Free Republic

A spoof paper concocted by Science reveals little or no scrutiny at many open-access journals. See All Special Issue ContentOn 4 July, good news arrived in the inbox of Ocorrafoo Cobange, a biologist at the Wassee Institute of Medicine in Asmara. It was the official letter of acceptance for a paper he had submitted 2 months earlier to the Journal of Natural Pharmaceuticals, describing the anticancer properties of a chemical that Cobange had extracted from a lichen. In fact, it should have been promptly rejected. Any reviewer with more than a high-school knowledge of chemistry and the ability to understand...

Excerpt - Well, this should be interesting. Because of scheduling issues, Kevin Martin and Lowell McAdam will be interviewed at the same time. Will the two hit it off on issues of ‘Net neutrality, early termination fees, Open Access or none of the above? ~ snip ~ Pulling up a chart that showcases the lousy broadband situation in the states, Walt kicks the conversation off with a hardball question for Martin: “You’re the chairman of the FCC,” says Walt. “How did you allow this to happen?” Big applause. Martin tries to dodge a bit, suggesting that the chart shows penetration....

Advocates of open access to scientific research may find themselves under fire from high-profile public relations flaks and high-powered lobbying groups. The battle over public access to scientific literature stretches back to the late 1990s when Nobel Prize winner Harold Varmus began plans for PubMed Central--a repository for all research resulting from National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding--and, a few years later, launched the Public Library of Science (PLoS). These easily accessible journals and repositories have struck fear into the hearts of traditional publishers, who have enlisted the "pit bull" of public relations to fight back, reports news@nature. The Professional...

In What's Yours Is Mine: Open Access and the Rise of Infrastructure Socialism, authors Adam Thierer and Clyde Wayne Crews Jr. examine the hazards of mandatory "open access" -- a new trend in which hyper-regulatory bureaucrats and central planners are increasingly commanding technology companies and industry sectors to share networks, facilities, or specific technologies with rivals. Telephone and cable companies, wireless carriers, electric utilities, AOL's Instant Messenger service, the Visa/Mastercard network, Microsoft's Windows operating system -- all these and more have been targets of demands for forced access. Although supporters claim that open access is pro-competitive, the opposite is true....