What Europe's electorate wants: full speed towards the abyss

The people of the European Union, representing the last standing big chunk of democracy that fully deserves the name (demos = common people, kratos = power/strength), have once more cast their vote. And sent a brown wave across the continent into their common parliament. Are we tired of common wealth and freedom? Some more than others. A quick overview.

Artkonzepte, in Bildern

Biodiversität, die Artenvielfalt, ist in aller Munde. Grundlage zum Messen der Biodiversität, ist fast immer (noch) die Anzahl der in einem Gebiet gefundenen Arten. Aber was ist eine Art? Ein paar Bildchen. Und Beispiele.

The Easter Egg featuring Earth, live

For this Eastern, I'll advertise something colourful to turn our eyes back from ourselves to the planet we inhabit: a live simulation/representation of Earth's dynamic surface and atmosphere.

A Wikipedia list everyone should know

Wikipedia has changed the world how we access knowledge. And despite recent (and fair) criticism, it's still an invaluable social project because it provides easy entry portals and an enormous wealth of quick-to-access data. Approaching Christmas, the Feast of Love and Peace, I'd like to point towards a Wikipedia page dealing with something, we tend to quickly forget about: Wikipedia's List of ongoing armed conflicts.

Soft phishing, and why anyone should know GoogleScholar

I still have a university e-mail address, for fiscal reasons. Hence, I still get what we call in German Initiativbewerbungen, not solicited applications for joining my working group (I never had one) from people in countries not as happy as Austria. And the one or other phishing mail.

#FridayForFuture vs. #SamstagFreibadZumüllen

Eine der wichtigsten Institutionen einer funktionierenden Presselandschaft sind Leserbriefe. Und manche sind einfach zu gut, um sie hinter der Paywall der Lokalpresse verloren gehen zu lassen. Ein Abdruck (mit freundlicher Erlaubnis der Autorin).

The Easter Egg – everyone can (visually) dive into Earth's past

As my first Easter Egg post, I advertised the most important French hebdomaire, weekly newspaper, Le Canard enchainé (lit. the Chained Duck), something you can't find in the virtual world. This year it is something more peculiar, literally a virtual (version of our) world. Well, worlds, the bygone ones.

Do you want your own Wikipedia page, too?

Don't you have that feeling from time to time that your life's work is not properly cherished? Politicians that no-one likes get Wikipedia pages, but not you? Well, just hire a professional Wikipedia page editor.

100th anniversary of woman voting, time for the next step

Today is the 100th anniversary of woman voting rights in my home country Germany, and not a few other (still) functional European democracies. Maybe it is time to go the next step.

I found mail! From Elsevier, and in my Junk folder (where it belongs)

Got mail from Elsevier, out of sheer courtesy to inform me that a final PDF could be found on ResearchGate that people should pay for to view. Thank God for the Coalition of Responsible Sharing correcting such errors.

Elsevier's research data "not available/will be made available on request" – what will be your choice?

What do you do when authors claim something (showing nothing) that you know can't be true (because you showed otherwise)? Just request the data they used and re-analyse it to check. But this is not how it works. An example from Elsevier's Molecular Phylogenetics & Evolution.

Where to share Wiley's "content sharing link"? Wiley is searching for an answer, too.

A new form of open access, emerged: "Bronze open access". And Wiley informed me that I can ask for a "content sharing link". And I did. But my question of how I'm allowed to share it, lead me into uncharted territory.

Wladimir Köppen – a climate-vegetation genius, and what this has to do with wine

The Köppen-Geiger system is the most widely used climate classification. Thanks to a group at the Veternary Medical University in Vienna (Institute for Veterinary Public Health), everyone can check out the beauty of the system. Scientists and non-scientists. E.g. for picking the next holiday or long-burning questions such as: Why can't I find a Brazilian wine?

Bringt die Augsburger Puppenkiste zurück, und zwar ohne Geoblocking

Es scheint, ich bin nicht der einzige, der gegen Windmühlen reitet. In der heutigen SZ konnte man einen Artikel lesen über eine Online Petition, die Augsburger Puppenkiste zurück auf den Bildschirm zu bringen.

Versteh' einer die Amis, a photo story

As long as the U.S. pretend to be a frontier state under threat to be recolonised by Her Majesty's troops, there will be regular mass shootings like the one in Florida. For a European, the logic of the 2^nd Amendment is already hard to grasp. But what really surprised me, is the photos you find on the president's Instagram account.

Elsevier needs my help: The 10 ... no, not Commandments, just questions

Elsevier is the main publishing platform of RELX, a highly profitable information company. Their business model is quite unique: the public pays for most of the work, it pays for the publication, and it pays for getting access to the publication. And from time-to-time Elsevier asks its only customers – and slaves (scientists) – on their opinion how to make more money.

Germany apparantly plans to end systematic and phylogenetic research

Yesterday, I received a disturbing rumour. Germany finally has a concept to become a lightning star regarding the protection of natural and genetic resources. An add-on to/complete fulfilment of the Nagoma protocol [PDF]. If the plan become law, it's the dawn of phylogenetic research in Germany and German herbaria will become unusable for scientific research.

Springer Nature is delivering open access. Will you join us? Don't!

But, yes, of course, since we must. Who’s to be credited? Springer Nature or the public paying for it? Too much, and largely ignorant of doing so.

The Kraken awakes – Elsevier increases pressure on ResearchGate (through the backdoor)

Just got the message. Elsevier and the American Chemical Society start pursuing ResearchGate to force them to clean the uploaded PDFs for those that should not be there. Naturally using a backdoor, a German Landesgericht (regional court).

What happens if you try to disperse the Impermeable Fog

Why do bad papers get published in proper journals? Well, mainly because the Impermeable Fog, known as review confidentiality, obscures the entire decision process and ensures no-one can be made responsible. Like in the case of the recently published (pseudo-)phylogeographic study by Zhang et al. (2017) in Tree Genetics & Genomes.