Schneider Shorts of 9 September 2022 – a Nobel man retracts four papers, professor XYZ retracts one, UCL being their usual greedy crooked racist self, with a cancer cure from Karolinska, an anti-aging solution from Brazil, the dangers of blue screens, a Romanian genius in England, and a dirty old man in Marseille cornered.
Table of Discontent
Science Elites
- Prize Before The Fall – Nobelist Gregg Semenza retracts 4 papers he once “contributed” to PNAS
- Postdoc did it – Richard Vierstra explains everything in a retraction
- UCL crooks – Minh Alexander on yet another regmed affair at UCL
Scholarly Publishing
- Oncotarget’s new service – stealth corrections!
Science Breakthroughs
- Freeze the Cancer – Yihai Cao of Karolinska found an easy cure you can trust
- Anti-aging supplement – Brazilian scientists swear by taurine
- Blue screen dangers – the real reason why smartphones & TV are bad for health
- The amazing Dr Vopson – Romanian genius in England revolutionises physics, biology and everything
News in Tweets
Science Elites
Prize Before The Fall
The laureate of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine of 2019, the Johns Hopkins University (JHU) professor Gregg Semenza, has just retracted four papers, all in PNAS. There probably will be more.
Feel free to blame me, for popularising Clare Francis’ findings of forged data in Semenza’s papers, and for reporting the Nobelist for suspected research misconduct to JHU authorities. All this merely a year after Semenza’s Nobel.
Gregg Semenza: real Nobel Prize and unreal research data
“Even after people have been telling you for, you know, 20 years or more that it’s going to happen, no one expects it.” -Gregg Semenza, Nobel Prize winner 2019
Here are the retracted papers:
- Guoxiang Yuan, Ying-Jie Peng, Vaddi Damodara Reddy, Vladislav V Makarenko, Jayasri Nanduri, Shakil A Khan, Joseph A Garcia, Ganesh K Kumar, Gregg L Semenza, Nanduri R Prabhakar Mutual antagonism between hypoxia-inducible factors 1α and 2α regulates oxygen sensing and cardio-respiratory homeostasisProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (2013) doi: 10.1073/pnas.1305961110 [contributed by G. Semenza] Retraction notice
- Daniele M Gilkes, Lisha Xiang, Sun Joo Lee, Pallavi Chaturvedi, Maimon E Hubbi, Denis Wirtz, Gregg L Semenza Hypoxia-inducible factors mediate coordinated RhoA-ROCK1 expression and signaling in breast cancer cells Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (2014) doi: 10.1073/pnas.1321510111 [contributed by G. Semenza] Retraction notice
- KangAe Lee, David Z Qian, Sergio Rey, Hong Wei, Jun O Liu, Gregg L Semenza Anthracycline chemotherapy inhibits HIF-1 transcriptional activity and tumor-induced mobilization of circulating angiogenic cells Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2009) doi: 10.1073/pnas.0812801106 [contributed by G. Semenza] Retraction notice
- Debangshu Samanta, Daniele M. Gilkes, Pallavi Chaturvedi, Lisha Xiang, and Gregg L. Semenza Hypoxia-inducible factors are required for chemotherapy resistance of breast cancer stem cells PNAS (2014) doi: 10.1073/pnas.1421438111 [contributed by G. Semenza] Retraction notice
All retraction notices mention:
“We believe that the overall conclusions of the paper remain valid, but we are retracting the work due to this underlying concern about the figure.”
This is basically to alert you to what kind of scientist Semenza is: So what the data is fake – my visionary findings remain valid even without that silly laboratory research, because I am a genius.
You may also have noticed that all four of these now retracted paper were originally “contributed” by Semenza as a member of National Academy of Sciences, i.e. outside of a proper peer review process. Semenza is by far not the only cheater who abused this bizarre system of “contributed” track at PNAS.
Steffen Reinbothe: duplications planted on PNAS contributed track
This is a story of a plant scientist in France, Steffen Reinbothe. He and his sister Christiane used to hold academic positions in Germany, but now they both returned to France, to Grenoble. The move might have had to do with a dossier from 2009, made by a former lab member and circulated among peers.…
The Semenza retractions were flagged by my readers and sleuths colleagues. Soon after, Retraction Watch reported, and for some reason for the first time in many years, myself and my original reporting are credited there. I can’t explain this positive change of Watchdogs’ editorial standards, and hope it wasn’t a one-off.
On this occasion I suggest dealing with another crooked Nobelist, namely the Herbalife shill Louis Ignarro, who largely avoided any retractions of the hilariously fraudulent papers he co-authored with his fraudster mates back at Naples, Italy.
Dr. Ignarro has suffered stigma, and was denied at least two interviews on television
“The presence of such articles online have severely affected Dr. Louis J. Ignarro’s public reputation, and his personal life. Dr. Ignarro disputes any accusations of wrongdoing. There was no fabrication of data, although there was a mistaken duplication of data which occurred due to error. None of the data was false.” -J.L. Perez, Esq.
