I still feel uneasy when I see a Prof and a PhD student listed as discovering something as you never know what the Prof contributed with the current state of the academy
On the other hand, quite frequently the whole thing is the professor's idea, and the grad student does the drudge work of coding it up and verifying it and writing the paper, and they co-publish.
Of course if you're going to lament "the current state of the academy" you should be aware that the current state of the academy is far more likely than any previous state to give credit to the junior researchers. And in Europe this kind of thing still goes on, with professors butting in to take primary authorship on papers where their students have done 90% of the work.
On the other hand, quite frequently the whole thing is the professor's idea, and the grad student does the drudge work of coding it up and verifying it and writing the paper, and they co-publish.
Of course if you're going to lament "the current state of the academy" you should be aware that the current state of the academy is far more likely than any previous state to give credit to the junior researchers. And in Europe this kind of thing still goes on, with professors butting in to take primary authorship on papers where their students have done 90% of the work.