The Reddit commentariat is a tough crowd — even, it turns out, for a Nobel laureate.
Randy Schekman, who shared this year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on cell transport, took to the website yesterday for an "Ask Me Anything" session, subjecting himself to slings and arrows of the Reddit crowd.
Much of the discussion revolved around Schekman's recent announcement that his lab would no longer be publishing in "luxury" journals like Science, Nature, and Cell. As more than one commenter pointed out — and as Schekman himself admitted — this isn't an especially bold stand for someone who just won the Nobel.
A number of commenters also noted that Schekman's anti-luxury journal stance is perhaps not entirely disinterested given his role as editor of the open-access journal eLife.
"I think it's also slightly self-serving for you to try to spearhead a movement away from big name journals, when you are the editor of a new journal," one says.
And then, of course, there was wordplay:
"You were the editor of PNAS? How many jokes were made involving the name?"
Keep it classy, Redditors.