Schneider Shorts 15.09.2023 – Manipulations in gels will not be objected

Schneider Shorts of 15 September 2023 – officially innocent scientists in Germany, USA and Sweden, Italian etnobotanist befriends Indian papermill, Harvard to sack first professor, with a successful and a failed biotech, a computer conspiring against editors, and finally, how Nature invented the climate change.

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Science Elites

Manipulations in gels will not be objected

A blast from the past! Years ago, even before For Better Science, and when still writing for a German magazine, I followed up the case of Michael Naumann – not the former German government’s minister of culture, but professor for inner medicine at the University of Magdeburg in Germany. The same university which recruited the toxic trachea transplanters Heike and Thorsten Walles as professors, and bullied journals and publishers into dropping all attempts to retract Walleses’ fraudulent papers despite the fraud findings of their former employer (read here).

So, Naumann. I never got to publishing his case, and then forgot about it. The evidence was posted on PubPeer 8 to 6 years ago by Clare Francis, who then notified the German Research Council (DFG) in June 2022, because absolutely nothing was happening. Stuff like this:

Michael Naumann, Silja Wessler , Cornelia Bartsch , Björn Wieland , Antonello Covacci , Rainer Haas , Thomas F. Meyer Activation of activator protein 1 and stress response kinases in epithelial cells colonized by Helicobacter pylori encoding the cag pathogenicity island Journal of Biological Chemistry (1999) doi: 10.1074/jbc.274.44.31655 

Or this, again with apparently duplicated gel bands:

Eike Hollenbach , Manfred Neumann , Michael Vieth , Albert Roessner , Peter Malfertheiner , Michael Naumann Inhibition of p38 MAP kinase- and RICK/NF-kappaB-signaling suppresses inflammatory bowel disease The FASEB Journal (2004) doi: 10.1096/fj.04-1642fje 

Or this, same issue, plus gel splicing:

The DFG now investigated, and this is their highly confidential report I publish here because neither DFG nor Naumann protested:

Ten papers were investigated, and this is the outcome (highlights mine):

“We ask you to continue to treat the allegations and especially the fact that the DFG is conducting an investigation as confidential.
The Research Integrity Team conducted a preliminary review procedure to assess your allegations and held a hearing with Mr. Naumann regarding the accusation – though without disclosing its origin. Additional investigations were
carried out to enlighten the circumstances of the alleged splicing. […]

In autumn 2022, the DFG Committee of Inquiry on Allegations of Scientific Misconduct has held that until the year 2010, undisclosed gel splicing was considered as bad scientific practice within the scientific community, but it could not be classified as sanctionable research misconduct under the DFG Rules of Procedure (“falsification of data”) as it was not vehemently rejected by the community as a whole.
In contrast, due to the changed perception in the scientific community, undisclosed splicing can constitute sanctionable research misconduct since 2011.

The entire procedure has now been discontinued considering Mr. Naumann’s statements. At least three of the suspected four figures in publication no. 2 appear to contain undisclosed splicing indeed. However, neither intention nor
gross negligence on the side of Mr. Naumann personally could be established. This is – among other aspects – due to Elsevier’s publicly available policy on image splicing, which states that manipulations in gels will not be objected as
long as they aim at clarifying the scientific results only, and are not intended to deceive readers / the scientific community. We have found that this policy was in force already in 2014. Mr. Naumann plausibly stated that any splicing did not
happen in order to deceive, and that it does not affect the scientific findings and statements of the publication. We have not concluded otherwise.

Pursuant to section III item 1 (b) para. 4 VerfOwF, we are notifying you of our decision to discontinue the procedure first.”

Because this one with a digitally slapped-on gel lane is from 2014, it was not included in the investigation to avoid finding what must not be found:

This was exempt form the investigation because “published before or in 2010“. Its raw data was unavailable already in 2016, when it was corrected with “Fig. 10B, C contains spliced lanes. The authors repeated the experiments“

This is how DFG decided on the following paper and fudged figure: “Publication no. 8 could not be reviewed in detail as we found that it does not relate to DFG funding.”

