bims-skolko Biomed News
on Scholarly communication
Issue of 2025–03–16
25 papers selected by
Thomas Krichel, Open Library Society
  1. Alarm: Retracted articles on cancer imaging are not only continuously cited by publications but also used by ChatGPT to answer questions.
  2. A Review of Open Access, No-Fee Journals Indexed in PubMed and Scopus for Publishing Image Reports in Medical Research.
  3. Preprint sites bioRxiv and medRxiv launch new era of independence.
  4. Letter to "Will the day come when opinion and letter pieces disappear from the medical journals?"
  5. Decolonise publishing to reduce inequalities in critical care.
  6. Artificial intelligence in scientific publishing: ethical and legal issues.
  7. Artificial Intelligence in Manuscript Preparation: Are We Becoming Dependent on Machines?
  8. Reflections on the Potential and Risks of AI for Scientific Article Writing after the AI Endorsement by Some Scientific Publishers: Focusing on Scopus AI.
  9. Human Reviewers' Ability to Differentiate Human-Authored or Artificial Intelligence-Generated Medical Manuscripts: A Randomized Survey Study.
  10. Why Was My Manuscript Rejected without Review? Focus on Public Health and Environmental Exposures, Ecotoxicology, and Micro/Nanoplastics.
  11. Do manuscripts by female evolutionary biologists spend longer under review?
  12. Why Should We Care? Part II-The New Editors' Perspectives of the Pivotal Role of Peer Reviewers in Developing Caring Science.
  13. How a PhD student's lab size affects their chance of future academic success.
  14. The state of data sharing in rheumatology: a systematic review of top journal practices.
  15. MRI data sharing in psychosis: Key challenges and a new Open Access resource for researchers.
  16. Crediting non-author contributors in scientific publishing.
  17. An introduction to the journal review and editorial process.
  18. Authors, beware of plagiarism in medical writing.
  19. Human-written vs. ChatGPT-generated manuscripts: Suggestions for further consideration.
  20. Writing an impactful Review: top tips from the Editors.
  21. Building a Career in Academic Medicine: The Importance of Research and Publishing Your Data.
  22. Philosophical in Confronting Rejection: Language Confusion in the Correspondence Between Editor and Author.
  23. Attributes of a Rejected Manuscript.
  24. Symposium: Essentials of scientific writing for publications.
  25. Is 'data science' science?
  1. J Adv Res. 2025 Mar 12. pii: S2090-1232(25)00180-8. [Epub ahead of print]
    Alarm: Retracted articles on cancer imaging are not only continuously cited by publications but also used by ChatGPT to answer questions.
    Tianshu Gu, Helin Feng, Minghui Li, Weikuan Gu, Guiying Wang.
      
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jare.2025.03.020
  2. Acta Med Litu. 2024 ;31(2): 245-253
    A Review of Open Access, No-Fee Journals Indexed in PubMed and Scopus for Publishing Image Reports in Medical Research.
    Gabriele Gaggero.
       Background: Aspects of medicine can be conveyed through paradigmatic images (anatomical-surgical, radiological, microscopic) in image reports, a type of article more immediate than case reports. The aim of this review is to find journals allowing the publication of image reports and that are free of charge, open access and indexed in the best databases.
    Methods: The search started with a Boolean string and followed the PRISMA 2020 guidelines. Eligibility criteria were: English language, human medicine field, international DOI and ISSN codes applied, free of charge, open access, PubMed/Scopus indexed.
    Results: 15,504,000 items were retrieved; 102 met all criteria. Instructions to authors were screened to extract journals that allowed image reports: 39 (39/39 Scopus-indexed; 29/39 PubMed-indexed). Most were in oncology (6/39) and general medicine (5/39), followed by neuroscience, fetal/pediatric and nephrology (4/39 each), urology, dermatology, hematology (3/39 each), thoracic/pleural/peritoneal diseases (2/39), and finally endocrinology, cytology, rheumatology, ophthalmology, gastroenterology (1/39 each). 21/39 allowed a single image; word count ranged from 100 to 1500. 32/39 reported a maximum number of references (range: 0-20), while 15/39 reported a maximum number of authors (range: 2-6).
    Conclusions: Compared to the vast publishing landscape, there are very few English-language, open access, PubMed/Scopus-indexed medical journals that allow free of charge publication of image reports. The majority are in the fields of oncology and general medicine, but other specialties are also represented. Image reports are usually articles with a limited number of words, references and authors allowed, as their purpose is much more a practical/didactic take-home message rather than a broad research with many authors. The review shows that image reports, still important for their educational value in medical knowledge transfer, are freely publishable and consultable in journals with international visibility.
    Keywords:  Case Reports; Fees and Charges; Open Access Publishing; PubMed; Scopus
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.15388/Amed.2024.31.2.21
  3. Nature. 2025 Mar 11.
    Preprint sites bioRxiv and medRxiv launch new era of independence.
    Miryam Naddaf.
      
