Comment in 2017

An investigation finds that dozens of academic titles offered 'Dr Fraud' — a sham, unqualified scientist — a place on their editorial board. Katarzyna Pisanski and colleagues report.

Action on soil sustainability must move beyond the farm and into the boardroom, urges Jess Davies.

Regulation makes economic sense, argue Douglas Sipp, Christopher McCabe and John E. J. Rasko.

Masoud Mohseni, Peter Read, Hartmut Neven and colleagues at Google's Quantum AI Laboratory set out investment opportunities on the road to the ultimate quantum machines.

Strict immigration policies stifle innovation and job creation, cautions Vivek Wadhwa.

Gemma Galdon Clavell calls for checks and balances to avoid the indiscriminate sharing of personal data.

Monitoring technologies only add to the political noise over managing mobility, warns Huub Dijstelbloem.

Jeffrey S. Mogil and Malcolm R. Macleod propose a new kind of paper that combines the flexibility of basic research with the rigour of clinical trials.

A newly unearthed article by the great politician reveals that he reasoned like a scientist about the likelihood of extraterrestrials, writes Mario Livio.

Zhong Lin Wang proposes a radically different way to harvest renewable energy from the ocean using nanogenerator networks.

Ethical review boards must focus on clinical promise as well as safety to hold the first tests of drugs in humans to a higher standard, say Jonathan Kimmelman and Carole Federico.

Jory Lerback and Brooks Hanson present an analysis that reveals evidence of gender bias in peer review for scholarly publications.

Police agencies, software firms and the public must ensure that crime-forecasting software improves public safety and officer accountability, writes Aaron Shapiro.

Erica Ollmann Saphire and colleagues share lessons in finding treatments fast from the work on Ebola by the Viral Hemorrhagic Fever Immunotherapeutic Consortium.

Research is needed on how groups make choices in real situations, write Guruprasad Madhavan, Charles Phelps and Rino Rappuoli.

Gary McDowell, Misty Heggeness and colleagues present census data showing how the biomedical workforce is fundamentally different to those of past generations – academia should study the trends, and adapt.