Fake data and real pomegranate juice in Nobelist Louis Ignarro’s papers
Louis J. Ignarro knew how to monetize his 1998 Nobel Prize for discovery of nitric oxide as molecular cell signalling agent. He made many millions selling dietary supplement for Herbalife and pomegranate juice for POM Wonderful Company. Some of that found its way (without proper conflict of interest declaration) into Ignarro’s peer reviewed papers. Those,…
And Semenza and Ignarro are not the only dishonest, greedy and toxic men in the noble Nobel Prize family.
Maybe you noticed one co-author on the retracted Semenza paper: Denis Wirtz, vice provost for research at JHU who back then promised me to abstain from investigating his own papers. Which is good, because Wirtz put his name also on papers of another JHU cheater, Konstantinos Konstantopoulos. I fear for Kostas now, because he has no Nobel Prize to brandish in his defence!
Postdoc did it
Richard Vierstra, plant scientist at Washington University at St Louis, also known as Professor XYZ (read below), has just retracted a paper.
Rick Vierstra probably meant well
“I feel that these continuous comments(s) may be pushing the boundaries, which should also be a concern for PubPeer.” – Dr Richard Vierstra
It was this paper, in eLife:
Richard S Marshall, Richard D Vierstra Proteasome storage granules protect proteasomes from autophagic degradation upon carbon starvation eLife (2018) doi: 10.7554/elife.34532
Actually, all gel figures in this paper were fake, Ok, here one more:
When the first gel figure was flagged on PubPeer, Vierstra and Marshall posted raw data to prove the allegations were false:
“We agree that the bottom portions of these blots do look somewhat similar, but we think a close inspection of the raw data will show that they are not duplicates.”
In reality, their “raw data” was fake, too. Now the retraction arrived on 2 September 2022, and what a notice:
“As the corresponding author I retract the eLife paper cited above based on unexplained irregularities associated with a collection of western blots and inappropriate placement of several confocal fluorescence micrographs generated by the first author Dr. Richard S. Marshall who was responsible for all the experiments and the first preparation and final drafts of the figures. As first identified by reports on PubPeer, I have thoroughly investigated the allegations and confirmed both the duplication of several micrographs and duplicated horizontal narrow bands in the background regions of a number of western blots, and further discovered poor archiving of the experimental data and associated yeast strains. The modifications of the western blots first flagged by PubPeer were particularly perplexing from my analysis of the original x-ray films of the blots as they appear as replicated narrow slices across the blots positioned often between the GFP fusion and free GFP released by autophagic turnover. These bands impacted only background regions and did not appear to be designed to cover any extraneous bands nor to splice two different western blot images together. Dr. Marshall has not yet offered an explanation for these duplications. While the main premise of the eLife report, i.e. to demonstrate a role of proteasome stress granules in protecting proteasomes from autophagic turnover during carbon and/or energy starvation, appears to remain intact from my analysis of the data and subsequent independent studies by us and others related to key aspects of the study, I am not sure that all aspects of the studies therein are valid. We are currently repeating several parts of the paper and hope to provide appropriate and rigorous confirmatory data in the near future. Consequently, I feel that it is prudent at this time to retract the paper to avoid confusion in the literature. I apologize to the readers for these errors/irregularities. I, as the last author, was responsible for ensuring scientific integrity for this publication but clearly failed as a ‘gatekeeper’ in this case. The corresponding author Richard D. Vierstra agrees to this retraction. The following author was also contacted but he did not provided comments nor explanations for the errors: Richard S. Marshall.”
There are other fraudulent papers from Vierstra’s lab, and no Marshall on those. Whom will our Professor XYZ blame there?
UCL crooks
For some reason, the London elite university UCL is determined to prove to the world that they are indeed greedy enablers of research fraud and patient abuse, and racist on top.
UCL trachea transplant inquiry: scapegoating, obfuscation and a lost nose
In 2017, UCL invited an external expert commission to investigate the deadly trachea transplants performed by the former UCL honorary professor Paolo Macchiarini. An already sacked UCL nanotechnology professor, Alexander Seifalian, whose lab made the two UCL plastic POSS-PCU tracheas in 2011, was announced as the main culprit on UCL side. All this despite Seifalian’s…
Martin Birchall innocent, UCL decides once again
In yet another investigation, UCL whitewashed Martin Birchall of all responsibilities. I publish here the confidential report and excerpts from a secret PhD thesis, which the UCL committee carefully avoided to read.
There is yet another scandal with UCL’s regenerative degenerative medicine. Minh Alexander, retired consultant psychiatrist, published this blog post about the unlawful sacking of the UCL whistleblower Rajai Al-Jehani:
“Dr Al-Jehani was employed as biomedical scientist by the Royal Free, with an honorary contract with University College London (UCL). She worked for the trust, but was based at UCL’s Institute for Liver and Digestive Health.
