Dr. Ali Barry

If an attractive young woman a third my age didn't want to date me, then why did she ask me for feedback on an economics paper?

by Larry Summers

Worn path through a dry meadow

Runner at a viewpoint overlooking a valley

sunny sundays

What a privilege it is to be a younger disabled person in a community shaped by Alice Wong. Rest in peace, Alice.

A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below. 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year.

A figure detailing the drain on researcher time. 1. The four-fold drain 1.2 Time The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce, with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure 1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs, grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time. The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many review demands. Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in ‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier, local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision.

A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below: 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year.

The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.

We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing:

a 🧵 1/n

Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...

Patches of snow along a forest path in the mist

Mountain summit in full cloud, only the cross is visible

Grey and foggy mountain valley view

The most November of weathers but we caught the first snowfall of the season

The Shutdown of U.S.A.I.D. Has Already Killed Hundreds of Thousands The short documentary “Rovina’s Choice” tells the story of what goes when aid goes.

One analytical model shows that, as of November 5th, the dismantling of U.S.A.I.D. has already caused the deaths of 600,000 people, two-thirds of them children. https://newyorkermag.visitlink.me/jUzNSc

Nice opportunity for canadian #PainResearch folks abroad to feel a bit more connected, as well as any postdoc at a canadian uni!

A Reference Atlas of the Human Dorsal Root Ganglion Somatosensory perception largely emerges from diverse peripheral sensory neurons whose cell bodies reside in dorsal root ganglia (DRG). Damage or dysfunction of DRG neurons is a major cause of chronic...

The BIG DRG paper is now up on @biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... so many people worked so hard to make this happen. Props to the whole PRECISION Human Pain Network.

A molecular map of the human spinal dorsal and ventral horn defines arrangement of neuronal types and glial sex differences The spinal cord is the gateway for sensory information from the body as it ascends to the brain, as well as a major motor output center of the nervous system. It is also a key location for sensory-mot...

The latest work from our PRECISION Human Pain Center project is now up on @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social led by Katherin Gabriel and @oliviadavis.bsky.social with a huge contribution from @allanhpool.bsky.social's lab and, of course, the Southwest Transplant Alliance: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

So nice to see this #PainResearch out! Congratulations all 🥳

Every tech company eventually either reinvents the bus or reinvents phrenology

Subscribe to The Onion instead of whatever this shit is.

Membership.theonion.com

Mountain bikes and a golden retriever in a sunny forest. The ground is covered in fallen leaves

the jetlag is real but it's always worth it for a leafy escape 🍁

it's cool that there are still elections

I do not regret to inform you that we are going to win

Where is the actual funding to do the science?

Can't say I'm surprised, but I'm certainly disappointed

I shouldn't be this nervous for a budget but oh my goodness we need a win

We’re so excited to share our exclusive Christmas jumper with you! 🦖🎄

It's so depressing. If anyone does need up to date info and can't quite stomach the wayback approach, Canada does still have that covered www.canada.ca/en/public-he...

Using quantitative proteomics and cross-omic analyses of human dorsal root ganglia, @aliibarry.bsky.social et al. show evidence for sexual dimorphism in TNFα signaling spanning the epigenetic signature to proteomic differences. Learn more in #PAIN bit.ly/42cM5wC

New light shed on el-Fasher horror as survivors arrive in Sudan’s Tawila Testimonies describe bodies in streets, families torn apart and days without food as paramilitary seizes Sudan city.

Testimonies describe bodies in streets, families torn apart and days without food as paramilitary seizes Sudan city.

🗣️📢 Call for short essays, poetry and short fiction: LOOMING ‘zine (issue 2, winter 2025).

Deadline: Dec 1

LOOMING is a technocritical zine celebrating the human and the analog in the face of Big Tech.

CC @kconrad.bsky.social

Submit to: looming.the.zine@proton.me

Happy golden retriever outside on a drive holding a glove with a wagging tail in the autumn

all my gloves are now lost in leaf piles

FUCK WHY DID YOU GUYS LET ME TRY THIS IVE NEVER BEEN SO STRESSED IN MY FUCKING LIFE

We are seeking a senior tenured professor in our Department working on affective and/or motivational neuroscience (defined in the ad, but pretty broad). The idea is that this person is going help lead our growth in this area alongside our excellent Centers. jobs.utdallas.edu/postings/30693

time to learn how baseball works

Scientists had to change more than 700 grant titles to receive NIH funding. Health disparities researchers fear what’s next The titles of more than 700 multi-year NIH grants have been changed this year, according to an analysis by Jeremy Berg, a former agency official

The NIH has insisted there are no banned words

But, an analysis by @jeremymberg.bsky.social found over 700 hundred grants changed their titles from '24 to '25

Some see it as a small price to pay to keep their grant, but others are worried about what comes next

www.statnews.com/2025/10/29/n...

Designing allosteric modulators to change GPCR G protein subtype selectivity - Nature Studies of the G-protein-coupled receptor NTSR1 show that the G protein selectivity of this receptor can be modified by small molecules, enabling the design of drugs that work by switching receptor su...

Now online @nature.com!

Want to change the consequences of receptor activation?

Small molecules binding the GPCR-transducer interface change G protein subtype preference in predictable ways, enabling rational drug design 💥

So many new possibilities! 🧪🧠🟦

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🧵👇

paper acceptance mondays are the best kind of mondays