Science

AI slop clears peer-review

VM

06 Dec 2025 — 1 min read

Here's an image from a paper that was published by Nature Scientific Reports on November 19 and retracted on December 5:

This paper made it through peer review at the journal. Let that sink in for a moment. Perhaps the reviewers wanted to stick it to the editors. Then again how the image made its way past the editors is also a mystery.

Nature Scientific Reports has had several problems before, enumerated on its Wikipedia page. It's a 'megajournal' in the vein of PLOS One and follows the gold OA model, with an article processing charge of "£2190.00/$2690.00/€2390.00".

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Joel Mokyr, Gita Chadha, Lawrence Krauss, Joseph Vijay

Mokyr hearts Nobel Prizes

Tracking down energetic cosmic rays

Acting and speaking