Alan McElligott

Ecology & Evolution ⬇️

“Submission received: 28 June 2025 / Revised: 23 July 2025 / Accepted: 25 July 2025 /“ 🙄🙄🙄 #mdpi

With Zero mentions of human ethical oversight for this human social science data collection ⬇️🔽🤦‍♂️

And as a bonus you’ll get an actual peer review with an editor and reviewers who understand the topic and know what they are doing ( editors for microsoc journals have to apply in a competitive process, it’s not a mates club)

Meanwhile in the rest of the world we still accept viruses as real and that vaccines work and here we are at the UK-ICN coronavirus meeting in Liverpool preparing for SARS-CoV-3 in all our diversity.

Ecology needs a causal overhaul Ecology has yet to embrace causal inference, yet most questions in ecology are causal. Despite the common use of terms that imply causation, such as “shapes”, “drives”, or “impacts”, many studies shy...

I'm guessing this is probably very well worth the read! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

Opportunities — ASAB

the journal Animal Behaviour, which is run by @asab.org, is looking to hire a new Managing Editor. Please share advert with folks with a Life Sciences degree (ideally postgrad) who might be interested www.asab.org/opportunities

I learned a lot working on this new paper with this group of network scientists, sociologists, anthropologists and behavioural ecologists. We're hoping it helps anyone who feels (understandably!) lost in the animal social networks weeds.

“It shreds me from within”: thematic analysis of the impact of racism on veterinary professionals and students in the United Kingdom - BMC Psychology Background Calls to tackle racism, especially in the workplace, have risen recently around the world and much research has examined the experiences of Black, Asian, and minority ethnic (BAME) people i...

2025. #DEI - “It shreds me from within”: thematic analysis of the impact of racism on veterinary professionals and students in the United Kingdom" bmcpsychology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....

This is a problem we need to tackle. I actually think part of the solution is a proper external regulatory body, like I have as a Veterinarian. The RCVS exists to protect the public and maintain standards. It has the power to remove your ability to make a living ( deregistering you) .

Reliability and precision of thermal imaging measurements to study animal behaviour and welfare The use of infrared thermal imaging has become increasingly popular in animal behaviour, health, and welfare research over the last decade. Yet, there is a lack of consensus regarding how this techniq...

#PREPRINT - Reliability and precision of thermal imaging measurements to study animal behaviour and welfare - www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Wild pigs' flesh turning 'neon blue' in California: Authorities are sounding the alarm Dan Burton has trapped hundreds of wild pigs for clients of his wildlife control company in Salinas, but even he was startled when he cut one of them open and found blue meat inside.

2025. Wild pigs' flesh turning 'neon blue' in California: Authorities are sounding the alarm. "blue meat is a sign that the animal may have consumed poison" phys.org/news/2025-08...

Toxic well water harms dogs before humans, study shows Dogs drink water wherever they happen to find it—a puddle, a pond, a toilet. But the stuff in their actual water bowls almost always comes from the same tap their owners use. When that water is contam...

Toxic well water harms dogs before humans, study shows phys.org/news/2025-08...

Symposium: "Animal Behaviour and its Implications" August 29th - whova.com/embedded/ses... #AnimalBehaviour #AnimalBehavior #AnimalWelfare

Animals potentially used in fraudulent invasive research 🔽 #AnimalEthics #ResearchEthics

MDPI should be asked to define their "reusability" metric - for what?? 🙄😂🫣

Fraudulent Scientific Papers Are Rapidly Increasing, Study Finds

2025. Fraudulent Scientific Papers Are Rapidly Increasing, Study Finds.
www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/s...

2025. The entities enabling scientific fraud at scale are large, resilient, and growing rapidly | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...

Taken from one of my own talks on this topic

"Ethics in Research. Our Duties and Responsibilities:
A. To Undertake Science in an Ethical Way
B. To Report Ethical Problems if Encountered"

We need more people doing "B" - Report Ethical Problems if Encountered! [as well as the other solutions]

NO, IT IS NOT! If it was, they would not use a goat in this way!

"Puck Fair chairman: Welfare of goat is ‘paramount’ as oldest street festival returns"
www.msn.com/en-ie/news/u...

Please consider writing one of these yourself if you are in the Uk, especially if you’re a woman.

They get away with this because they think not capitulating to TERFs has more consequences than capitulating to them.

We need THOUSANDS of women to mail them expressing their disgust.

Please help us

Gorillas seek out old female friends when they move A study in Rwanda reveals the significance of a social connection between female mountain gorillas.

#ProcB via @bbc.co.uk | Dispersed female networks: female gorillas’ inter-group relationships influence dispersal decisions: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

NO, IT IS NOT! If it was, they would not use a goat in this way!

"Puck Fair chairman: Welfare of goat is ‘paramount’ as oldest street festival returns"
www.msn.com/en-ie/news/u...

I have lots of things on my to-do list today, so naturally I have been distracted by the latest anti-vax bullshit.

The regular crowd is abuzz with the news of a new study (preprinted on preprints.org by @mdpiopenaccess.bsky.social). The lead author posted this illustrative video on Twitter.

Preprint claiming that COVID-19 mRNA vaccines cause transcriptomic dysregulation is deeply flawed Today, 25 July 2025, a preprint was posted claiming that significant gene expression changes were found in individuals with new-onset cancer and other diseases after receiving mRNA COVID-19 vaccine…

Shoutout @elisabethbik.bsky.social! Check out her blog post on the preprint here:

scienceintegritydigest.com/2025/07/25/p...

No, mRNA vaccines do not cause “transcriptomic chaos” A review of a recent anti-vaccine preprint

Folks, the situation with the latest anti-vaccine preprint making the rounds is way worse than initially assessed. There's even a dash of plagiarism!

reeserichardson.blog/2025/07/28/n...

Happy 15th anniversary, Retraction Watch Once upon a time, a long time ago, two science journalists had an idea for a blog about retractions. And on Aug. 3, 2010, Retraction Watch launched, detailing in the first post why retractions matt…

Once upon a time, two science journalists had an idea for a blog about retractions. And on Aug. 3, 2010, Retraction Watch launched.

And now, 15 years and 6,700 posts later, that work seems more important than ever.

Happy 15th anniversary, Retraction Watch.

A do-or-die moment for the scientific enterprise Reflecting on our paper “The entities enabling scientific fraud at scale are large, resilient, and growing rapidly”

A better scientific enterprise is possible--but only if we fight for it.

A better summation of my thoughts is here: reeserichardson.blog/2025/08/04/a...

Our article is now fully open-access!

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Want to get involved finding problematic scientific articles? Check out the Collection of Open Science Integrity Guides at cosig.net!

@cosig.net