Predatory Journals

RETRACTED ARTICLE: Bridging the gap: explainable ai for autism diagnosis and parental support with TabPFNMix and SHAP - Scientific Reports Scientific Reports - RETRACTED ARTICLE: Bridging the gap: explainable ai for autism diagnosis and parental support with TabPFNMix and SHAP

Another AI-generated, low-quality paper just got retracted from Scientific Reports — and fast. 👀⚠️
The spotlight works: media pressure accelerates corrections. But let’s be honest… there’s still a long queue of questionable studies waiting for action at @springernature.com
doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Science journal retracts study on safety of Monsanto’s Roundup: ‘Serious ethical concerns’ Paper published in 2000 found glyphosate was not harmful, while internal emails later revealed company’s influence

🧪 After 25 years, a landmark study claiming the herbicide Glyphosate (and Roundup) was “safe” has been officially retracted — due to ghost-writing and clear conflicts of interest. What was once scientific “proof” now collapses. #Science #Glyphosate #Retracted ☣️
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

The fall of a prolific science journal exposes the billion-dollar profits of scientific publishing One of the 15 publications that put out the most studies globally has been expelled from the indexing system for irregularities. Its publisher, Elsevier, has a 38% profit margin that reached $1.5 bill...

⚠️🚨 Science of the Total Environment has been removed from Web of Science in Nov. 2025 after retractions due to review-fraud and quality failures. Its publisher @ElsevierConnect raked in massive profits while “mega-publishing” suspect papers. 🤑🤡
english.elpais.com/science-tech...

The fall of a prolific science journal exposes the billion-dollar profits of scientific publishing One of the 15 publications that put out the most studies globally has been expelled from the indexing system for irregularities. Its publisher, Elsevier, has a 38% profit margin that reached $1.5 bill...

⚠️🚨 Science of the Total Environment has been removed from Web of Science in Nov. 2025 after retractions due to review-fraud and quality failures. Its publisher @ElsevierConnect raked in massive profits while “mega-publishing” suspect papers. 🤑🤡
english.elpais.com/science-tech...

Science journal retracts study on safety of Monsanto’s Roundup: ‘Serious ethical concerns’ Paper published in 2000 found glyphosate was not harmful, while internal emails later revealed company’s influence

🧪 After 25 years, a landmark study claiming the herbicide Glyphosate (and Roundup) was “safe” has been officially retracted — due to ghost-writing and clear conflicts of interest. What was once scientific “proof” now collapses. #Science #Glyphosate #Retracted ☣️
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

RETRACTED ARTICLE: Bridging the gap: explainable ai for autism diagnosis and parental support with TabPFNMix and SHAP - Scientific Reports Scientific Reports - RETRACTED ARTICLE: Bridging the gap: explainable ai for autism diagnosis and parental support with TabPFNMix and SHAP

Another AI-generated, low-quality paper just got retracted from Scientific Reports — and fast. 👀⚠️
The spotlight works: media pressure accelerates corrections. But let’s be honest… there’s still a long queue of questionable studies waiting for action at @springernature.com
doi.org/10.1038/s415...

📉 Niche fields, early-career scholars, and emerging topics risk being sidelined — not for lack of merit, but for lack of reviewers.
🔧 Solution? Expand reviewer pools, give credit to reviewers, increase transparency — science must be evaluated on quality, not logistics.

When Reviewer Scarcity Becomes a Reason for Rejection, Scientific Integrity Is at Risk If journals reject papers due to review shortages, the peer review process itself becomes compromised.

🚨 Peer review crisis alert! When journals reject good science simply because they can’t find enough reviewers, the whole integrity of research is on the line.

www.the-scientist.com/when-reviewe...

#AcademicPublishing #PeerReview #ResearchIntegrity #SciencePolicy

This list can really assist peers in avoiding predatory publishers:

www.predatoryjournals.org @predatoryjournals.org

I have been receiving plenty of generic emails to join editorial boards in MDPI and Frontiers. At exactly the same time, friends receive the same generic emails..

1/6
🚨 Springer Nature is retracting an entire book on machine learning.
Why? It was full of plagiarized content, nonsensical claims, and had no proper peer review. 🤮
Retraction Watch: 1
Springer’s credibility: 0

‘Lipstick on a pig’: how to fight back against a peer-review bully Scientific societies, journals, editors and researchers are pushing back against mean-spirited peer reviews.

