Richard Sever
@richardsever.bsky.social
Chief Science and Strategy Officer, openRxiv. Co-Founder, bioRxiv and medRxiv.
Pinned
Richard Sever
@richardsever.bsky.social
· Jan 12
Preprints of pandemic potential - new historical piece from me on the history of bioRxiv/medRxiv, their role in the pandemic, and the way forward. 1/n journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...
Data all the way down: How uncovering the data underlying research findings impacts every aspect of scholarly communication - webinar today at 12 pm ET
events.humanitix.com/love-data-we...
events.humanitix.com/love-data-we...
Data all the way down: How uncovering the data underlying research findings impacts every aspect of scholarly communication
DataDryad & SORTEE are teaming up for a panel discussion for Love Data Week 2026 - join us for a lively chat about the present and future of data
events.humanitix.com
February 12, 2026 at 4:40 PM
Data all the way down: How uncovering the data underlying research findings impacts every aspect of scholarly communication - webinar today at 12 pm ET
events.humanitix.com/love-data-we...
events.humanitix.com/love-data-we...
Reposted by Richard Sever
This post has generated a super interesting debate between the authors of the paper @ebrahimfeghhi.bsky.social @nrhadidi.bsky.social and one of the authors of a paper they criticised @mschrimpf.bsky.social including an attempted reproduction of their results. This is such a great use of social media
This paper shows alignment between LLMs and brain data is outperformed by a null model. More evidence for the argument I've been making in talks lately that we shouldn't believe any computational paper that puts less effort into null than main model.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org
February 11, 2026 at 4:12 PM
This post has generated a super interesting debate between the authors of the paper @ebrahimfeghhi.bsky.social @nrhadidi.bsky.social and one of the authors of a paper they criticised @mschrimpf.bsky.social including an attempted reproduction of their results. This is such a great use of social media
Reposted by Richard Sever
"In our work, we found that none of the tested language models were ready for deployment in direct patient care."
#medlibs
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#medlibs
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reliability of LLMs as medical assistants for the general public: a randomized preregistered study - Nature Medicine
In a randomized controlled study involving 1,298 participants from a general sample, performance of humans when assisted by a large language model (LLM) was sensibly inferior to that of the LLM alone ...
www.nature.com
February 11, 2026 at 1:15 PM
"In our work, we found that none of the tested language models were ready for deployment in direct patient care."
#medlibs
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#medlibs
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Yep - that’s what I’m intrigued by. Because it’s not quite pseudoscience but as you say something where there are just many better candidates one should choose first given finite resources. So why a serious researcher would endorse this is interesting
February 10, 2026 at 5:06 PM
Yep - that’s what I’m intrigued by. Because it’s not quite pseudoscience but as you say something where there are just many better candidates one should choose first given finite resources. So why a serious researcher would endorse this is interesting
this is why I'm interested. Is the decision indicative of a different type of worry? bsky.app/profile/rich...
right, like taxol. I'm just interested in the logic that gets someone like Letai to endorse this. While there is some logic to it, seems like there are much more promising avenues to pursue. So it's not entirely crazy COVID-type nonsense just not smart science - i.e. a different type of concern
Distill Hiatus
After five years, Distill will be taking a break.
distill.pub
February 10, 2026 at 4:31 PM
this is why I'm interested. Is the decision indicative of a different type of worry? bsky.app/profile/rich...
right, like taxol. I'm just interested in the logic that gets someone like Letai to endorse this. While there is some logic to it, seems like there are much more promising avenues to pursue. So it's not entirely crazy COVID-type nonsense just not smart science - i.e. a different type of concern
Distill Hiatus
After five years, Distill will be taking a break.
distill.pub
February 10, 2026 at 4:30 PM
right, like taxol. I'm just interested in the logic that gets someone like Letai to endorse this. While there is some logic to it, seems like there are much more promising avenues to pursue. So it's not entirely crazy COVID-type nonsense just not smart science - i.e. a different type of concern
"We believed contributions such as interactive articles and visualizations were held back by not being seen as real publications...we no longer believe this...the bottleneck is the amount of effort and the unusual combination of scientific and design expertise required" distill.pub/2021/distill...
Distill Hiatus
After five years, Distill will be taking a break.
distill.pub
February 10, 2026 at 4:26 PM
"We believed contributions such as interactive articles and visualizations were held back by not being seen as real publications...we no longer believe this...the bottleneck is the amount of effort and the unusual combination of scientific and design expertise required" distill.pub/2021/distill...
That "ivermectin has become a symbol of resistance against the medical establishment among conservatives" is insane.
Meanwhile "appalled...It’s absurd” isn't an NCI judgment one wants about a proposed study. Cancer folk, is there any justification for the study?
kffhealthnews.org/news/article...
Meanwhile "appalled...It’s absurd” isn't an NCI judgment one wants about a proposed study. Cancer folk, is there any justification for the study?
kffhealthnews.org/news/article...