She became concerned that human tissue was being diverted into for-profit activities by fellow researchers at UCL, some of whom she alleged had conflicts of interest and held shares in the commercial venture which she believed were benefiting from this diversion of human tissue.
The company named in the ET judgment as the focus of Dr Al-Jehani’s concerns was Engitix, which is listed at Companies House:
Engitix Limited Company number 10290441
The UCL response to Dr Al-Jehani’s disclosures was led by Professor Mark Emberton, Professor of Interventional Oncology and Dean of the Faculty of Medical Sciences at UCL.
Extraordinarily, UCL conducted three separate strands of investigation in response to her concerns – research misconduct, poor human resources practice and financial impropriety – but with a plan agreed with the Royal Free to withhold the fact that the UCL investigations were completed, and their findings, from Dr Al-Jehani.
In the meantime, the Royal Free moved to dismiss her through redundancy. The trust’s managers left a trail of correspondence which showed that they wished to remove her as soon as possible, as they considered her a “thorn in the side”.”
This si what the whistleblower Al-Jehani reported:
“The Claimant’s complaint contained, inter alia, allegations that: (i) tissues samples at TAPb were being used by those who controlled access to it for commercial profit in preference to scientific non-for-profit research, (ii) there was a conflict of interest because AG needed to raise at least £8,000 a month from tissue samples in TAPb to keep his job, (iii) to obtain patients’ consent to donate liver organs GM [Giuseppe Mazza] impersonated a medical doctor, (iv) AG [Amir Gander] attempted to get non-English speaking patients to sign consent forms in English, and (v) donors when signing the consent form did not know that their organs would be used for commercial profit and not for medical research.”
The tribunal files are available on Alexander’s blog, here. Both Alexander and Al-Jehani have been aware of my reporting on the Macchiarini trachea transplant affair at UCL:
“On 12 February 2018, the Claimant sent NW and JM an email with further details of her complaints. In that email she made further allegations that GM [Giuseppe Mazza CEO and largest shareholder of Engitix] was intending to set up a myofibroblast biobank, and that GM had told a potential investor that he could provide human tissue – extracellular matrix (“ECM”) – to make bionics and liver cubes, thus “commercialising” human tissue via Engitix. The Claimant also alleged that at one of his lectures MP [Massimo Pinzani, UCL professor, Chair and second largest shareholder of Engitix] displayed a slide showing examples of organs which had been successfully regenerated including a human trachea, which the Claimant said was a false and “shocking” thing to say.”
It seems, this time UCL lost. And the affair even reached national mainstream media, here The Times. Good.
Scholarly Publishing
Oncotarget’s new service
Oncotarget, a trash journal run by Mikhail Blagosklonny and his partner/mentee Zoya Demidenko, and catering to the international cancer research fraudster community including papermills, discovered a new low to explore.
Stealth corrections. But because it’s Oncotarget, the stealth correction are cack-handed and just as bad as everything else this journal publishes.
Blagosklonny’s lawyer threatens me to love Oncotarget or else
Oncotarget, the somewhat controversial OA journal, switched from pretend-soliciting my services to threatening to sue me for defamation. Their lawyer writes my disrespect caused them financial damage.
Zhuo Xi , Ping Wang , Yixue Xue , Chao Shang , Xiaobai Liu , Jun Ma , Zhiqing Li , Zhen Li , Min Bao , Yunhui Liu Overexpression of miR-29a reduces the oncogenic properties of glioblastoma stem cells by downregulating Quaking gene isoform 6 Oncotarget (2017) doi: 10.18632/oncotarget.15327
Actinopolyspora biskrensis: “This seems to be a systemic problem for this group https://pubpeer.com/search?q=authors%3A”Yunhui+Liu“
The last author Yunhui Liu announced on PubPeer to “contact the editor and reply to your comment as soon as possible.” Indeed, the Oncotarget editor reacted by issuing a stealth correction as another PubPeer user commented:
“It seems that the previous figure 4C was simply replaced with the images from 3C, so that the same figure appears twice in this paper. This strikes me as quite strange. Could this be intentional? The problems in 1E and 3C remain unaddressed.“
At Blagosklonny’s journals, the paying fraudster customer is king.
Ruler of the Aging Papermill
Smut Clyde congratulates Aging: “This is bespoke tailoring, in contrast to the off-the-rack products cranked out by the average papermill […] no shame befalls the journals that accept these confections.”
Cell Cycle of Angry Axe-Wielding Tribbles
“For the most competitive papers, an ultra-rapid review (by members of the Editorial Board) is necessary to publish them a few days after submission.”, Misha Blagosklonny, on how his journals became papermill fraud bonanza
Science Breakthroughs
Freeze the Cancer
Alexander Samuel pointed me towards a new paper in Nature which proclaims that cancer can be cured by cold and starvation. Which in a way is true, do this to cancer sufferers, and their cancer will swiftly die out together with the patients.
