"We are pleased to invite you....."

The recent trend toward open access science publishing has yielded a very uneven crop of journals. We do have a few respected Open Access-only publications with high quality research (PLoS ONE and many titles on BioMedCentral) but there is also a very large number of publishing firms that email researchers to solicit submissions to brand new Open Access journals. I have received several of these emails, which always claim to have selected me because of my expertise on the topic even though I have often not published anything on it, or even on related subjects. So far, I have received requests to submit reviews to:

a special issue on protein biogenesis in "Archaea". (I have studied enzymes of P. furiosus, but never did any on protein biogenesis or post-translational modifications)

International Journal of Medicinal Chemistry

Recent Patents on DNA and Gene Sequences (I have never done any sequencing, but that did not prevent the editors from considering me an expert on the area ;-)

This morning I received the most ludicrous example of "scientific" spam: I was invited to present my work on "A tale of two acids: when arginine is a more appropriate acid than H₃O⁺" to the "EPS Montreal International Renewable Energy Forum 2011". Definitely off-topic!