If you’ve never noticed this category on the blog before, you’ve missed something! Buried within the biomedical literature are some real doozies – papers which really make you wonder, “Who on Earth would publish this stuff, let alone FUND it??”
All of these entries are real papers that can be found on the PubMed Central website for scientific literature – at least until they get taken down or retracted.
Click the “Best of pubmed” link on the menu on the left for all the past entries in this category…
Today’s theme is “Dubious behavior: maybe I should think twice about doing that…”
Mud wrestling
Mike Fitzpatrick
Br J Gen Pract. 2008 Aug 1; 58(553): 590. doi: 10.3399/bjgp08X319864
PMCID: PMC2486393
Investigating the welfare and conservation implications of alligator wrestling for American Alligators (Alligator mississippiensis)
Casey Riordan, Jennifer Jacquet, Becca Franks
PLoS One. 2020; 15(11): e0242106. Published online 2020 Nov 13. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0242106
PMCID: PMC7665580
Joy of Ping-Pong: Genome-Wide and Phenome-Wide Association Studies
Heung-Woo Park
Allergy Asthma Immunol Res. 2020 Sep; 12(5): 748–749. Published online 2020 Jun 4. doi: 10.4168/aair.2020.12.5.748
PMCID: PMC7346994
Pimp my slang
Paul W Keeley
BMJ. 2007 Dec 22; 335(7633): 1295. doi: 10.1136/bmj.39414.699005.94
PMCID: PMC2151309
Saturday
Erlick A C Pereira
J R Soc Med. 2005 Apr; 98(4): 183–184.
PMCID: PMC1079451
Sitcoms’ scintillating skin surveyors
Marjon Vatanchi, Daniel E. Zelac
Int J Womens Dermatol. 2019 Sep; 5(4): 271. Published online 2019 Apr 29. doi: 10.1016/j.ijwd.2019.04.028
PMCID: PMC6831748
Punishing the patient.
D Waugh
CMAJ. 1988 Jul 1; 139(1): 58.
PMCID: PMC1267990
“To Bluff like a Man or Fold like a Girl?” – Gender Biased Deceptive Behavior in Online Poker
Jussi Palomäki, Jeff Yan, David Modic, Michael Laakasuo
PLoS One. 2016; 11(7): e0157838. Published online 2016 Jul 6. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0157838
PMCID: PMC4934693
Human Wagering Behavior Depends on Opponents’ Faces
Erik J. Schlicht, Shinsuke Shimojo, Colin F. Camerer, Peter Battaglia, Ken Nakayama
PLoS One. 2010; 5(7): e11663. Published online 2010 Jul 21. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0011663
PMCID: PMC2908123
Christmas party games
James Owen Drife
BMJ. 2007 Dec 8; 335(7631): 1214. doi: 10.1136/bmj.39415.448646.59
PMCID: PMC2128650
The Napoleon Complex: When Shorter Men Take More
Jill E. P. Knapen, Nancy M. Blaker, Mark Van Vugt
Psychol Sci. 2018 Jul; 29(7): 1134–1144. Published online 2018 May 10. doi: 10.1177/0956797618772822
PMCID: PMC6247438
Confessions of a Superhero Junkie
Anne Dohrenwend
J Grad Med Educ. 2011 Mar; 3(1): 109–110. doi: 10.4300/JGME-D-10-00197.1
PMCID: PMC3186262
The Ghoul Type of Nurse
Hospital (Lond 1886) 1919 Feb 22; 65(1707): 455.
PMCID: PMC5243629
Impact of Acute Sleep Deprivation on Sarcasm Detection
Gaétane Deliens, Fanny Stercq, Alison Mary, Hichem Slama, Axel Cleeremans, Philippe Peigneux, Mikhail Kissine
PLoS One. 2015; 10(11): e0140527. Published online 2015 Nov 4. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0140527
PMCID: PMC4633173
“Spidey Can”: Preliminary Evidence Showing Arachnophobia Symptom Reduction Due to Superhero Movie Exposure
Yaakov S.G. Hoffman, Shani Pitcho-Prelorentzos, Lia Ring, Menachem Ben-Ezra
Front Psychiatry. 2019; 10: 354. Published online 2019 Jun 7. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00354
PMCID: PMC6565891
Good Science Writing 
Interesting that you chose that paper for the list. Did you actually read the paper? If you did, I would be very interested to hear, why you think it is dubious or sub-par as science? We did do mathematical modelling, we did carefully craft the stimulus materials and we were aiming to study deceptive behavior in online settings, so as to understand who does it and to whom and potentially how to prevent it.
We have made the data publicly available as well…
I don’t mind the the attack, but it would be nice to know what is it based on?
Hey Michael, please don’t take the Best of PubMed in any way as an attack! For heaven’s sake! A lot of the pieces here turn out to be quite interesting if you pursue them – in many cases it’s just the titles that give us a bit of fun…!