Beta · The research terminal · v0.1

You bring the idea.
unkwn42 maps the frontier around it.

A research terminal for climate science. Enter an idea and get a verdict on the specific claim, whether a paper already makes it or exactly how yours differs from the nearest work, plus the prior work (including papers that call it something else), how the terminology drifted, who's publishing, and where the field is heading. Every claim backed by real papers.

It is not a pass/fail test. Replication, extension, and doing a known study in a new place are real contributions. unkwn42 shows you the closest prior work, so whatever you do next is a deliberate choice, not an accident.

Corpus → 438K papersPanels → 5Domain → climateStatus → beta
01 Prior work

The paper you'd miss because it's called something else.

Researchers rename the same work every decade. The fieldwork filed under “snow survey” in the 1970s is “snow sampling” today. unkwn42 expands your idea to every variant term and retrieves the prior work others miss, flagging the ones filed under a name you'd never have searched, with the years that prove it.

Keyword search works when you know the words. It fails silently when you don't. The paper that already did your work can sit fully indexed, under a term your subfield stopped using before you arrived, and no search you would think to run will surface it.

Panel · Terminology recall

Scattered terms converge into one concept.

"Snow survey" · "snow sampling" · "snow pit sampling". Three phrases, decades apart, one idea. unkwn42's concept layer pulls them together, so your prior-work check sees the whole field, not just the half that shares your wording.

→ OpenAlex corpus · concept normalization · synonym recall
{ live terminology timeline at query time }
02 The verdict

A verdict, with receipts.

Is your claim new? unkwn42 checks whether a specific paper already asserts it. If one does, it names the paper. If not, it states exactly how your claim differs from the nearest work, and what you would need to show. The AI surfaces the evidence, you decide.

A Claimed result is not a rejection: it is what to match if you are replicating, or what to differentiate against if you are extending. The verdict is information for a decision, never a verdict on your worth.

Prior work · result
2012 · Global Change Biology
Description and quantification of pteropod shell dissolution: a sensitive bioindicator of ocean acidification
Bednaršek et al.
Ocean acidificationPteropodsShell dissolution
Claim · verdict
Claimed
Claimed: this observation is already established prior work. Match it if you are replicating, differentiate if you are extending.
Names the paperGrounded in the record
Voice · in action
“Adjacent. The nearest paper mapped exposure; your delta is the temporal trend.”
Not: "Whitespace opportunity detected"
“Claimed. This exact result is already published, here it is.”
Lab-notebook voice, not pitch-deck.
Grounding

Every paper cited is a real record retrieved from the literature, not generated. If the system cannot point to a specific paper, it does not make the claim. A citation tool that invents sources is worse than no tool, so grounding is verified before anything reaches you, and every result links to the source so you can check it yourself.

03 Reviewer 2

The objection, before the reviewer raises it.

Paste an abstract, or a rough description of an idea, and Reviewer 2 plays the hostile referee before you submit. It finds the papers someone could cite against your claim, ranks them by threat, states the attack a reviewer would make, and drafts a citation-grounded defence of how your work differs.

Example · high threat
Bednaršek et al. (2012), Global Change Biology
Attack

A reviewer will note this paper already established pteropod shell dissolution as an ocean-acidification bioindicator in the Southern Ocean, so your contribution cannot rest on the observation alone.

Defence

Their measurements were on collected specimens; your contribution is the first in-situ seasonal time series, isolating a signal their snapshot could not resolve. Cite it as the baseline you extend, not as a duplicate.

Signal · Beta access

Map the unknown.

Free while we build. Fair after. Early users shape the instrument.

No credit card.Free during beta.2 min setup.

We do not use your research ideas to train models. Your queries run the tool and help us improve it, nothing else. Read the privacy note.