2013 is off to a bad start

Happy 2013! Here are some brief notes:

• The Chronicle of Higher Education has an interesting piece, "When a Mentor becomes a Thief" on the problem of advisors publishing the research of their students -- and of students not understanding that sometimes what they think they "discovered" has actually been in work at the lab for quite sometime. "The solution, then, is clear: Everyone needs to start talking."
• A blog criticizing evidence-based medicine states that 90% of peer-reviewed clinical research is completely false. There is a whiff of back-to-the-roots-heal-thyself in the article, but there are many links to John P. A Ioannidis' work on false research.
• VroniPlag Wiki has published cases #38 (dentistry, Gießen), #39 (business computing, Heidelberg), and #40 (law, Würzburg). People had lots of time over the holidays. #39 really takes the cake - it appears to incorporate lots of term papers from a German public paper mill, word for word. 
• The Thüringer Landeszeitung published a rather tongue-in-cheek article about Goethe and his "plagiarized" dissertation.
• The FAZ ran an article on plagiarizing professors.
• Bogus conferences listed more IEEE conferences.
• The blog Science Fraud has had to shut down pending legal action. How are we to be able to discuss bogus science if the accused pull legal tricks to keep people from protesting? Of course, this makes it clear that they have hit a nerve somewhere. I hope they are able to sort this out and keep publishing.