Author Archives: Michael Eisen

Billion Dollar Scam: Why you should play the lottery instead of going to H&R Block

By Michael Eisen | Published: January 16, 2014

H&R Block is running an aggressive campaign under the rubric “Get Your Billion Back” trying to convince taxpayers to come and have their taxes done by one of their “Tax Professionals”. Their pitch is that “this is how much money is left on the table when people do their own taxes”. On their site and in TV […]

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Nathanael Johnson lets the anti-GMO movement off the hook

By Michael Eisen | Published: January 10, 2014

For the last six months, Nathanael Johnson has been writing about GMOs for the lefty environmental magazine Grist. The goal of his ultimately 26 part series was to try and bring some journalistic sanity to a topic that has gotten nasty in recent years. As Grist editor Scott Rosenberg is quoted on Dan Charles’ blog: GMOs […]

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Accepting nominations for the “Pressies” recognizing the most overhyped science press releases of 2013

By Michael Eisen | Published: December 15, 2013

Scientists get all sorts of prizes this time of year. Some win a Lasker. Others a Nobel or a Breakthrough Prize. The really lucky get a commemorative mug from PNAS. But the most important members of the scientific community get no recognition. I’m not talking about the graduate students and postdocs who actually do the […]

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Beall’s Litter

By Michael Eisen | Published: December 14, 2013

Jeffrey Beall, a librarian at the University of Colorado Denver, has come to some fame in science publication circles for highlighting the growing number of “predatory” open access publishers and curating a list of them. His work has provided a useful service to people seeking to navigate the sometimes confusing array of new journals – […]

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The impact of Randy Schekman abandoning Science and Nature and Cell

By Michael Eisen | Published: December 10, 2013

Recipients of this year’s Nobel Prizes converge this week on Stockholm to receive their medals, dine with the King and Queen, and be treated like the scientific royalty they have become. For most this time is, understandably, about them and their work. So, bravo to my Berkeley colleague Randy Schekman – one of this year’s […]

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FDA vs. 23andMe: How do we want genetic testing to be regulated?

By Michael Eisen | Published: November 26, 2013

Yesterday the US Food and Drug Administration sent a letter to the human genetic testing company 23andMe giving them 15 days to respond to a series of concerns about their products and the way they are marketed or risk regulatory intervention. This action has set off a lot of commentary/debate about the current and future […]

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PubMed Commons: Post publication peer review goes mainstream

By Michael Eisen | Published: October 22, 2013

I have written a lot about how I think the biggest problem in science communication today is the disproportionate value we place on where papers are published when assessing the validity and import of a work of science, and the contribution of its authors. And I have argued that the best way to change this […]

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GMOs and pediatric cancer rates #GMOFAQ

By Michael Eisen | Published: October 12, 2013

There’s a post being highlighted by anti-GMO activists on Twitter that claims that cancer is now the leading cause of death among children in the US, that the rates of pediatric cancer are increasing and that this is because of GMOs. This is another egregious example of the willingness of anti-GMO campaigners to lie to […]

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I confess, I wrote the Arsenic DNA paper to expose flaws in peer-review at subscription based journals

By Michael Eisen | Published: October 3, 2013

In 2011, after having read several really bad papers in the journal Science, I decided to explore just how slipshod their peer-review process is. I knew that their business depends on publishing “sexy” papers. So I created a manuscript that claimed something extraordinary – that I’d discovered a species of bacteria that uses arsenic in its DNA […]

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NASA paywalls first papers arising from Curiosity rover, I am setting them free

By Michael Eisen | Published: September 26, 2013

The Mars Curiosity rover has been a huge boon for NASA – tapping into the public’s fascination with space exploration and the search for life on other planets. Its landing was watched live by millions of people, and interest in the photos and videos it is collecting is so great, that NASA has had to […]

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