Here it is, by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, China and Japan:
Takahiro Seki , Yunlong Yang , Xiaoting Sun , Sharon Lim , Sisi Xie , Ziheng Guo , Wenjing Xiong , Masashi Kuroda , Hiroshi Sakaue , Kayoko Hosaka , Xu Jing , Masahito Yoshihara , Lili Qu , Xin Li , Yuguo Chen , Yihai Cao Brown-fat-mediated tumour suppression by cold-altered global metabolism Nature (2022) doi: 10.1038/s41586-022-05030-3
A press release by Karolinska explains:
““We found that cold-activated brown adipose tissue competes against tumors for glucose and can help inhibit tumor growth in mice,” says Professor Yihai Cao at the Department of Microbiology, Tumor and Cell Biology, Karolinska Institutet, and corresponding author. “Our findings suggest that cold exposure could be a promising novel approach to cancer therapy, although this needs to be validated in larger clinical studies.”
An article in New Scientist has details:
“To test cold therapy’s potential, Yihai Cao at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and his colleagues implanted five different types of cancerous cells into a group of mice. Some of the rodents were then continuously exposed to very low temperatures, but above freezing, for 20 days.
This exposure activated the mice’s brown fat tissue, which burns energy rather than storing it, reducing the tumours’ energy supply.
These mice went on to have considerable tumour inhibition and a survival rate that was almost double that of mice that received no treatment.”
Of course it was dependent on glucose and brown fat cells, in fact even the gene was found, UCP1. Karolinska press release also mentions:
“…feeding tumor-bearing mice with a high sugar drink also obliterated the effect of cold temperatures and restored tumor growth. “Interestingly, high sugar drinks seem to cancel out the effect of cold temperatures on cancer cells, suggesting that limiting glucose supply is probably one of the most important methods for tumor suppression,” Yihai Cao says.”
The idea of “starving” tumours is decades old. Also quite established is the idea of cold exposure or pharmacological brown fat activation as the therapy for cancer, diabetes, obesity, old age and every other disease. In fact, this is where certain scientists come in with their phony drugs, incidentally also in Nature papers. Like Bruce Spiegelman and Pontus Boström with their fake irisin:
Pontus Boström: cheater carousel in Sweden
Sweden is a tolerant country, which is a very good thing. Unfortunately, sometimes this Swedish tolerance seems ill-advised. Dishonest scientists caught faking data are happily given another chance and fat funding, like the case of the diabetes researcher Pontus Boström shows. This scientist was found to have fabricated data during his PhD studies with late…
Incidently, Boström later on went to Karolinska with an ERC grant, where he was sacked. Spiegelman continues pushing irisin as if nothing happened. Other academic crooks have their own magic drugs for brown and beige cell activation, make your pick.
In the current Nature paper by Cao, there was also a clinical trial which setup, purpose and interpretation doesn’t really makes any sense, but who are we to argue with Karolinska and Nature. From New Scientist:
In a second part of the experiment, Cao and his team exposed a group of six healthy human volunteers to 16°C (61°F) for 2 to 6 hours a day for two weeks. Similarly to the mice, the volunteers’ brown fat tissue became activated.
The researchers then continuously exposed a person with Hodgkin’s lymphoma to 22°C (72°F) for seven days. Not only did their brown fat become activated, their tumours also consumed less glucose over this period.”
I assume we are supposed to believe that the cancer patient was cured or what? The authors themselves conclude in their Nature paper, that yes, he was probably cured:
“Although it is difficult to draw conclusions from data obtained from a single patient with cancer, these preliminary findings at least demonstrate the clinical relevance of our study.”
The peer-reviewed paper in the most authoritative scholarly journal contains irresponsible statements like:
“This therapeutic approach is simple, cost-effective and feasible in almost all hospitals and even at home, and is most likely omnipresent for all cancer types. […] Together, our findings represent a new concept for cancer therapy that patients with cancer could potentially benefit from. […] Taken together, we show that the activation of BAT by exposure to physiologically tolerable low temperatures provides an effective approach for cancer therapy. The therapeutic effectiveness of cold exposure is at least equivalent to most available anticancer drugs.”
There are hundreds of quacks out there who will be ready to scam cancer sufferers with useless or dangerous cold therapies. Cao just invited them all to the bonanza.
Oh, and “The authors declare no competing interest.” is not entirely true. Cao owns 60 patents and a biotech startup, Cianotech, dedicated to development of anti-cancer therapies.
Anyway.
