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According to Bishop, most people involved in review mills are seeking to boost their citation numbers. These guide university decisions around hiring, promotions and tenure, and influence university rankings and funding decisions. The more that citation numbers are used as a metric of academic success, “the more people will try to game the citations”, she says. Evidence for this comes from the observation that some people who provide duplicate reports are also habitual self-citers. Fabian Wittmers, a marine biologist and science sleuth at Oregon State University in Corvallis, mentions the engineer Rabiul Awual as one example of this phenomenon. Wittmers…

NFL NationAug 3, 2026, 06:00 AM ETCloseNFL Nation is made up of 32 team-specific reporters who cover the NFL year-round across ESPN.com, ESPN television shows, ESPN Radio, ESPN+ and social media platforms. It was established ahead of the 2013 season.Multiple AuthorsNFL training camps are off and running, and the 2026 season is right around the corner. While they work all the early practices, our NFL Nation reporters log their daily observations.One of the biggest storylines throughout every camp is that players are battling for positions on the depth chart. Players spend camp making their cases to be included on the…

Prime Video has ordered its first multi-camera comedy series from someone who knows the format extremely well. The Amazon-owned streamer has picked up DINKS from Friends co-creator Marta Kauffman and Hannah K.S. Canter. Amazon MGM Studios, Lionsgate Television, Kauffman and Canter’s Okay Goodnight and Publicis Media Content Innovation, the ad giant’s entertainment arm, are producing the series, which will be heavily improvised. June Diane Raphael (Elle) and Paul Scheer (Black Monday), improv veterans and a real-life married couple, will star in DINKS (an acronym for Double Income, No Kids). Jon Gabrus is also a series regular. “I’ve always said I…

Strait of Hormuz could open ‘by tomorrow’: TrumpDonald Trump is speaking at an executive order signing at the White House, where he was asked where direct talks with Iran would take place.“You’ll find out today or tomorrow,” he said. “They’re going to go quickly one way or the other. It’s not very complex.”Trump said the strait of Hormuz could be open “literally by tomorrow”.“The first phase is the opening of the straits. The second phase will be the denuclearisation,” he said. “That’ll take a little while, but … we’re very strong on it.”Vessels in the strait of Hormuz, as seen…

A drone hit a busy beach in southern Russia, killing seven people including three children, local authorities have said.In social media footage verified by the BBC, a drone can be seen hurtling towards a cliffside before crashing into a fireball on the beach below as tourists look on from the shore and in the water.The total number of injured reached 40, with 17 people hospitalised, said the governor of the Krasnodar region Veniamin Kondratyev.He accused Ukraine of “a deliberate strike on civilians”. Ukraine has not commented. Both sides deny targeting civilians deliberately.It is unclear what the drone was targeting. Some…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Imagine what it’s like being AstraZeneca boss Sir Pascal Soriot. The company you run is doing well — on track to beat a goal of $80bn of annual sales by 2030. A pipeline of almost 200 drug development projects looks pretty full. Yet something is missing: genuine global heft. Time, perhaps, to do a megadeal.Why else would AstraZeneca be considering a merger with Bristol Myers Squibb, as the FT reported over the weekend. After all, Soriot doesn’t need to go shopping to plug…

The European Union has ushered in some additional rules that aim to make it easier for people to identify chatbots and AI deepfakes online. The new transparency obligations under the bloc’s landmark AI Act came into effect on August 2nd, requiring companies to disclose when people are interacting with AI models, and if content has been generated or altered by them.The transparency rules differ between providers (companies that develop and market AI systems) and deployers (platforms and services that use those AI systems), though some companies like Meta and SpaceXAI are classified as both.Providers must design AI systems to explicitly…

Authorities in the Midwestern state of Michigan say that two people who died had underlying conditions.Published On 3 Aug 20263 Aug 2026Authorities in the US state of Michigan say that they have confirmed the deaths of two people in a cyclospora outbreak, the first fatal cases of a disease related to the microscopic parasite recorded in the United States.The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services said on Monday that both individuals had significant underlying health conditions and had been affected by intestinal illness and dehydration.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list“This development highlights the importance of identifying the…

Shareholders of the largest pharmaceutical company in Nigeria, Fidson Healthcare Plc, approved a dividend of ₦1.50 per 50 kobo ordinary share, amounting to ₦3.6 billion, at the Company’s 27th Annual General Meeting held virtually on Thursday, 30 July. The approval comes against the backdrop of a year in which the company achieved key milestones in its growth trajectory. It also coincides with the one-year anniversary of the smooth transition of leadership at both the Board and Management level — a transition shareholders acknowledged as a testament to Fidson’s strong corporate governance culture and succession planning. It also reflects shareholders’ confidence…

The open letter was signed by a number of figures who have played concerts or broadcast from the observatory, including guitarist Johnny Marr, electronica pioneer Ralf Hütter of Kraftwerk, the bands New Order, Elbow and Doves, comedian Dara Ó Briain and poet laureate Simon Armitage.It stated Jodrell Bank was “an icon in UK cultural and scientific history”, which was the “thriving, thumping heart of space observation, research and education in the UK”.”This beacon of science is more ambitious than ever, with exciting plans already under way that will ensure the UK’s relevance and leadership in the rapidly evolving domain of…