    Keywords:  Medical research; Publishing
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-00762-4
  4. J Obstet Gynaecol Res. 2025 Mar;51(3): e16262
    Letter to "Will the day come when opinion and letter pieces disappear from the medical journals?"
    Himel Mondal.
      
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1111/jog.16262
  5. Lancet. 2025 Mar 08. pii: S0140-6736(25)00131-X. [Epub ahead of print]405(10481): 780-781
    Decolonise publishing to reduce inequalities in critical care.
    Jorge I F Salluh, Antonio Paulo Nassar, Elisa Estenssoro, Sebastián González-Dambrauskas, Juliana Carvalho Ferreira.
      
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(25)00131-X
  6. Rev Gaucha Enferm. 2025 Mar 10. pii: S1983-14472025000100200. [Epub ahead of print]46 e20240257
    Artificial intelligence in scientific publishing: ethical and legal issues.
    Aline Franco da Rocha, Mateus Perfeito Ribeiro, Renata Perfeito Ribeiro.
      
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1590/1983-1447.2025.20240257.en
  7. Indian J Nucl Med. 2024 Sep-Oct;39(5):39(5): 415-416
    Artificial Intelligence in Manuscript Preparation: Are We Becoming Dependent on Machines?
    Himel Mondal.
      
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.4103/ijnm.ijnm_130_24
  8. Actas Esp Psiquiatr. 2025 Mar;53(2): 433-442
    Reflections on the Potential and Risks of AI for Scientific Article Writing after the AI Endorsement by Some Scientific Publishers: Focusing on Scopus AI.
    Jose De Leon, Santiago De Leon-Martinez, Antonio Artés-Rodríguez, Enrique Baca-García, Carlos De Las Cuevas.
      The introduction of ChatGPT3 in 2023 disrupted the field of artificial intelligence (AI). ChatGPT uses large language models (LLMs) but has no access to copyrighted material including scientific articles and books. This review is limited by the lack of access to: (1) prior peer-reviewed articles and (2) proprietary information owned by the companies. Despite these limitations, the article reviews the use of LLMs in the publishing of scientific articles. The first use was plagiarism software. The second use by the American Psychological Association and Elsevier helped their journal editors to screen articles before their review. These two publishers have in common a large number of copyrighted journals and textbooks but, more importantly, a database of article abstracts. Elsevier is the largest of the five large publishing houses and the only one with a database of article abstracts developed to compete with the bibliometric experts of the Web of Science. The third use and most relevant, Scopus AI, was announced on 16 January 2024, by Elsevier; a version of ChatGPT-3.5 was trained using Elsevier copyrighted material written since 2013. Elsevier's description suggests to the authors that Scopus AI can write review articles or the introductions of original research articles with no human intervention. The editors of non-Elsevier journals not willing to approve the use of Scopus AI for writing scientific articles have a problem on their hands; they will need to trust that the authors who have submitted articles have not lied and have not used Scopus AI at all.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.62641/aep.v53i2.1849
  9. Mayo Clin Proc. 2025 Mar 06. pii: S0025-6196(24)00489-0. [Epub ahead of print]
    Human Reviewers' Ability to Differentiate Human-Authored or Artificial Intelligence-Generated Medical Manuscripts: A Randomized Survey Study.
    Scott A Helgeson, Patrick W Johnson, Nilaa Gopikrishnan, Tapendra Koirala, Pablo Moreno-Franco, Rickey E Carter, Zachary S Quicksall, Charles D Burger.
       OBJECTIVE: To assess the ability of humans to differentiate human-authored vs artificial intelligence (AI)-generated medical manuscripts.
