Multiauthor Papers: Onward and Upward

Having last examined the phenomenon of multiauthor papers five years ago, ScienceWatch returns to assess the shifting population of papers whose listed authors number from the dozens to the thousands. The thresholds of “hyperauthorship” have reached new heights in recent years, driven in particular by one international undertaking in high-energy physics.

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Commentary From Trending Scientists & Topics

Vinay Pathak on the XMRV Retrovirus and Disease

Vinay K. Pathak of the National Cancer Institute discusses his 2011 Science paper, “Recombinant origin of the retrovirus XMRV” in this Fast Breaking Paper commentary. From the interview: “Two studies in 2009 reported that xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus (XMRV), a gammaretrovirus, is associated with a high percentage of human prostate cancers and chronic fatigue syndrome....”

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Mauricio Cisternas and Knud Jahnke

Mauricio Cisternas and Knud Jahnke talk about their 2011 Astrophysical Journal paper, “The bulk of the black hole growth since z ~ 1 occurs in a secular universe: No major merger-AGN connection,” from the field of Space Science, in this Fast Breaking Paper commentary. From the interview: “In our paper we tackled the problem of how to supply the necessary "food" for a black hole to consume. Early observations of some of the most-bright active galaxies, known as quasars, revealed that...”

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