US Cancer Institute Studying Ivermectin’s ‘Ability To Kill Cancer Cells’ - KFF Health News
At a January event organized by allies of health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., National Cancer Institute Director Anthony Letai said results may be released “in a few months.” Ivermectin, used to d...
kffhealthnews.org
February 10, 2026 at 2:17 PM
That "ivermectin has become a symbol of resistance against the medical establishment among conservatives" is insane.
Meanwhile "appalled...It’s absurd” isn't an NCI judgment one wants about a proposed study. Cancer folk, is there any justification for the study?
kffhealthnews.org/news/article...
Meanwhile "appalled...It’s absurd” isn't an NCI judgment one wants about a proposed study. Cancer folk, is there any justification for the study?
kffhealthnews.org/news/article...
Further details of our withdrawal processes are here. TLDR: you can label a paper 'withdrawn' but it remains accessible precisely because it will have been downloaded and traces remain online elsewhere, so a transparent record of what happened is needed connect.biorxiv.org/news/2023/08...
Preprint withdrawals
bioRxiv - the preprint server for biology, operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a research and educational institution
connect.biorxiv.org
February 9, 2026 at 12:11 PM
Further details of our withdrawal processes are here. TLDR: you can label a paper 'withdrawn' but it remains accessible precisely because it will have been downloaded and traces remain online elsewhere, so a transparent record of what happened is needed connect.biorxiv.org/news/2023/08...
"If a plagiarized paper by an author who claims he didn’t write it disappears from a journal’s website with no notice, did it ever exist?"
Yes - it'll have been downloaded, search engines will've indexed it. This is why bioRxiv/medRxiv do not disappear papers.
retractionwatch.com/2026/02/05/j...
Yes - it'll have been downloaded, search engines will've indexed it. This is why bioRxiv/medRxiv do not disappear papers.
retractionwatch.com/2026/02/05/j...
Journal silently removes paper for plagiarism, author claims identity theft
If a plagiarized paper by an author who claims he didn’t write it disappears from a journal’s website with no notice, did it ever exist in the first place? It’s not just a philosophical question fo…
retractionwatch.com
February 9, 2026 at 12:07 PM
"If a plagiarized paper by an author who claims he didn’t write it disappears from a journal’s website with no notice, did it ever exist?"
Yes - it'll have been downloaded, search engines will've indexed it. This is why bioRxiv/medRxiv do not disappear papers.
retractionwatch.com/2026/02/05/j...
Yes - it'll have been downloaded, search engines will've indexed it. This is why bioRxiv/medRxiv do not disappear papers.
retractionwatch.com/2026/02/05/j...
That is tragic. But the articles and complaints referenced are not about that: they are about the snow being dirty, getting in people's way, etc. It is the temperature not the after effects of the snowstorm that is killing people.
February 8, 2026 at 6:48 PM
That is tragic. But the articles and complaints referenced are not about that: they are about the snow being dirty, getting in people's way, etc. It is the temperature not the after effects of the snowstorm that is killing people.
Meanwhile I remember 2016 under De Blasio when they didn’t get the ploughs out in time…
February 8, 2026 at 3:43 PM
Meanwhile I remember 2016 under De Blasio when they didn’t get the ploughs out in time…
Maybe - but two weeks of sub-zero temperatures plus polar vortex is unusual after snowfall. And look how other cities grind to a halt under 1”.
February 8, 2026 at 3:39 PM
Maybe - but two weeks of sub-zero temperatures plus polar vortex is unusual after snowfall. And look how other cities grind to a halt under 1”.
This New Yorker is not blaming the mayor for physics www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
Rightwing critics blame Mamdani as New York snow fails to melt
Murdoch tabloid leads charge as big freeze persists – could the mayor please do something about the weather?
www.theguardian.com
February 8, 2026 at 2:47 PM
This New Yorker is not blaming the mayor for physics www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
“No we can’t ‘just do [X]’. It’s more complicated than that”
Without naming your job, tell me something you say over and over again at work.
"Where are your citations?"
"Where are your citations?"
Without naming your job, tell me something you say over and over again at work.
"No, you can't leave that here."
"No, you can't leave that here."
February 8, 2026 at 12:02 AM
“No we can’t ‘just do [X]’. It’s more complicated than that”
Reposted by Richard Sever
Have I ever mentioned how surreal it is to be an Editor-in-Chief of a journal called Vaccine right now?
www.science.org/content/arti...
It’s pretty wild, at least by typical academic journal editorial office standards.
www.science.org/content/arti...
It’s pretty wild, at least by typical academic journal editorial office standards.
Controversial Danish vaccine research group faces new allegations
Researchers say they couldn’t find complete data for 10 trials that together enrolled tens of thousands of children in Guinea-Bissau
www.science.org
February 6, 2026 at 6:14 AM
Have I ever mentioned how surreal it is to be an Editor-in-Chief of a journal called Vaccine right now?
www.science.org/content/arti...
