How is DeNovo doing?

One year ago, I predicted the new journal DeNovo would never have a second issue.

You may recall that the journal published a single article in its first issue, one by Melba Ketchum, claiming to have found evidence for new hominins in North America. That it, sasquatch DNA. Many people charged that the creation of DeNovo was a pure “vanity press” move by Ketchum to publish her research. Ketchum denied this. But there is little doubt she have a very, very steep uphill climb to get the paper in any regular scientific journal.

I cannot say that DeNovo is a dead website. The look of the website has changed since I last checked it, so someone is minding the store. The appearance is still fairly dreadful, though, with lots of crummy, pixelated images in the banner.

As for the scientific content, not only has there never been a second issue, there has never been a second article. It’s things like this that give new journals, and new publication models, like open access publishing, a bad name.