Nobel winner boycotts glamour mags

It's not perfect—see "paying for an editorial on open access"—but Science has its merits despite what one Nobel winner thinks.

Flickr user: dullhunk

The old saying is that winning can go to your head, and winning the Nobel Prize is no different. Nobel winners earn a certain level of credibility and exposure that opens the door to more opportunities while allowing for stronger discretion. The rest of us only dream of this choosy luxury.

UC Berkeley's Randy Schekman won his Nobel Prize in Medicine this year for describing the transit happening within cells. It's important research that could become required background reading for the entire medical field. And since the new notoriety presents Schekman with an entirely unique spotlight, we're all waiting to learn what his next move is.

Initially, at least, Schekman appears ready to use his Nobel platform to talk about about how the top science journals are merely glamour rags that favor style over substance. Speaking to The Guardian this week, he said that leading academic journals represent a "tyranny" that must be broken and that his lab would no longer publish in the likes of Nature, Cell, and Science.