Proper peer review has people at or above your level in the research area of the paper = they understand it and can know the nature of what you are telling in t

Proper peer review has people at or above your level in the research area of the paper = they understand it and can know the nature of what you are telling in the paper. Sadly projealosy can rear it's head and some weasel sees your 'Nobel grade' paper and wants to delay and knock off kilter and get his similar paper ahead of you. Admittedly this is rare. In addition, the readers or referees of the paper could be very busy and drag their ass. This has become such a problem that the idea of preprint server has come into being where yourpaper is made public right away - establishing your priority as all stuff preprint served is scanned by your field and a number of people will give it intensive study for their being able to stay abreast of the field and let ideas spread. Often journals have a substabtial fee for this. The whole journal game needs to be burned at the stake and replaced by electronic. Their is another weasel, their are thousand of fake journals who copy and paraphrase paper and release them online via a nice sounding fake journal. It is a plague, however, those in the field know these rats - sadly newspapers and other media do not and are often tricked.