papermill

Speaking of widespread low-quality scientific publication and the need to take care with words: https://retractionwatch.com/2025/02/10/vegetative-electron-microscopy-fingerprint-paper-mill/

The phrase was so strange it would have stood out even to a non-scientist. Yet “vegetative electron microscopy” had already made it past reviewers and editors at several journals when a Russian chemist and scientific sleuth noticed the odd wording in a now-retracted paper in Springer Nature’s Environmental Science and Pollution Research.

Today, a Google Scholar search turns up nearly two dozen articles that refer to “vegetative electron microscopy” or “vegetative electron microscope,” including a paper from 2024 whose senior author is an editor at Elsevier, Retraction Watch has learned. The publisher told us it was “content” with the wording.

Note the presence of Nature publishing group, notorious lately for their low-quality AI slop or AI-boosterism, and Elsevier, who is generally terrible.

#AI #GenerativeAI #LLM #AISlop #InformationOilSpill #AcademicPublishing #ScientificPublishing #PaperMill #PeerReview