LAUSR

It is absurd to put effort and public resources into research that has already been published. This will continue to be a risk as long as papers in non-English journals are not routinely indexed in the international databases (see also J. Lebel and R. McLean Nature 559, 23–26; 2018). Some national databases offer a partial solution (see J. Tao et al. Nature 557, 492; 2018). For example, Ukraine’s Panteleimon database (http://www.panteleimon.org) translates the title, abstract and some figure legends and tables into English. Nevertheless, people should never cite research that has not been read in full. The scientific community needs to develop a comprehensive multi-language translation tool with the help of services such as Google Translate. This would enable international researchers to access regional databases not compiled in English and to find out all the essential details — for instance, regarding experimental design and results, or whether the paper was peer-reviewed. It would also resolve problems of priority and giving proper credit. Daniel Prieto Instituto de Investigaciones Biologicas Clemente Estable, Montevideo, Uruguay. [email protected] Rectify biased take on science history