    METHODS: This is a prospective randomized survey study from October 1, 2023, to December 1, 2023, from a single academic center. Artificial intelligence-generated medical manuscripts were created using ChatGPT 3.5 and were evaluated alongside randomly selected human-authored manuscripts. Participants, who were blinded from manuscript selection and creation, were randomized to receive three manuscripts that were either human-authored or AI-generated and had to fill out a survey questionnaire after review regarding who authored the manuscript. The primary outcome was accuracy of human reviewers in differentiating manuscript authors. Secondary outcomes were to identify factors that influenced prediction accuracy.
    RESULTS: Fifty-one physicians were included in the study, including 12 post-doctorates, 19 assistant professors, and 20 associate or full professors. The overall specificity of 55.6% (95% CI, 30.8% to 78.5%), sensitivity of 31.2% (95% CI,11.0% to 58.7%), positive predictive value of 38.5% (95% CI,13.9% to 68.4%) and negative predictive value of 47.6% (95% CI, 25.7% to 70.2%). A stratified analysis of human-authored manuscripts indicated that high-impact factor manuscripts were identified with higher accuracy than low-impact factor ones (P=.037). For individual-level data, neither academic rank nor prior manuscript review experience significantly predicted the accuracy. The frequency of AI interaction was a significant factor, with occasional (odds ratio [OR], 8.20; P=.016), fairly frequent (OR, 7.13; P=.033), and very frequent (OR, 8.36; P=.030) use associated with correct identification. Further analysis revealed no significant predictors among the papers' qualities.
    CONCLUSION: Generative AI such as ChatGPT could create medical manuscripts that could not be differentiated from human-authored manuscripts.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mayocp.2024.08.029
  10. Environ Sci Technol. 2025 Mar 11. 59(9): 4213-4214
    Why Was My Manuscript Rejected without Review? Focus on Public Health and Environmental Exposures, Ecotoxicology, and Micro/Nanoplastics.
    Daniel Schlenk, Pablo Gago-Ferrero, Frederic D L Leusch, Huahong Shi, Bin Wang, Xiaowei Zhang, Margaret Mills.
      
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.5c02615
  11. Mol Biol Evol. 2025 Mar 11. pii: msaf054. [Epub ahead of print]
    Do manuscripts by female evolutionary biologists spend longer under review?
    David Alvarez-Ponce, James Vesper.
      Women are underrepresented in academia and in STEM careers, especially at senior positions and top institutions. This may be, at least in part, due to the many obstacles that they experience along the academic pipeline. There has been substantial debate as to whether women are treated unfairly during the peer review process. An analysis of over 9000 research articles published in top Economics journals has recently shown that female-authored articles tend to spend 3-6 months longer under review (period from submission to acceptance), and to have more readable abstracts, than male-authored articles, suggesting that female-authored articles are held to higher standards. We set out to determine whether these trends were also present among 49,031 papers published in 11 Evolutionary Biology journals. We found that female representation among article authors substantially increased over the decades. The percentage of women is lower among corresponding authors than among all authors, especially of recent articles. In addition, female first authors were less likely to be corresponding authors than male first authors, and the gender of the first author correlated with the gender of the corresponding author. In some of the journals, female-authored articles spent significantly longer under review; however, most of the observed differences vanish after controlling for the date of publication and the number of authors. In addition, female-authored abstracts are not more readable. Our results suggest that the peer review process in the field of Evolutionary Biology is generally not biased against women.
    Keywords:  Discrimination against women; Evolutionary Biology; Gender inequality; Peer review; Research productivity; Women in Science
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msaf054
  12. Scand J Caring Sci. 2025 Mar;39(1): e70019
    Why Should We Care? Part II-The New Editors' Perspectives of the Pivotal Role of Peer Reviewers in Developing Caring Science.
    Oscar Tranvåg, Carina Elmqvist.
      
