_{Unicorn Papers}

Top ‱ cited papers from PUBMED

• The name

  By analogy to unicorn companies (startups with a valuation of US$1 billion or more), Unicorn Papers represent the most highly cited publications (one per ten thousand, ‱) describing the most important scientific discoveries.

• What EC stands for?

  EC stands for "equal contribution" (a model in which all authors are considered to have made an equal contribution to the work). In this model, citations (or any other metric) are divided by the number of authors to reflect this equal contribution. Alternatively, you can see the contribution matrix in the raw format.

• Why should we care how many authors did the work?

  The number of authors listed on papers has significantly increased over the years, doubling in the last 20 years (see Fig. 2 and Fig. 3 here). In addition, an increasing number of papers have large numbers of authors, often counted in the hundreds or even thousands (Fig. 3). These collaborative papers typically describe multi-billion dollar projects and are likely to be highly cited, as they are widely used by the community in a given field. On the other hand, breakthrough ideas and discoveries at their earliest stages are usually the work of a single person or small group of people, but as the ideas are further developed and brought to a production level, they become the focus of a larger group of people. In the field of science, it is common for a single "golden" experiment or observation that lead to numerous new studies and developments. Unicorn Papers seek to identify these initial discoveries and the individuals or small groups responsible for them.
  
  Another reason is very pragmatic. Similar work done by few scientists should not be counted equally as the work done by few dozens.

• Screening for consortia papers

  The list is screened manually against errors in the authors lists (e.g. missing authors, consortium, group omissions, etc.), but if you spot the error (e.g. PUBMED did not include all authors in given PMID) please send us the information about it (Contact).

• Unicorn Papers vs. years

  
  
  Thus, it seems that it takes 15-25 years to become Unicorn Paper (ealier it is hard to get enough citations, later new papers start to be more citable).
  
  

• Top 50 journals

   1. 214 (6.28) Nature
   2. 210 (6.17) Science
   3. 127 (3.73) Cell
   4. 104 (3.05) N Engl J Med
   5.  67 (1.97) Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
   6.  58 (1.70) Nat Rev Cancer
   7.  50 (1.47) Nucleic Acids Res
   8.  49 (1.44) Annu Rev Biochem
   9.  48 (1.41) J Biol Chem
  10.  48 (1.41) Lancet
  11.  48 (1.41) Physiol Rev
  12.  47 (1.38) J Mol Biol
  13.  45 (1.32) Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol
  14.  44 (1.29) Bioinformatics
  15.  43 (1.26) Anal Biochem
  16.  32 (0.94) Biochem J
  17.  32 (0.94) Chem Rev
  18.  31 (0.91) Annu Rev Immunol
  19.  30 (0.88) Nat Rev Immunol
  20.  29 (0.85) Methods Enzymol
  21.  29 (0.85) Nat Rev Neurosci
  22.  27 (0.79) Nat Rev Genet
  23.  25 (0.73) Genes Dev
  24.  23 (0.68) Mol Biol Evol
  25.  22 (0.65) Annu Rev Neurosci
  26.  21 (0.62) JAMA
  27.  20 (0.59) J Cell Biol
  28.  20 (0.59) Psychol Bull
  29.  20 (0.59) Acta Crystallogr D Biol Crystallogr
  30.  20 (0.59) Nat Med
  31.  20 (0.59) J Clin Invest
  32.  19 (0.56) Genetics
  33.  18 (0.53) CA Cancer J Clin
  34.  17 (0.50) BMJ
  35.  16 (0.47) Pharmacol Rev
  36.  16 (0.47) Neuron
  37.  15 (0.44) Nat Rev Drug Discov
  38.  14 (0.41) Neuroimage
  39.  14 (0.41) Biochemistry
  40.  14 (0.41) Gene
  41.  14 (0.41) Nat Biotechnol
  42.  14 (0.41) Clin Microbiol Rev
  43.  13 (0.38) Nat Methods
  44.  13 (0.38) Arch Gen Psychiatry
  45.  13 (0.38) Trends Cogn Sci
  46.  13 (0.38) Biochim Biophys Acta
  47.  13 (0.38) Annu Rev Cell Dev Biol
  48.  12 (0.35) Biometrics
  49.  12 (0.35) Psychol Rev
  50.  12 (0.35) Genome Res

  
  

• The oldest Unicorn Papers

  No.	Citations	ECcit	RCR	ECRCR	Title	Authors	Journal	Year	PMID	Article(?)
  2688	962	962.0	0.0	0.0	On the Absorption of Fluids from the Connective Tissue Spaces.	E H Starling	J Physiol	1896	16992325	Yes
  315	3159	3159.0	0.0	0.0	Evolution in Mendelian Populations.	S Wright	Genetics	1931	17246615	Yes
  3352	851	851.0	0.0	0.0	The colorimetric determination of phosphorus.	E J King	Biochem J	1932	16744823	Yes
  1539	1292	1292.0	0.0	0.0	THE ESTIMATION OF PEPSIN, TRYPSIN, PAPAIN, AND CATHEPSIN WITH HEMOGLOBIN.	M L Anson	J Gen Physiol	1938	19873094	Yes
  2417	1017	1017.0	0.0	0.0	The estimation of phosphorus.	R J Allen	Biochem J	1940	16747230	Yes

  
  
  

• The youngest Unicorn Papers

  No.	Citations	ECcit	RCR	ECRCR	Title	Authors	Journal	Year	PMID	Article(?)
  1333	4164	1388.0	1616.14	538.7	Cancer statistics, 2020.	Rebecca L Siegel, Kimberly D Miller, Ahmedin Jemal	CA Cancer J Clin	2020	31912902	Yes
  415	5473	2736.5	2218.71	1109.4	Characteristics of and Important Lessons From the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Outbreak in China: Summary of a Report of 72 314 Cases From the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.	Zunyou Wu, Jennifer M McGoogan	JAMA	2020	32091533	Yes
  406	8287	2762.3	1695.74	565.2	Cancer statistics, 2019.	Rebecca L Siegel, Kimberly D Miller, Ahmedin Jemal	CA Cancer J Clin	2019	30620402	Yes
  3093	889	889.0	81.5	81.5	Metazoan MicroRNAs.	David P Bartel	Cell	2018	29570994	No
  2461	5044	1008.8	735.31	147.1	MEGA X: Molecular Evolutionary Genetics Analysis across Computing Platforms.	Sudhir Kumar, Glen Stecher, Michael Li, Christina Knyaz, Koichiro Tamura	Mol Biol Evol	2018	29722887	Yes

  
  
  

• Unicorn Papers button

  
  
  To add a link to specific Unicorn Paper copy&paste this HTML code:
  

  <a href="http://www.unicornpapers.org/vol9.html#12471243" target="_blank">
    <img src="http://www.unicornpapers.org/unicorn-paper-button.jpg" border="0"/></a>

  where 12471243 is a desired PMID and vol9 is a given volume
  
  

• If you want calculate the citations, EC_cit, RCR, EC_RCR and much more for individual researchers you may want to check:

  
  quantify an individual's scientific research output