Tales from the trenches of scientific publishers, back in the 1980s:

"Oh my dear, you have no idea. I spent several years in the 80s as assistant managing editor of a top peer-reviewed medical journal, and what I learned is that profit is the only thing that matters. In the space of a single year, the number of issues and the number of pages per issue were doubled, even as several of the issues were given over entirely to advertising for specific drugs, all without any of the people holding medical degrees -- the titular editor or the peer reviewers or the subscribers -- making a single objection.

The journal was one of 20 technical journals owned by financial advisors Dun & Bradstreet, sold shortly afterward to Reed International, another similar firm. The front offices looked lush, but the editing was done in a warren of mostly windowless rooms by young women with zero medical training. Most of what we did was harass the actual doctors who were supposed to do the peer review, because they didn't care enough to meet deadlines, and then copy edit their barely readable responses to make them meet minimal editorial standards. And nobody noticed the product was shit. The subscriptions were paid automatically by corporations, the issues went straight onto shelves in those offices where they served as decoration. As far as I could tell, the only people other than the primary authors of the studies who ever read those studies and reviews were me and my co-workers.

Escaping that place to work in a serious news organization was the best decision I ever made, even if it involved taking a more than 50% salary cut." – by "AngelaMotorman" at https://old.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/11ymxtq/til_in_1982_scientists_resubmitted_published/jd8lcjq/

#ScientificPublishing #academia #publishing

Using single cell gene expression atlases to generate split-Gal4 lines with exquisite specificity. Nice papers from the Desplan and Perrimon labs.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2307451120
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2304730120

#Drosophila

Boosting this with alt-text because #librarians rule! 💪

I love the last panel. 😊

#Libraries #NoLimits #Books #Reading