Biologists are posting unreviewed papers in record numbers. Here's a survival guide.
In the past 4 years, a movement has begun sweeping across the life sciences: the practice of sharing draft papers, ...known as preprints, online before they are submitted to a journal for peer review. The shift has been catalyzed, in part, by endorsements from high-profile scientists, as well as the 2013 launch of the bioRxiv preprint server by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York; it now holds more than 15,000 papers. But in contrast to physics, where preprints took off nearly 3 decades ago without much fanfare or controversy, the leap into preprints is stirring strong passions in the hypercompetitive world of the life sciences. Proponents argue that preprints will accelerate the pace of science—and improve its quality—by publicizing findings long before they reach journals. Many biologists remain wary, however. For those debating whether to take the plunge,
Science
offers this guide.
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2.
WHO'S DOWNLOADING PIRATED PAPERS? EVERYONE Bohannon, John
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
04/2016, Volume:
352, Issue:
6285
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Data from the controversial website Sci-Hub reveal that the whole world turns to it for journal articles.
In increasing numbers, researchers around the world are turning to Sci-Hub, the controversial ...website that hosts 50 million pirated papers and counting. Now, with server log data from Alexandra Elbakyan, the neuroscientist who created Sci-Hub in 2011 as a 22-year-old graduate student in Kazakhstan,
Science
addresses some basic questions: Who are Sci-Hub's users, where are they, and what are they reading? The Sci-Hub data provide the first detailed view of what is becoming the world's de facto open-access research library. Among the revelations that may surprise both fans and foes alike: Sci-Hub users are not limited to the developing world. Some critics of Sci-Hub have complained that many users can access the same papers through their libraries but turn to Sci-Hub instead—for convenience rather than necessity. The data provide some support for that claim. Over the 6 months leading up to March, Sci-Hub served up 28 million documents, with Iran, China, India, Russia, and the United States the leading requestors.
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3.
AI GLOSSARY Hutson, M.
Science,
07/2017, Volume:
357, Issue:
6346
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Defining the terms of artificial intelligence
Just what do people mean by artificial intelligence (AI)? The term has never had
clear boundaries. When it was introduced at a seminal 1956 workshop at ...Dartmouth
College, it was taken broadly to mean making a machine behave in ways that would
be called intelligent if seen in a human. An important recent advance in AI has
been machine learning, which shows up in technologies from spellcheck to
self-driving cars and is often carried out by computer systems called neural
networks. Any discussion of AI is likely to include other terms as well. We
present a glossary of key words and phrases.
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7.
ICE ON THE RUN Qiu, Jane
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
12/2017, Volume:
358, Issue:
6367
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Scientists are unraveling why certain glaciers are prone to surging
abruptly—sometimes wiping out people in their path
Thousands of glaciers perch near human settlements, and in recent decades, ...dozens of glacier surges have claimed lives. One of the worst calamities occurred in 2002, in the Caucasus Mountains of southern Russia, when Kolka Glacier rumbled into a valley, killing 140 people. Besides overwhelming settlements, glacier surges can threaten distant communities. They can block rivers, creating lakes that can later unleash floods, and by depleting glacier mass, they can threaten the flow of meltwater that downstream towns and farms may depend on. Now, by studying glaciers from Tibet to the Arctic islands of the Svalbard archipelago in Norway, researchers are starting to understand why some glaciers swing between extremes of stagnation and crushing flow, and how surges may be predicted. Studying surging glaciers could also offer insights into grander-scale ice flows with global consequences: the movements of the ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland, which can change abruptly, altering the ice discharges that affect sea level.
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8.
LAST STANDS Stokstad, Erik
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
12/2017, Volume:
358, Issue:
6368
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Foresters and ecologists face off over the future of Europe's oldest forest.
Białowieża Forest in northeast Poland is famous for its giant trees, wild bison, wolves, and woodpeckers, but it is now ...embroiled in a conflict that has sharply divided the country and pitted foresters against ecologists and other researchers. State Forests, a government organization, claims that Białowieża Forest is in jeopardy from an outbreak of the spruce bark beetle. Last year, the amount of logging permitted in part of the forest was tripled to fight the beetle. Other experts say the strategy won't work and damages the forest. State Forests is also waging a longer-term campaign against a change in tree composition by cutting some species and planting others. Ecologists argue that this is unnecessary. State Forests, backed by its own scientists and academic forestry researchers, has begun a major new study, itself controversial, to show that selective logging will sustain biodiversity, not harm it. But in the end, more research won't resolve the conflict over Białowieża, say some scientists, as it is a question of different values. On 12 December, Europe's highest court will have a hearing about the logging, and a ruling is expected next year.
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