Tag

Peer Review

All articles tagged with #peer review

science11 hours ago•6 min saved

Biomedical preprints largely withstand peer review, large analysis finds

A large, non‑peer‑reviewed study posted on bioRxiv analyzed 72,644 biomedical preprints (2018–2025) and found that central conclusions remain unchanged in 39.9% and are revised only modestly in about 50%, with major changes in around 10%. Revisions tend to become more cautious after peer review. Major revision rates vary by field (7.2% for bioinformatics vs 17.5% for microbiology) and have declined over time (17% in 2019 to 5.7% in 2024). Preprinted papers are retracted at roughly half the rate of non‑preprinted ones (8.1 vs 18.7 per 10,000), though the study is observational and subject to selection biases. Overall, preprints appear more reliable than some critics claim, but caveats remain regarding interpretation and methodology.

via Nature|

#biomedical-research #biorxiv #peer-review

science8 days ago•7 min saved

Paying reviewers speeds up decisions and improves quality in Biology Open's trial

Biology Open piloted a Fast & Fair program that pays reviewers £220 for high-quality reviews delivered within four working days. The scheme cut the average time to a first editorial decision from about 38 days to 5.5 working days and reportedly improved review usefulness. Funded by The Company of Biologists, the trial expanded to all ten editors in 2025 with pre-contracted reviewers, and authors can opt for traditional peer review if suitably expert reviewers aren’t available. The program is evaluated annually through 2026.

via Nature|

#biology-open #editorial-speed #peer-review

technology16 days ago•7 min saved

Nature’s critique casts doubt on Microsoft’s Majorana quantum claims

Nature published a peer-reviewed critique by Henry Legg alleging Microsoft’s Majorana quantum claims are flawed, pointing to basic Python errors and omitted data that allegedly bias the results; Microsoft disputes the critique and continues to push Majorana 2 as a next-step toward a quantum computer.

via The Register|

#majorana #microsoft #nature

technology16 days ago•4 min saved

Nature scrutiny tempers Microsoft's Majorana quantum claims

A Nature-published critique by Dr. Henry Legg questions Microsoft's Majorana-based quantum claims, citing potential errors in a software tool used to interpret measurements and a lack of conclusive proof for Majorana; Microsoft defends its results and says data are shared with Darpa for independent review, reflecting ongoing challenges in validating quantum hardware.

via BBC|

#majorana #microsoft #nature

technology22 days ago•4 min saved

Frontiers Editor Quits Over AI-Powered Peer Review Tool

An associate editor at Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience resigned, alleging that the publisher’s AI-driven reviewer invitation system (AIRA) undermines editorial control and risks compromising the peer-review process; the publisher says editors retain discretion and is reviewing the incident, while some editors report mixed experiences with AI automation, which the publisher argues can speed up review when used with human oversight.

via The Transmitter|

#ai-publishing #editorial-automation #frontiers-in-systems-neuroscience

science1 month ago•4 min saved

Mathematicians Call for Guardrails as AI Enters Mathematical Proofs

Sixteen mathematicians, with more than 130 signatories, issued the Leiden Declaration on Artificial Intelligence and Mathematics to warn that unchecked AI could undermine the autonomy and rigor of mathematics while urging transparency, disclosure of AI use, stricter peer review, and investment in public computational infrastructure to balance power between researchers and tech firms; the declaration emphasizes human judgment and cautions that AI-generated proofs are hard to validate and cite, setting up ongoing discussions ahead of the International Congress of Mathematicians.

via Gizmodo|

#artificial-intelligence #ethics #mathematics

policy1 month ago•8 min saved

US grant funding rules would put politics over peer review and cancel grants at will

Ars Technica reports that proposed US grant rules would let political appointees overrule peer review, cancel any grant at any time if it’s not deemed in the “national interest,” ban funding on certain culture-war topics, restrict international collaborations, and require pre-approval for publication and conference costs—threatening scientific independence and international collaboration.

via Ars Technica|

#culture-war #grant-funding #national-interest

politics1 month ago•2 min saved

Trump admin targets tighter political grip on federal research funding

The Trump administration unveiled a 400+ page proposal to overhaul federal grantmaking, aiming to codify tighter political control over federally funded research by reducing emphasis on peer review, restricting how grant funds can be used for publishing or conference travel, and granting political appointees broader power to terminate grants; if formalized, the rules would apply government-wide.