Xiaoting Sun , Xingkang He , Yin Zhang , Kayoko Hosaka , Patrik Andersson , Jing Wu , Jieyu Wu , Xu Jing , Qiqiao Du , Xiaoli Hui , Bo Ding , Ziheng Guo , An Hong , Xuan Liu , Yan Wang , Qing Ji , Rudi Beyaert , Yunlong Yang , Qi Li , Yihai Cao Inflammatory cell-derived CXCL3 promotes pancreatic cancer metastasis through a novel myofibroblast-hijacked cancer escape mechanism Gut (2022) doi: 10.1136/gutjnl-2020-322744
And this, corrected by Cao in August 2020:
Takahiro Seki, Kayoko Hosaka, Carina Fischer , Sharon Lim , Patrik Andersson , Mitsuhiko Abe , Hideki Iwamoto, Yanyan Gao , Xinsheng Wang , Guo-Hua Fong , Yihai Cao Ablation of endothelial VEGFR1 improves metabolic dysfunction by inducing adipose tissue browning The Journal of experimental medicine (2018) doi: 10.1084/jem.20171012
A wise man once said: if you want to meet many researcher cheaters, just follow one of them around. Here a paper by Cao with his hilariously dishonest Karolinska colleagues, Karin Dahlman-Wright and Leonard Girnita.
Min Jia, Trygve Andreassen, Lasse Jensen , Tone Frost Bathen , Indranil Sinha , Hui Gao , Chunyan Zhao , Lars-Arne Haldosen , Yihai Cao , Leonard Girnita , Siver Andreas Moestue , Karin Dahlman-Wright Estrogen Receptor α Promotes Breast Cancer by Reprogramming Choline Metabolism Cancer research (2016) doi: 10.1158/0008-5472.can-15-2910
The paper was proven as fraudulent in several investigations, but was merely corrected and not retracted because Dahman-Wright deployed lawyers and won in court.
The Karin Dahlman-Wright Show
Karin Dahlman-Wright, Karolinska Institute’s former president, then vice-president, now rector’s counsellor was found guilty of research misconduct, again. This time in 4 papers. And then a Swedish court overturned everything and declared her innocent.
So yes, if Karolinska and Nature say Dr Cao found a drug-free magic cure for cancer, available from any random quack out there, who are we to raise objections.
Anti-aging supplement
Brazilian scientists discovered that taurine, a cheap supplement, can cure ageing! Wikipedia says it’s “a major constituent of bile and can be found in the large intestine, and accounts for up to 0.1% of total human body weight“, but obviously you can’t have enough of that.
A press release by the funding agency Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo:
“The study reported in the study was carried out at the University of São Paulo (USP) in Brazil. It involved 24 female volunteers aged 55 to 70. They were randomly separated into two groups. One group consumed three 500 mg capsules of taurine per day for 16 weeks (1.5 g per day). The other group received pills that simply contained corn starch (placebo). Neither the volunteers nor the researchers were aware of which group each participant belonged to.
Oxidative stress markers were analyzed in blood samples taken before and after the intervention. One of the most intriguing findings was an almost 20% rise in levels of the antioxidant enzyme superoxide dismutase (SOD) in the taurine group, compared to a 3.5% drop in the control group. SOD, the scientists explain, protects cells from the harmful reactions of the superoxide radical.”
Obviously, you may up to 100 g of taurine in your body, but what you lack is those decisive 1.5 g in commercial supplements, and this is why you grow old. Look, those SOD levels were dropping in the 12-women-strong control group in real time as the participants were ageing in those 4 months!
““Preventing the buildup of free radicals that naturally occurs with aging probably prevents cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure, among other chronic conditions,” said Ellen de Freitas. Freitas is a professor at the Ribeirão Preto School of Physical Education and Sports (EEFERP-USP) and co-principal investigator for a project supported by FAPESP. […]
The Freitas group has been studying taurine’s antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties for at least 10 years, initially in high-performance athletes and later in obese people, with daily dosages ranging from 3 g to 6 g. “The results showed that oxidative stress in these individuals could be controlled when their diet was supplemented with this amino acid. We then decided to test the strategy in the context of aging. This was very novel, so we began with a very low safety dose,” Freitas said.””
This is the amazing study:
Gabriela Ferreira Abud M.Sc., Flavia Giolo De Carvalho Ph.D., Gabriela Batitucci Ph.D., Sofia Germano Travieso B.Sc., Carlos Roberto Bueno Junior Ph.D., Fernando Barbosa Junior Ph.D., Julio Sergio Marchini Ph.D. and Ellen Cristinide Freitas Ph.D., “Taurine as a possible antiaging therapy: A controlled clinical trial on taurine antioxidant activity in women ages 55 to 70” Nutrition. (2022) DOI: 10.1016/j.nut.2022.111706
Blue screen dangers
You may recall that for the last two decades a certain kind of scientists kept informing you that mobile phones cause cancer with their radio waves. The technology moved on and it’s mostly about 5G causing cancer now:
But did you know that the real danger comes from the smartphones’ screens? Their blue light makes you grow old!