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1111/scs.70019
  13. Nature. 2025 Mar 07.
    How a PhD student's lab size affects their chance of future academic success.
    Humberto Basilio.
      
    Keywords:  Careers; Publishing; Research management; Scientific community
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-00644-9
  14. Rheumatology (Oxford). 2025 Mar 08. pii: keaf138. [Epub ahead of print]
    The state of data sharing in rheumatology: a systematic review of top journal practices.
    Michelle Pham, Eddy Bagaruka, Eli Oldham, Mahad Chaudhry, Jacob Duncan, Taylor Gardner, Annes Elfar, Eli Paul, Alicia Ito Ford, Matt Vassar.
       OBJECTIVE: To evaluate data sharing statement (DSS) inclusion within rheumatology clinical studies published over the past four years in ten top rheumatology journals.
    METHODS: We conducted a systematic review of rheumatology clinical studies published in ten leading journals between January 1, 2020, and December 31, 2023. Articles were included if they provided new primary data through original research and excluded if no new primary data was found. Key analyses included descriptive statistics and adjusted logistic regression to examine factors influencing DSS inclusion. The association between study designs was derived from this regression analysis.
    RESULTS: After forty-six exclusions, 1,108 of 1,154 publications met inclusion criteria for analysis. Rheumatology was the most represented journal (285; 25.72%), and clinical trials the most common study design (591; 53.34%). Cohort studies were significantly less likely to include DSS than clinical trials (aOR: 0.55, 95% CI: 0.37-0.82, p= 0.004). Overall, 622 articles (55.97%) had DSS. Six of the eight journals showed an overall increase in DSS inclusion from 2020 to 2023, with Rheumatology reaching 100% in 2023. Theme analysis of the 622 DSS described most data as conditionally available (552; 88.75%) or requiring a data request (479; 77.01%).
    CONCLUSION: Our study describes data sharing practices in rheumatology research, highlighting trends in DSS inclusion and journal policies' influence on them. While organisations like the American College of Rheumatology and National Institute of Health have promoted these practices, inconsistencies remain. We recommend implementing a standardised DSS requirement during author submission to enhance transparency in rheumatology research.
    Keywords:  Data Sharing; Open Science; Rheumatology
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1093/rheumatology/keaf138
  15. Schizophr Res. 2025 Mar 12. pii: S0920-9964(25)00076-3. [Epub ahead of print]277 185-187
    MRI data sharing in psychosis: Key challenges and a new Open Access resource for researchers.
    S L Evans, V Kumari, M J Kempton, J Rogers, R Upthegrove, P Allen.
      
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.schres.2025.03.012
  16. Nat Hum Behav. 2025 Mar 07.
    Crediting non-author contributors in scientific publishing.
    Charles A Emogor, Mark A Burgman, Natalie Cash, Asha de Vos, Amayaa Wijesinghe, William J Sutherland.
      
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02123-7
  17. J Vasc Surg Cases Innov Tech. 2025 Jun;11(3): 101745
    An introduction to the journal review and editorial process.
    Ben Li, Matthew R Smeds.
      
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvscit.2025.101745
  18. J Postgrad Med. 2025 Mar 14.
    Authors, beware of plagiarism in medical writing.
    C A Divecha, M S Tullu.
      