via statnews.com|

#federal-grants #peer-review #political-control

publishing1 month ago•6 min saved

Tough Peer Feedback May Boost a Paper’s Future Impact

An AI-assisted analysis of public peer-review reports for 8,000 Nature Communications papers (2017–2024) finds that papers subjected to tougher criticism and larger revision costs tend to be more highly cited in the following three years. While the quality of reviewer comments correlates with impact, how constructive the feedback is does not, suggesting that rigorous review can both reflect ambitious work and help raise its future influence.

via Nature|

#ai #citations #nature-communications

science1 month ago•11 min saved

Skepticism Over Hype: Rethinking Reported Research

Retraction Watch interviews Aaron Brown about his book Wrong Number, a critique of how the media hypes influential studies that can be illogical or misleading; Brown argues for journalist skepticism and cautions against outsourcing scrutiny to statisticians, advocates for post-publication peer review and full transparency (data, code, holdout samples), and suggests independent testing institutions to vet ideas, with a nuanced view on when to disclose uncertain findings and how to treat government data to improve the reliability of published research.

via Retraction Watch|

#data-integrity #media-coverage #peer-review

technology1 month ago•2 min saved

ArXiv Tightens Rules: One-Year Ban for AI Slop and Peer-Reviewed Gatekeeping

ArXiv will ban authors for a year if there is incontrovertible evidence that LLM-generated content in a submission hasn’t been checked (e.g., hallucinated references or misleading meta-comments), with future submissions requiring acceptance at a reputable peer‑reviewed venue. This strengthens efforts to curb AI-generated “slop” and builds on prior policies restricting AI-heavy content to peer‑reviewed publications; bans are subject to moderator review and author appeals.

via The Verge|

#ai #arxiv #llm

science2 months ago•6 min saved

Guest-Edited Journals Face Scrutiny Over Quality and Retractions

The BMJ group’s retraction of nearly an entire guest-edited special issue on cancer immunotherapies highlights broader worries about guest-edited publishing: rapid, high-volume special issues driven by APCs can weaken peer review, inflate researchers’ CVs, and undermine research integrity, prompting calls for tighter editorial oversight and reforms in author-pay models and funding practices.

via statnews.com|

#article-processing-charges #guest-editors #peer-review

science3 months ago•5 min saved

LLMs Aren’t the Problem, Cash-for-Review Fails, and Vaping Studies Reveal Flaws

Retraction Watch’s weekend digest notes that large language models aren’t the core issue in science publishing, reports that offering cash to spot errors doesn’t work, and spotlights vaping studies with numerous flaws and few retractions, while also outlining ongoing investigations and policy discussions around scientific integrity and publishing practices.

via Retraction Watch|

#llms #peer-review #research-integrity

technology3 months ago•6 min saved

Nature peer‑reviews AI Scientist, signaling progress and limits in autonomous science

Nature published a peer‑reviewed update on Sakana AI’s AI Scientist, a system that uses LLMs to search literature, generate hypotheses, run experiments, and draft papers. The tool submitted three original AI‑generated papers to a leading ML conference, with one accepted, but the authors tempered claims of fully automating science and included an automated reviewer. They stress AI should assist human scientists, while flagging risks like originality dilution as autonomous research advances.

via Nature|

#ai-scientist #autonomous-research #machine-learning

technology3 months ago•41 min saved

AI Scientist Demonstrates End-to-End Autonomous Research and Peer Review

Researchers present The AI Scientist, an end-to-end autonomous system that ideates, codes, runs experiments, analyzes results, writes full manuscripts, and even conducts its own peer review to generate new ML papers. It operates in template-based and template-free modes, relies on foundation models and agentic tree search, and includes The Automated Reviewer to gauge paper quality. In tests, a fully AI-generated manuscript reached workshop peer review at ICLR (though not top-tier publication), and overall quality improves with more compute and better models, while the work also highlights ethical risks and the need for responsible norms as autonomous scientific systems mature.

via Nature|

#ai-research-automation #ai-scientist #automated-reviewer