A press release by world’s bestest Open Access publisher Frontiers:
“”Excessive exposure to blue light from everyday devices, such as TVs, laptops, and phones, may have detrimental effects on a wide range of cells in our body, from skin and fat cells, to sensory neurons,” said Dr. Jadwiga Giebultowicz, a professor at the Department of Integrative Biology at Oregon State University and senior author of this study. “We are the first to show that the levels of specific metabolites—chemicals that are essential for cells to function correctly—are altered in fruit flies exposed to blue light.”
“Our study suggests that avoidance of excessive blue light exposure may be a good anti-aging strategy,” advised Giebultowicz. [….]
“To understand why high-energy blue light is responsible for accelerating aging in fruit flies, we compared the levels of metabolites in flies exposed to blue light for two weeks to those kept in complete darkness,” explained Giebultowicz.
Blue light exposure caused significant differences in the levels of metabolites measured by the researchers in the cells of fly heads. In particular, they found that the levels of the metabolite succinate were increased, but glutamate levels were lowered.”
This is the amazingly important paper:
Yang J, Song Y, Law AD, Rogan CJ, Shimoda K, Djukovic D, Anderson JC, Kretzschmar D, Hendrix DA and Giebultowicz JM Chronic blue light leads to accelerated aging in Drosophila by impairing energy metabolism and neurotransmitter levels, Frontiers in Aging (2022). DOI: 10.3389/fragi.2022.983373
The flies used there were completely blind: “Eyes absent (eya2) mutants (Bloomington Drosophila Stock Center stock # 2285), which do not develop compound eyes (Bonini et al., 1993) were used in all experiments“. I am not sure what all this proves now. In an earlier paper Nash et al npj Aging and Mechanisms of Disease 2019, Dr Giebultowicz pronounced blue light a brain-degenerating agent and explained:
“…brain damage and locomotor impairments do not depend on the degeneration in the retina, as these phenotypes were evident under blue light in flies with genetically ablated eyes.”
I checked that the lamp Dr Giebultowicz used, MarsAqua Dimmable 165W LED Light, is actually an aquarium lamp you can buy in pet store, in case you’d like to to make your (or your family member’s) fish die of neurodegeneration and old age. If it doesn’t work out, send your complaint to Dr Giebultowicz, Oregon State University.
There is a caveat in the Frontiers press release:
“”We used a fairly strong blue light on the flies—humans are exposed to less intense light, so cellular damage may be less dramatic. The results from this study suggests that future research involving human cells is needed to establish the extent to which human cells may show similar changes in metabolites involved in energy production in response to excessive exposure to blue light,” concluded Giebultowicz.”
I hear another Frontiers paper in the making!
Of course, smartphones and TV indeed are not good for health and can make you stupid, but the real mechanistic explanation behind that effect (i.e., the inane content of TV and social media, and of course your inaction of sitting on a sofa) is predictable, boring and unpublishable. Hence, it’s the blue light. As somehow proven on blind flies.
But maybe if you take your taurine pills you can stay on the sofa?
The amazing Dr Vopson
What have you ever discovered as scientist? Probably nothing half-way interesting. But Dr Vopson here has just discovered a new law of physics and can now predict genetic mutations and evolution of lifeforms.
A press release by University of Portsmouth (somewhere in UK) informs:
“The study discovers that the second law of information dynamics, or “infodynamics,” behaves differently from the second law of thermodynamics. This finding might have major implications for how genomic research, evolutionary biology, computing, big data, physics, and cosmology develop in the future.
Lead author Dr. Melvin Vopson is from the University’s School of Mathematics and Physics. He states “In physics, there are laws that govern everything that happens in the universe, for example how objects move, how energy flows, and so on. Everything is based on the laws of physics. One of the most powerful laws is the second law of thermodynamics, which establishes that entropy – a measure of disorder in an isolated system – can only increase or stay the same, but it will never decrease.””
This is the breakthrough paper, peer reviewed in 2 weeks, and very modestly titled as not to scare the Nobel Prize committee:
Melvin M. Vopson and S. Lepadatu, “Second law of information dynamics” AIP Advances (2022). DOI: 10.1063/5.0100358
Together with his Romania-born colleague, Dr Serban Lepadatu at the University of Central Lancashire, Dr Melvin Vopson (who used to be called Marian Vopsaroiu back in Bucharest) discovered the Second Law of Infodynamics, or the Hand of God:
“Dr. Vopson adds, “If the second law of thermodynamics states that entropy needs to stay constant or increase over time, I thought that perhaps information entropy would be the same. But what Dr. Lepadatu and I found was the exact opposite – it decreases over time. The second law of information dynamics works exactly in opposition to the second law of thermodynamics.”
According to Dr. Vopson, this could be the cause of biological organisms’ genetic mutations.
“The worldwide consensus is that mutations take place at random and then natural selection dictates whether the mutation is good or bad for an organism”, he explained. If the mutation is beneficial for an organism, it will be kept. But what if there is a hidden process that drives these mutations?”
