Weekend reads: Yelp for journals; where do the postdocs go?; scientific papers’ hidden jokes

This week at Retraction Watch featured two Office of Research Integrity findings, and retractions in the Voinnet and Hanna cases. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

• “What if scientific journals were like hotels, restaurants and holiday operators — easy to compare online and reviewed by those who use them?” asks Jeffrey Perkel in Nature.
• “There is a growing number of postdocs and few places in academia for them to go. But change could be on the way.”
• “Though not exactly widespread, academics have been known to amuse themselves by discreetly burying little jokes in their journal papers.”
• Is science really better than journalism at self-correction? We ask this week at The Conversation in the wake of the Rolling Stone retraction.
• Ivan will be doing two online events this week with journal editor and COPE council member Charon Pierson: First, a Reddit Ask Us Anything on the 15th, and then an American Chemical Society webinar on the 16th. Tune in to ask questions.
• A study of fracking and water contamination is under ethics review, Inside Climate News reports.
• Following criticism this week, PeerJ reversed an embargo policy that had it breaking its own embargoes.
• “Although scientific fraud is a global concern, there might be particular aspects that render China especially susceptible.”
• Can we trust online health studies? “Internet-based health research is increasing, and often offers financial incentives but fraudulent behavior by participants can result,” write Robert Klitzman and colleagues. “Specifically, eligible or ineligible individuals may enter the study multiple times and receive undeserved financial compensation.” (Klitzman has a new book out, by the way.)
• “Psychology and Psychotherapy: How Much Is Evidence-Based?”
• Arturo Casadevall, who has published widely on retractions and scientific integrity, is “a man with a mission,” according to Penn Medicine.
• A press release on a survey on pornography by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children was nothing but “churnalism,” according to the Online Journalism Blog.
• Senior scientists should be writing, argue two professors.
• A new PNAS editorial board member explains “why this editor won’t be sending your paper out for further review.”
• What happens when lawyers and judges actually listen to scientific experts?
• The seven sins of peer review, according to Technologist maagazine.
• “Human genetic engineering demands more than a moratorium,” argue Sheila Jasanoff and colleagues.
• More suspicious deaths have been unearthed at a Harvard primate center, courtesy of the Boston Globe‘s Carolyn Johnson.
• “Co-authoring academic papers should not be reserved for young professors,” argues Bryant Smith.
• “Nature Biotechnology is reevaluating editorial oversight of papers centered on computational analyses in anticipation of the ‘big data’ world.”
• A “questionable subscription publisher acts like a predatory [open access] one,” according to Jeffrey Beall.
• Management scholars: Attend a special preconference workshop on ethics in publishing before the Academy of Management meeting in August. And contribute to a special section of the Academy of Management Learning & Education the subject. Deadline December 1.
• What effect can Kudos have on citations of your papers?
• How does the Spanish press cover science and technology?
• In media reports on climate change in 2013, the IPCC’s “carefully calibrated language was rarely discussed” (paywalled).
• A California doctor peddling stem cells loses his license after showing “a lack of integrity, and an unwillingness to follow the law.”
• LeMonde interviews Vicki Vance, who has become a central figure in the case of Olivier Voinnet.
• Is reproducibility a crisis? asks Lenny Teytelman (who then answers).
• A new authorship assignment system can “optimize fairness and dissemination of trial results,” according to a new study.