Scientific societies, journals, editors and researchers are pushing back against mean-spirited peer reviews

go.nature.com/4mXJjn6

🕵️‍♂️ Design isn’t just cosmetic. Visual cues can help flag low-quality or predatory journals—especially when screening large volumes. Content still matters, but the look tells a story too. #OpenScience #ResearchIntegrity

🧐 Predatory articles are statistically:

~half the length (fewer pages & characters)
Using “default” fonts (Arial, Calibri)
Standard A4 pages, little typographic variety
Simpler metadata, less polished

Evaluating the visual design of science publications—a quantitative approach comparing legitimate and predatory journal papers - Scientometrics The rise of predatory publishing poses a significant challenge to the integrity of scientific research, potentially undermining the credibility of scholarly communications. As parts of the academic co...

📄 Study compared ~443 “legit” vs ~555 suspected predatory articles. Predatory ones tend to be shorter, use common office fonts, stick to A4 page size, and show simpler metadata. Visual fingerprints can help spot low-quality journals. 👀

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Scientific publishing needs urgent reform to retain trust in research process | Letters Letters: Readers respond to an article on how too many low-quality papers and journals are being churned out

🧵1: Peer Review Is Cracking. Researchers are churning out papers to survive. Peer reviewers are overwhelmed. Editors chase quantity, not quality. It's not science—it’s a paper factory. Reform is urgent, or public trust will collapse.
www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

If Trump wants to eliminate fraud at universities, why gut research integrity agencies? - The Boston Globe Universities, journals, regulators all have a role in identifying scientific misconduct.

"If Trump wants to eliminate fraud at universities, why gut research integrity agencies?"

🔥
#ResearchIntegrity
#TrustInScience
#AcademicTwitter
#AIforScience
#OpenScience
#FakeJournals
#PredatoryPublishing
#AIethics
#ResponsibleAI
#FutureOfScience
#AIforGood

🧵5. This is the future: humans + AI, safeguarding the credibility of research. Because science without trust is just noise. 🌍✨ #AIforGood #AcademicIntegrity #FutureOfScience

🧵4. About 24% false positives. Meaning: the AI isn’t a judge—it’s a first line of defense. Humans still need to verify. Think ‘radar’ not ‘verdict.’ 🛰️ #ResponsibleAI #AcademicTwitter

🧵3. From ~15,200 journals, the AI flagged 1,400+ as questionable. Over 1,000 raised serious concerns. That’s a LOT of shaky ground for researchers to step on. 😬 #TrustInScience #AIethics

🧵2. Instead of reading papers, the AI checks websites: design quality, missing editors, dodgy language, weird citations. It’s not judging content—it’s spotting red flags in the ecosystem. 🚨 #OpenScience #FakeJournals

Estimating the predictability of questionable open-access journals AI screening of journals identifies over a thousand questionable journals, helping experts review where it is needed most.

🧵1. Predatory journals aren’t just a nuisance—they erode trust in science. A new #AI tool just scanned ~15k journals & flagged over 1k suspicious outlets. Could this be the watchdog science needs? 🧠🔎 #ResearchIntegrity #Science

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

🧵4: It's time to stop counting publications and start measuring trust, transparency, and societal value.
#OpenScience #ReformScience

🧵3: Alternatives exist. Global South Is Leading the Way.
Latin America’s @scielo.org and the Diamond OA Alliance prove publishing can be free to read & free to publish. Science doesn’t need billion-dollar intermediaries. It needs public infrastructure and values over volume.

🧵2: Open Access? More Like Open Wallet.
OA was supposed to democratize science.
Instead, universities now pay up to $10K per article in APCs—feeding publishers with profit margins over 35%.
The result? Pay-to-play research and rising global inequality in who gets to publish.

Scientific publishing needs urgent reform to retain trust in research process | Letters Letters: Readers respond to an article on how too many low-quality papers and journals are being churned out

🧵1: Peer Review Is Cracking. Researchers are churning out papers to survive. Peer reviewers are overwhelmed. Editors chase quantity, not quality. It's not science—it’s a paper factory. Reform is urgent, or public trust will collapse.
www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

image of journal article in the MDPI journal Animals: Possible Anxiolytic Effects of Cannabidiol (CBD) Administration on Feline Responses to a Fear Response Test by Nobuo Masataka

How science should NOT be done: testing the effects of CBD on cat fear...by scaring the cats so much they urinated...and no IACUC (institutional animal use committee) approval? Why? oh, because it's a predatory MDPI/Animals journal...calling @amcell.bsky.social

www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/15...

6/6
🧵 Bottom line:
📉 Springer Nature’s latest retraction is a symptom of a bigger crisis in academic publishing.
📚 Just because it’s a book doesn’t mean it’s science.
Retractions like this? More are coming.

5/6
🤖 In the age of AI-generated content, Springer must tighten up or become a publishing landfill.
The bar for book publishing should not be lower than journals.
But here we are.

4/6
💸 Why does Springer churn out junk?
Because book chapters = easy academic points for authors.
It’s a publish-or-perish goldmine — for them, not for science.
Scientific rigor? Optional.