Deep Diving Dinosaurs? Time to Write a Letter.

Deep-diving dinosaurs! How cool would that be?! At least, if it wasn’t total nonsense and possibly another example of a peer-reviewing fiasco. This is the title of a new article from a journal that usually produces pretty damn good science, especially of the Palaeo breed. It’s not worth delving into the content of the article, but what it demonstrates is a complete failing on the part of either the author or publishers, and propagation of misinformation from the scholarly domain. This article is actually about decompression pathologies in marine reptiles and sperm whales as a response to an earlier article on the same topic.

A glitch in the [publishing] matrix?

Cretaceous Research is a journal published by the notorious for-profit publisher Elsevier (see articles on this blog). Tonight however, they have blessed us with a wealth of new research through their RSS feed (albeit, paywalled for the 99%), a lot including everyone’s favourite vertebrates, the dinosaurs. This is an inordinate amount of publications for K-Research (there were about 50 in total, and the same for Palaeo-3, also published through Lolsevier).

Could this be a glitch in the system? A way of attempting to appease those who most strongly oppose Elsevier’s business model? (Mike Taylor of SV-POW (amongst others) has been one of the strongest and most vocal opposers against Elsevier, and is a bona fide vertebrate palaeontologist [by day..]). A mystery indeed. Or, it could just be a chance to absorb some great palaeontology research!

Neo, the manifestation of Open Access

Either way, the latest published through Cretaceous Research includes: Alvarezsaurids and eggs from Patagonia, ceratopsids from Canada, marine reptiles from Chile, arthritis in birds, the world’s largest toothed pterosaur, another pterosaur from China, a Spanish sauropod, a new pliosaur from Utah, a new avian ichnotaxon, another Sauropod from Patagonia, a new ornithopod, and a tyrannosaurid from Uzbekistan! Wow. There’s more, including frogs, beetles, lizards, and rocks, but you can find them hanging around these bad boys.

Edit: Looking at the journals, it appears that what Elsevier have done is mistakenly allow access to both April and June’s editions through advanced online publication. Cheers!

Obviously *none* of these paywalled papers are available upon request.. (jon.tennant.2[at]gmail.com )