It’s pretty wild, at least by typical academic journal editorial office standards.
www.science.org/content/arti...
It’s pretty wild, at least by typical academic journal editorial office standards.
Reposted by Richard Sever
Exciting preprint from the @merz.bsky.social lab proposing how fidelity of membrane fusion is achieved #membranes #trafficking
Sequential restriction of SNARE-mediated fusion by the COPII inner coat and SNARE chaperones www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
www.biorxiv.org
February 5, 2026 at 4:41 PM
Exciting preprint from the @merz.bsky.social lab proposing how fidelity of membrane fusion is achieved #membranes #trafficking
Reposted by Richard Sever
7️⃣ chablis, frascati, merlot, retsina, riesling, cabernet, grenache, chardonnay, chianti, pinotage, sauternes, weißherbst, zinfandel. A set of zebrafish mutants with defects in embryonic hematopoiesis.
journals.biologists.com/dev/article-...
journals.biologists.com/dev/article-...
Characterization of zebrafish mutants with defects in embryonic hematopoiesis
ABSTRACT. As part of a large scale chemical mutagenesis screen of the zebrafish (Danio rerio) genome, we have identified 33 mutants with defects in hematopoiesis. Complementation analysis placed 32 of...
journals.biologists.com
January 28, 2026 at 10:29 AM
7️⃣ chablis, frascati, merlot, retsina, riesling, cabernet, grenache, chardonnay, chianti, pinotage, sauternes, weißherbst, zinfandel. A set of zebrafish mutants with defects in embryonic hematopoiesis.
journals.biologists.com/dev/article-...
journals.biologists.com/dev/article-...
We should certainly consider whether how much should go into a paper (too much these days), whether some things should even be a paper (not the human genome), and the importance attached to them over other outputs. But I'm not sure the "livestream from my lab" is something anyone really wants 2/2
February 5, 2026 at 10:28 PM
We should certainly consider whether how much should go into a paper (too much these days), whether some things should even be a paper (not the human genome), and the importance attached to them over other outputs. But I'm not sure the "livestream from my lab" is something anyone really wants 2/2
It's appealing in some respects, but I just don't see that's how traditional academic careers operate or syntheses of most ideas/conclusions. You can clearly have continual data generation but that doesn't mean the narratives should not be more discrete. Plus it's not really how citation works. 1/2
February 5, 2026 at 10:26 PM
It's appealing in some respects, but I just don't see that's how traditional academic careers operate or syntheses of most ideas/conclusions. You can clearly have continual data generation but that doesn't mean the narratives should not be more discrete. Plus it's not really how citation works. 1/2
Linking the narrative with data, code, methods, and context is something everyone wants to see, but at some point most people most of the time want to draw a line under a project, mark it complete and move on. Will that change? 2/2
February 5, 2026 at 9:31 PM
Linking the narrative with data, code, methods, and context is something everyone wants to see, but at some point most people most of the time want to draw a line under a project, mark it complete and move on. Will that change? 2/2
"A living article...dynamic...instead of a static document, an evolving knowledge object that combines narrative with data, code, methods, and context"
This idea comes up often, but IME scientists are rarely as enthusiastic about it as publishers... 1/2 scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2026/02/05/b...
This idea comes up often, but IME scientists are rarely as enthusiastic about it as publishers... 1/2 scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2026/02/05/b...
Back to the (Article of the) Future: An interview with Sami Benchekroun and Rod Cookson - The Scholarly Kitchen
In this interview with Alice Meadows, Sami Benchekroun (Morressier/Molecular Connections) and Rod Cookson (The Royal Society) share their thoughts about how and why scholarly publishing needs to move ...
scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org
February 5, 2026 at 9:29 PM
"A living article...dynamic...instead of a static document, an evolving knowledge object that combines narrative with data, code, methods, and context"
This idea comes up often, but IME scientists are rarely as enthusiastic about it as publishers... 1/2 scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2026/02/05/b...
This idea comes up often, but IME scientists are rarely as enthusiastic about it as publishers... 1/2 scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2026/02/05/b...
look forward to reading it! Lots to think about around these issues
February 4, 2026 at 7:05 PM
look forward to reading it! Lots to think about around these issues
Best articulated here by the JCS Caveman years ago journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...
February 4, 2026 at 6:12 PM
Best articulated here by the JCS Caveman years ago journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...
Meanwhile on the AI question John's argument "generating hypotheses has never been the bottleneck for science" reminds me of something a PI at the LMB once said to me, "Everyone has ideas. That's not the difficult bit..."
February 4, 2026 at 2:58 PM
Meanwhile on the AI question John's argument "generating hypotheses has never been the bottleneck for science" reminds me of something a PI at the LMB once said to me, "Everyone has ideas. That's not the difficult bit..."