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.4103/jpgm.jpgm_25_25
  19. J Clin Neurosci. 2025 Mar 11. pii: S0967-5868(25)00144-4. [Epub ahead of print] 111172
    Human-written vs. ChatGPT-generated manuscripts: Suggestions for further consideration.
    Shigeki Matsubara.
      
    Keywords:  Artificial intelligence; ChatGPT; Human; Paper; Writing
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jocn.2025.111172
  20. J Mater Chem B. 2025 Mar 10.
    Writing an impactful Review: top tips from the Editors.
    Kaushik Chatterjee, Gemma-Louise Davies, Håkan Engqvist, Jessica Winter.
      Review articles are critical to the scientific enterprise. They are often the starting point for researchers exploring a new area or those searching for a quick overview of the field. Good reviews serve as references for years to come and can be crucial teaching tools. Review articles typically receive more citations and more views than research articles and can elevate the impact of the research articles cited within. Yet, many authors struggle with writing reviews. As editors of the Journal of Materials Chemistry B, we prepared this article to assist authors in crafting impactful reviews. Although our focus is JMCB, these thoughts should be broadly translatable to other journals.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1039/d5tb90038g
  21. Neurosurgery. 2025 Apr 01. 96(4): 701-703
    Building a Career in Academic Medicine: The Importance of Research and Publishing Your Data.
    Langston T Holly.
      
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1227/neu.0000000000003363
  22. Perspect Biol Med. 2025 ;68(1): 3-21
    Philosophical in Confronting Rejection: Language Confusion in the Correspondence Between Editor and Author.
    Neal S Young, William Child.
      Publication of scientific and biomedical manuscripts in "high impact factor" (IF) journals is important in advancing careers, obtaining funding, and developing a field of research. Rejection by prestigious journals is not infrequent and usually painful, especially to young investigators. Reasons provided by an editor are often confusing. We assess the language of the rejection letter from a specific philosophical stance, originated by Ludwig Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein's late writings on language as usage and as inherent to human activity have profoundly influenced many of the humanities but have been less frequently applied to the sciences. However, Wittgenstein's ideas about language have relevance for understanding editorial correspondence and also, more broadly, for our thinking about scientific work and "science."
  23. JAMA. 2025 Mar 13.
    Attributes of a Rejected Manuscript.
      
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2024.18788
  24. Poult Sci. 2025 Mar 07. pii: S0032-5791(25)00228-7. [Epub ahead of print]104(5): 104989
    Symposium: Essentials of scientific writing for publications.
    Jo Ann Chew, Jason L Emmert, Kirk C Klasing, Mike Kogut, Brian Fairchild, Muhammad Ali.
      Manuscript writing is an essential process in research; it is the vehicle through which knowledge dissemination occurs from experimental findings. This manuscript aims to equip students, researchers, and professionals alike with the necessary skills and insights for publishing in scientific journals. Each section of a scientific paper is discussed: abstract, introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, and conclusion, along with advice on the order by which these are written. Various techniques are explored to best engage readers and convey research findings in a memorable and impactful manner. Lastly, adherence to journal guidelines is discussed, along with common mistakes made by authors when submitting to journals. The importance of clarity and innovation in conveying research findings effectively is emphasized. Practical strategies for organizing manuscripts and enhancing the overall impact of research publications are covered.
    Keywords:  Critical thought; Manuscript writing; Reviewer; Techniques
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psj.2025.104989
  25. Adv Health Sci Educ Theory Pract. 2025 Mar 10.
    Is 'data science' science?
    Rachel H Ellaway, Patricia O'Sullivan.
      In this editorial the editors reflect on issues raised by the special edition of the Journal on data science by asking the question: is data science in health professions education a 'science' as the term is generally understood? A series of criteria for science as a whole are applied to data science and the implications explored in the context of our field.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s10459-025-10416-9
This page is being maintained by Thomas Krichel. It was last updated on 2025‒03‒22 at 15:42.