Gosh, thank you Dr Vopson. Look, he even solved the COVID-19, in passing:
“Dr. Vopson and colleagues analyzed Covid-19 (Sars-CoV-2) genomes and discovered that their information entropy reduced with time: “The best example of something that undergoes a number of mutations in a short space of time is a virus. The pandemic has given us the ideal test sample as Sars-CoV-2 mutated into so many variants and the data available is unbelievable.”
He continues, “The Covid data confirms the second law of infodynamics and the research opens up unlimited possibilities. Imagine looking at a particular genome and judging whether a mutation is beneficial before it happens. This could be game-changing technology which could be used in genetic therapies, the pharmaceutical industry, evolutionary biology, and pandemic research.”
In 2020, Dr Vopson predicted in the same Open Access vanity journal AIP Advances (APC $1500) “The Information Catastrophe” happening around the year 2350 or 2500 because
“after ∼350 years from now, the number of bits produced will exceed the number of all atoms on Earth, ∼1050. After ∼300 years, the power required to sustain this digital production will exceed 18.5 × 1015 W, i.e., the total planetary power consumption today, and after ∼500 years from now, the digital content will account for more than half Earth’s mass, according to the mass-energy–information equivalence principle.”
And just in March 2020, Dr Vopson deployed his enormous brain to discover the Fifth State of the Matter, and published it in guess in which journal? Here a press release by his proud University of Portsmouth:
“Now, he has designed an experiment—which if proved correct—means he will have discovered that information is the fifth form of matter, alongside solid, liquid, gas and plasma.
Dr. Vopson said: “This would be a eureka moment because it would change physics as we know it and expand our understanding of the universe. But it wouldn’t conflict with any of the existing laws of physics.
“It doesn’t contradict quantum mechanics, electrodynamics, thermodynamics or classical mechanics. All it does is complement physics with something new and incredibly exciting.””
I agree that the “information” Dr Vopson produces is a solid matter. It’s sh*t, and there’s indeed getting way too much of it.
News in Tweets
- “On Monday 5 September, the Ministers of Health and Research referred the matter to the courts after the publication of a new report on the Marseille IHU, which confirms “serious dysfunctions” when this scientific institute was under the direction of professor Raoult .“
- “In his reply, DR asks three times to de-anoymize the statement of the IHU-MI staff – two times in bold-face. This appears to be very important to him. The committee’s response to this demand: “The mission has collected many critical testimonies. People with a positive or neutral discourse were in the very minority while the mission had relayed a very broad call for testimony to the various employer structures. These indicators do not prejudge the questionable managerial practices identified in the report. The mission maintains its drafting“
- “However, what is the point in publishing so much for Didier RAOULT? It’s the SIGAPS points: each publication earns thousands of euros (up to more than 20,000 euros) to his university hospital (CHU), that’s how the french public funding system works […] Didier Raoult says the money goes to his CHU and not to the IHU (his institute) directly. However, he threatened his CHU to go on a “publications strike” if his CHU did not give his IHU enough money.” A very long thread about systematic corruption in the Banana Republic of France which allowed for patient abuse, research fraud, bullying, financial embezzlement and sexual harassment to happen at IHU under protection of corrupt politicians and other friends of Raoult.
- “The American Society for Microbiology was notified that the above-mentioned paper is being reviewed as part of a “scientific misconduct investigation” by the University of Aix Marseille.” Yeah sure. Raoult’s friends are pretending to investigate him until the media attention subsides.
- Fake papers can get retracted swiftly if there is a will to do so. Usually the will of the corresponding author. Retraction note: “The corresponding author, Russell O. Pieper, reported the matter to the appropriate office at his institution, the University of California–San Francisco, where it is currently being examined. In the interim, the corresponding author, with the agreement of all authors, has requested that the Research Article be retracted.”
- It passed peer review in an Elsevier journal, so yes, Ayurvedic pinapples do cure Alzheimer’s and turn blind mice into superheroes (Kumar et al Neurotoxicology 2022).
- “When a journal made us aware of inconsistencies in data submitted by Dr. Armstead, we evaluated the concerns in accordance with our process and reported our findings to all appropriate agencies. Dr. Armstead is no longer a faculty member at Penn, has closed his lab and ended his animal research activities.” Five retractions!
- What can you expect from Oncogene‘s Editor-in-Chief Justin Stebbing…
Oncogene EiC Justin Stebbing, a hypocrite of research integrity?
‘The results have been replicated by ourselves or others, so the image manipulation is irrelevant.’ – Justin Stebbing, double bluffing
- Gary Stacey again… get a life, Cheshire!
Get a life with Gary Stacey
Gary Stacey is soybean researcher at University of Missouri and ASPB member. Whatever problems you might have with his science, the university already attested him a “clean bill of health”. Get a life.
- The Wiley-owned Open Access publisher Hindawi is doing great. No stupid nonsense is too nonsensically stupid if the money is right.
