Publications in scientific journals contain a considerable fraction of our scientific knowledge. Analyzing data from publication databases helps us understand how this knowledge is obtained and how it changes over time. In this study, we present a mathematical model for the temporal dynamics of data on the scientific content of publications. Our data set consists of references to thousands of genes in the >15 million publications listed in PubMed. We show that the observed dynamics may result from a simple process: Researchers predominantly publish on genes that already appear in many publications. This might be a rewarding strategy for researchers, because there is a positive correlation between the frequency of a gene in scientific publications and the journal impact of the publications. By comparing the empirical data with model predictions, we are able to detect unusual publication patterns that often correspond to major achievements in the field. We identify interactions between yeast genes from PubMed and show that the frequency differences of genes in publications lead to a biased picture of the resulting interaction network.
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| Evidence ID | Analyze ID | Gene/Complex | Systematic Name/Complex Accession | Qualifier | Gene Ontology Term ID | Gene Ontology Term | Aspect | Annotation Extension | Evidence | Method | Source | Assigned On | Reference | 
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| Evidence ID | Analyze ID | Gene | Gene Systematic Name | Phenotype | Experiment Type | Experiment Type Category | Mutant Information | Strain Background | Chemical | Details | Reference | 
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| Evidence ID | Analyze ID | Gene | Gene Systematic Name | Disease Ontology Term | Disease Ontology Term ID | Qualifier | Evidence | Method | Source | Assigned On | Reference | 
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| Evidence ID | Analyze ID | Regulator | Regulator Systematic Name | Target | Target Systematic Name | Direction | Regulation of | Happens During | Regulator Type | Direction | Regulation Of | Happens During | Method | Evidence | Strain Background | Reference | 
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| Site | Modification | Modifier | Source | Reference | 
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| Evidence ID | Analyze ID | Interactor | Interactor Systematic Name | Interactor | Interactor Systematic Name | Allele | Assay | Annotation | Action | Phenotype | SGA score | P-value | Source | Reference | Note | 
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| Evidence ID | Analyze ID | Interactor | Interactor Systematic Name | Interactor | Interactor Systematic Name | Assay | Annotation | Action | Modification | Source | Reference | Note | 
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| Complement ID | Locus ID | Gene | Species | Gene ID | Strain background | Direction | Details | Source | Reference | 
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| Evidence ID | Analyze ID | Dataset | Description | Keywords | Number of Conditions | Reference | 
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| Evidence ID | Analyze ID | File | Description | 
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