August 05, 2011

Fill in the blanks with ICHG 2011 truncated titles

The ICHG 2011 abstracts will be available in late August, but we now have some intriguing truncated titles. Quite useful for a fill-in-the-blanks game. For example:

Association of the European Lactase ...
Estimating Genetic Ancestry Using a ...
An admixture simulation program for use in ...
Accelerated evolution of brain specific ...
Inferring admixture proportions and recent ...
Genomic insights into recent human ...
Admixed human genomes reveal ancient and ...
Optimal Algorithm for Haplotype Phasing ...
Out of Africa migrations determine the ...
People of the British Isles: An analysis ...
Assigning Intra-European Ancestry to ...
Tracing the population origin of ...
African genome sequencing reveals ...
Population genetics of Finland revisited - ...
Survey of 20,000 human Y chromosomes shows ...
Ancient exome sequencing of human remains ...
Dating ancient admixture: the date of gene ...
Phylogeography of R1a1 Y-chromosomal ...
Molecular analysis of an ancient Thule ...
Evidence for extensive ancient admixture ...
Dual genetic structure of the Japanese ...

Does anyone think this sort of scientific teasing serves any purpose? Or that science would not be better served if results were published immediately rather than go through the venerated but time consuming rituals of conference presentation, journal submission, peer review, publication?

4 comments:

Onur Dincer said...

I normally don't like regulations, but what will prevent the publication of the likes of Arnaiz-Villena papers in the absence of peer review? I am not saying peer review is without problems, it is, and it certainly should be modified in a more effective and less time consuming way.

GailT said...

John Hawks linked to a nice critique of the peer review process and possible alternatives.

http://johnhawks.net/node/15616

http://www.genomesunzipped.org/2011/07/why-publish-science-in-peer-reviewed-journals.php

Onur Dincer said...

Gail, thanks for the link. Surely we need a new academic publishing system based on the principles of meritocracy that will utilize the internet revolution in a meritocratic, fast, effective and cheap way. Peer review is not the only and best option.

Andrew Oh-Willeke said...

Do scientists now have to start thinking like newspaper editors and thinking not just about what to put in the abstract and title, but also about what is in the first five or six words?

Science by quarter tweet? What will we come to next?