- Added value of peer review, in subscription only:
- Papermills adjusting to satisfy customer demands in a fluid market!
- Yaakov “Koby” Nahmias, the Hebrew University professor who once cured COVID-19, then decided he can make much more money with lab-grown meat scam, now offers you lamb kebabs (as usual, using stock photos of actual meat). As Jerusalem Post advertises, his company’s products are GMO-free and almost vegan: ““Future Meat has been the first company to remove Fetal Bovine Serum, and all other animal components, from its growth media,” according to the company’s founder, president, and CSO Prof. Yaakov Nahmias. “Future Meat’s approach leans on the natural spontaneous immortalization of fibroblasts, rather than genetic modification. This is the key to Future Meat’s cells being non-GMO.”“
From COVID-19 to Lab-Grown Meat
Enterprising Israeli Scientists show how these things are connected.
I thank all my donors for supporting my journalism. You can be one of them!
Make a one-time donation:
I thank all my donors for supporting my journalism. You can be one of them!
Make a monthly donation:
Choose an amount
Or enter a custom amount
Your contribution is appreciated.
Your contribution is appreciated.
DonateDonate monthly
For Better Science 
“We found that cold-activated brown adipose tissue competes against tumors for glucose and can help inhibit tumor growth in mice,”
If you have lots of brown adipose tissue, check carefully. You are probably a mouse, or a human infant.
LikeLike
Or a hibernator! European hamsters (Cricetus cricetus) have got a lot of BAT…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Here are my stupid questions: do animals and people that live under cold climate get less cancer? more cancer under hot climate?
LikeLike
You are forever disqualified from reviewing for Nature.
LikeLiked by 1 person
As an answer to the excellent question of Alfricabos below: of course not! That would have been observed long ago. Indeed, this is the opposite: lower incidence of cancer in Africa than in “Northern” countries. But this is because of a lower life expectancy and early death from infectious diseases before getting a cancer. But don’t be desperate: cancer incidence is increasing! Because life conditions (slowly) improve, vaccinations protect from infectious diseases (although with a recent regression partly due to the pandemic and partly to anti-vaxx campaigns), life expectancy increases and cancer incidence also…
LikeLiked by 1 person
“Brazilian scientists discovered that taurine, a cheap supplement, can cure ageing!”
Over three decades have passed since Pion et al. discovered that taurine deficiency is the main cause of feline cardiomyopathy.
Has anyone since then done any research into feline deficiency as a cause of taurine cardiomyopathy? Have they bogroll.
http://eusa-riddled.blogspot.com/2011/04/i-blame-energy-drink-industry.html
LikeLike
Right, taurine is a popular energy drink ingredient. Now I understand: it’s not young folks I see drinking it in the streets, it’s old folks who reversed to youth because they drink taurine-rich energy drinks!
LikeLike
I tried giving our cats Red Bull to keep them safe from feline cardiomyopathy, but the state of the furniture doesn’t bear thinking about.
I vaguely recall a burst of research enthusiasm in the early 2000s in taurine as an antioxidant. Can’t be arsed looking up the details.
LikeLike
But on taurine, your cats will outlive both your furniture and you!
LikeLike
“Ayurvedic pinapples do cure Alzheimer’s”
Wait, what, bromelain for Alzheimer’s disease now?! I remember when it only cured cancer.
http://eusa-riddled.blogspot.com/2016/05/i-couldnt-help-it-i-saw-third-guy.html
LikeLike
Very disappointed with AIP. The Vopson papers are ridiculous.
LikeLike
Concerning the Cao’s paper on freezing cancer, I’m not sure everybody has read the protocol in detail: it says “Male and female C57Bl/6 mice aged between 5 and 10 weeks were adapted at 18°C for 1 week before exposing to a cold temperature of 4 °C in the climate room or 5°C in the HPP750 climate chamber or exposed to a thermoneutral temperature of 30°C as a control, FOLLOWED BY tumour implantation”; and the comment in New Scientist says: “To test cold therapy’s potential, Yihai Cao at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and his colleagues implanted five different types of cancerous cells into a group of mice. Some of the rodents were THEN continuously exposed to very low temperatures, but above freezing, for 20 days” [my emphases in capitals] I don’t think this is the same! Tumour implantation was done at low temperature; thus, cold would not act as a therapy of cancer, but as a mean of limiting tumour cell generation of a cancer… I don’t think the ambiguity introduced by the authors is innocent.
Any scientific comments welcome!
LikeLike
That’s a very valid point. Maybe the Nature reviewers didn’t notice that because they were busy with demanding that idiotic clinical trial.
LikeLike
Flier writes again about irreproducibility, without mentioning his New Year’s reveler/collector of artwork/producer of dubious data (C Ronald Kahn ):
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/863666
LikeLiked by 1 person
Interesting read from Flier, but it misses the heart of the problem, what Yuri Lazebnik called the “businessification of basic science”.
LikeLike