Research Papers are Disappearing from the Internet in Alarming Numbers

Have you had trouble finding a paper to footnote recently? You’re not alone – published research papers are disappearing from the internet. A recent study of almost 7.5 million papers indexed on Crossref revealed a concerning trend: about 28% of them (over 2 million articles) could not be retrieved from any (known) digital archive, despite having an active digital object identifier (DOI). This is scary because the reliability of scholarly information relies heavily on researchers’ ability to check the validity of references.This development will not come as a surprise to those who have followed trends in scientific publishing for the past 20 years. DOIs have been handed out to many spuriously organised publications which at some point simply discontinued their websites and let links rot away. There is much to criticise about large publishing houses that make inappropriately high profits (and bring me to tears with their so-called editorial managers), but at least they do, for the most part, take their job seriously. Summary here, paper here.

This episode of Science News covers string theory. It was a beautiful idea, the best contender for a theory of everything that we have seen so far. Thousands of physicists spend decades trying to work it out. But it didn’t quite go according to plan. String theory became extremely controversial during what's been dubbed the “String Wars” about 20 years ago. Then it kind of disappeared. What happened? What were the string wars? And what are string theorists doing now? You can take the quiz here.

Global Status of Democracy In Decline

According to the most recent Democracy report by the V-Dem Institute at the University of Gothenburg, about 71% of the world’s population now lives in autocracies, up from 48% about a decade ago. The report honed in on Eastern Europe, Southern Asia, and Central Asia as the regions most affected by the erosion of democratic freedoms. Global erosion of election quality is especially alarming. 35 countries have witnessed a decline in free and fair elections over the past four years, with 24 governments, including India, squelching the autonomy of election management systems. Nevertheless, some countries are bucking the trend, remaining relatively stable in democratic freedom or even democratising, especially in South America and the Caribbean. Brazil is a major standout for increasing democratic freedoms and electoral freedom. Press release here, full report here.

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Are Americans “Following the Science”? Kind Of.

A recent study by members of the Strategic Council of the U.S.-American National Academies of Sciences found that Americans who distrust scientists have good reasons.About 80% of those polled perceive most scientists as competent, trustworthy, and caring, but the remaining 20% are skeptical. They tend to doubt scientists’ motives, question whether scientists share their values, or think that scientists cannot overcome biases due to politics, financial funding sources, and personally held beliefs. They are not at all sure that scientists will stick with science when it goes against the scientists’ self-interest, like access to grants or other financial support. I’m not sure either.Press release here, paper here.

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