaping the predators

An over-reliance on publishing has left scientists prey to unscrupulous practices

February 17, 2023

Chemistry World

By Bishwajit Paul

"In Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll writes: ‘Humans are animals that like to write letters’. To paraphrase, ‘Scientists are animals who like to publish papers’. Or maybe it’s not that they like to, but because they have to. Early career researchers in particular are under constant pressure from the publish or perish culture of academia, where the metrics used to assess researchers primarily focus on number of publications rather than quality. It’s therefore not surprising that some academics fall prey to predatory publication practices."