There are few things more at the heart of the progressive science movement than the notion that good science is open science. It’s a notion that has led to an explosion in data sharing networks and advocacy groups all with one goal in common. Give people access to the data. After all what better way is there […]
The indefensible price of accessing the giant’s shoulders
Before Sci-Hub, scientists spent most of their time scrounging together loose change in order to buy access to new articles. Image by Anonymous
Fourteen thousand three hundred and seventy five US dollars. That’s how much it would have cost me to access each of the 575 references cited in my PhD. It’s a ludicrous figure. About US$25 per article. Calculated using the average pay-per-view cost of the top 100 journals in 2014. Of course, it could be argued that this figure […]
From The Vault: A coffee a day keeps the adenosine at bay
A coffee-house in Palestine. B. L. Singley (1900)
It’s fair to say that for most of us the day doesn’t truly begin until we can feel the warm lick of caffeine coursing through our veins. Be it an espresso, flat white, latte or low-fat, soy, double-shot, moccacino. Whatever your poison very little in our lives is ever achieved before that first cup of […]
From The Vault: Craving predictability
Jimi Hendrix "Smoking" London Gered Mankowitz (1967)
The thin blue curl of smoke dances into the night sky from Bogart’s cigarette as their eyes meet. The film’s black and white denouement is upon us but all they can see is that cigarette. They can almost taste it. They are the smokers and the recently ex-smokers whose neuronal circuitry is lighting up in […]