Agustin Zsögön

In a challenge to open-access publishers, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the world’s largest research institution, has told its researchers it plans to stop paying to publish their papers in dozens of international free-to-read journals it regards as too expensive. scim.ag/4tU6qD5

The U.S. is losing its competitive advantage in scientific research. This new working paper uses 44 million publications and shows a massive global shift: -Since 1980, the U.S. share of scientific output has fallen from ~40% to 15%. -In that time period, China has risen from near 0 to ~32% overall. -This is also true in top-journal papers. -This isn’t just more scientists; it's higher per-researcher productivity. The U.S. still leads in biomedical science. China now dominates engineering & physical sciences. Bottom line: Global science is democratizing. U.S. scientific dominance is no longer guaranteed.

Two business school professors from the University of Technology in Sydney have sounded the alarm on the declining quality of academic literature in a new publication titled “The junkification of research”. Drawing parallels to the “enshittification” of online platforms, they argue that similar forces are now overwhelming scholarly publishing. The key drivers are threefold: 1) relentless “publish or perish” pressures in academia, 2) scientific publisher’s incentive to publish more to make more money, and 3) AI making paper production faster and easier. Taken together, they say, these drivers are a recipe for disaster. The authors call for a shift to not-for-profit models of scientific publishing and better evaluation systems. I strongly doubt either is going to happen. The problem is of course not new, and you all know that I have been drawing attention to this trend for more than a decade. It is interesting to see, however, that the awareness for the issue is increasing. Paper: Rhodes, C., & Linnenluecke, M. K., “The junkification of research” Organization (2025).

Lo más leído | 🇪🇸 JP Morgan ve a España como la mejor economía de Europa y da una razón que nadie vio venir: "La fácil integración de los latinos" 🌎 "España está logrando con esto algo que no sucede en Alemania ni Francia", apuntan los economistas. dozz.es/lisr_7

The import of biological research material is a silent barrier to biotechnology in the Global South go.nature.com/48ZIPHr

Carlsberg, the beer company, was founded in 1847. In 1875, they founded one of the first industrial research labs. Even today, the impact of this laboratory is highly underrated. Some quick notes on discoveries made by Carlsberg: 1. For most of the 19th century, beer often made people sick because it contained a mixture of yeasts (and, often, bacteria). In 1883, Emil Chr. Hansen (at Carlsberg) isolated “a single cell of good yeast,” according to the Carlsberg website, which he then grew up as a pure culture. This strain of yeast, named Saccharomyces Carlsbergensis, was given away for free to other brewers, who used it to brew much purer beers that didn't make people sick. This yeast is the ancestor to many modern Lager yeasts. 2. In 1909, S.P.L. Sørensen invented the pH scale at the Carlsberg laboratory. 3. Christian Anfinsen, who kickstarted the protein-folding problem (I wrote about him a few days ago), spent a year or two at the Carlsberg Laboratory developing “new methods for analyzing the chemical structure of complex proteins,” according to his Wikipedia page. He went on to win a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1972. 4. In 1935, Øjvind Winge discovered that microorganisms — including yeast — can reproduce sexually. This was a big deal for developing genetic engineering tools, and it happened at Carlsberg. 5. Subtilisin, the same enzyme used in many detergents to wash clothes, was discovered at Carlsberg. 6. Morten Meldal invented Click Chemistry (for which he shared the 2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry) while leading the Chemistry group at Carlsberg. 7. More recently, Carlsberg has been doing a lot of research into accelerating crop breeding to develop better barley and hops. I'd be down to sponsor a long-form article about Carlsberg's research division, provided it includes in-person reporting (and, one imagines, beer tastings.) Please get in touch if you have reporting experience, live in Europe (ideally) and would be interested in doing this.

Fascinating paper just published in Science. The authors analyze the career trajectories of top performers across multiple domains, including Nobel laureates, elite chess players, Olympic gold medalists, and more. Their central finding challenges a common belief. Intensive, single-discipline training at a young age does confer an early advantage, but this advantage fades over time. By contrast, individuals exposed to multidisciplinary practice early in life tend to start more slowly. Yet, over the long run, they are more likely to reach world-class performance, eventually overtaking early specialists, who often plateau just below the very top. An important reminder that breadth early on can be a powerful investment in long-term excellence. Link to the paper in the first reply.

Está disponível no site da CAPES/MEC a lista de oferta de vagas do Edital nº 12/2025, do Programa de Estudantes-Convênio de Pós-Graduação (PEC-PG). No total, são 14.662 vagas: 6.040 para doutorado e 8.622 para mestrado. Saiba mais em:capes.gov.br/Kkd7L

Genomics pioneer George Church earns first retraction for anti-aging gene therapy paper retractionwatch.com/2025/08/13/geo…

Our X account is inactive. We'll continue posting on Bluesky, Instagram etc - links here: linktr.ee/jxbot 🌱🌾🌿🍀🍃💚 In the meantime, consider attending our 75th Anniversary Conference - a special one-off #plantscience meeting bit.ly/JXB75 🎉🥳🍾🎂

2025 is 50% complete.

Dos 853 municípios de Minas Gerais, apenas 188 têm maternidades. E a realidade nacional é similar: somente 2 360 dos 5 569 municípios oferecem esse tipo de estabelecimento hospitalar. Por Leandro Aguiar piaui.folha.uol.com.br/materia/a-cego…

Global warming suppresses anthocyanin production in purple tomatoes via COP1-DET1-HY5 signaling. The hp2 mutation disrupts this pathway, allowing high anthocyanin levels even at elevated temperatures. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.11… @wileyplantsci #OpenAccess

A Fisiologia Vegetal da UFV, o melhor Programa de Pós-Graduação do Brasil, está com vagas abertas! São três vagas de mestrado e cinco de doutorado. Confira o Edital no link abaixo e venha fazer pesquisa de alto impacto conosco! fisiologiavegetal.ufv.br/edital-do-proc…

"Micro-Tom tomato: from ornamental horticulture to fundamental research" link.springer.com/article/10.100…

Incredible, neither data nor code nor weights are being made publicly available. @Nature publishes advertisements as Articles now I guess.

Europe made a colossal mistake. They banned GM crops while the rest of the world embraced them. Now we rely on imports and miss out on a more sustainable agriculture. Here’s the story of Europe’s GMO debacle 🧵1/

@MelanieOderwald @klaasm67 Yes, the stock market never caused any trouble

@klaasm67 From the cheese slicer to artificial kidneys, holograms, and taming the sea — Dutch inventions quietly keep the world running smoother (and tastier).

@klaasm67 Fair trade, sure

@Hiddemhigh Yeah sure

If everyone would farm like the dutch, the world would be a whole lot better.