Olga Sokolova , Przemyslaw M. Bozko , Michael Naumann Helicobacter pylori suppresses glycogen synthase kinase 3beta to promote beta-catenin activity Journal of Biological Chemistry (2008) doi: 10.1074/jbc.m801818200 

Basically, the trick is to investigate only things which can be explained, like faint and deniable gel splicing. Things which can’t be explained are either too old, too new, or too something else. Next time when DFG publicly beats their chest because they sanctioned some nameless small sausage for plagiarism, remember the above and their other cunning decisions:

And as for the so-called “University” of Magdeburg in the Nazi-infested state of Sachsen-Anhalt, and in particular their medical school: it is a dump.

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Not considered falsified

New information has arrived and I have to admit, wholeheartedly and shamefully, that the PubPeer-listed papers by Columbia University professor Carol Prives (fellow of several academies) and her mentee Vanesa Gottifredi (now president of the Instituto Leloir in Buenos Aires, Argentina) were never fraudulent. In fact, all those duplicated gel bands were supposed to be duplicated, because this is how science really works. This 5 year old article of mine is evil and is to be from now on only spat and sneezed at:

How do I know where For Better Science went wrong? Dr Gottifredi, star researcher of the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), honoured by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation award, L’Oreal-UNESCO Women in Science Award, Bernardo Houssay Award by Argentina’s Ministry of Science, and Ben Barres Spotlight Award from eLife, now explained to me in two emails:

“I learned about these allegations of falsification during an international investigation solicited by the U.S. HHS Office of Research Integrity. Such investigation took place from December 2021 until June 2022.

After a thorough investigation, the data in the examined papers were not considered falsified, and I was not found at fault. […]

The same decision was reached that there was no scientific misconduct by Dr. Prives.“

For reference of what is not considered falsified, refer to my 2017 article. This cancer research paper in particular is NOT fraudulent:

V. Gottifredi, S.-Y. Shieh, Y. Taya, C. Prives p53 accumulates but is functionally impaired when DNA synthesis is blocked Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2001) doi: 10.1073/pnas.98.3.1036

Here are further examples of reliable, trustworthy and exemplary quality science:

A bit more unfalsified science by Professor Prives:

Charles J. Di Como , Christian Gaiddon, Carol Prives p73 function is inhibited by tumor-derived p53 mutants in mammalian cells Molecular and Cellular Biology (1999) doi: 10.1128/mcb.19.2.1438

For fairness, it should be mentioned that the French researcher Christian Gaiddon from Strasbourg has his own impressive PubPeer record, mentioned here (also as Prives collaborator):

These cancer research masterpieces by Dr Gottifredi from her PhD period in Rome were not investigated by HHS-ORI, but I wish to reassure you, on behalf of all Italian academia, that these fabrications are 110% reliable quality science:

V. Gottifredi , A. Peschiaroli , G.M. Fimia , R. Maione p53-independent apoptosis induced by muscle differentiation stimuli in polyomavirus large T-expressing myoblasts Journal of Cell Science (1999) doi: 10.1242/jcs.112.14.2397 

Vanesa Gottifredi , Giuliana Pelicci , Eliana Munarriz , Rossella Maione, Pier Giuseppe Pelicci , Paolo Amati Polyomavirus large T antigen induces alterations in cytoplasmic signalling pathways involving Shc activation Journal of Virology (1999) doi: 10.1128/jvi.73.2.1427-1437.1999

Read about Pier-Guiseppe Pelicci (and his sister Giuliana) here:

And finally, this cloned gel is not research fraud:

For those still unsure how HHS-ORI works: it only finds those guilty whom their academic employers want to be found guilty. Those who need to be whitewashed, like Prives and Gottifredi, get whitewashed.

As it happens, Prives is the ex-wife of the Stony Brook professor Joav Prives, who in turn then betrothed the NYU Langone Heath Vice-President Dafna Bar-Sagi, who in turn recently almost got a new job for the sacked sexual predator from MIT and mTOR cheater David Sabatini. Science is a village, and they sure do take care of each other.

And Dr Gottifredi? A role model for all the young female researchers in Argentina, celebrated by the government as “one of the most relevant scientists on the national scientific landscape.”

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Happened by mistake and without intention

Yet another investigative report, this time from Sweden, on the case of Karolinska Institutet professor Ulla Stenius and her colleagues. The investigation started in 2016:

One paper (Nr 4a in the report) was already retracted and therefore not investigated:

Aram Ghalali , Zhi-wei Ye , Johan Högberg , Ulla Stenius Phosphatase and tensin homolog deleted on chromosome 10 (PTEN) and PH domain and leucine-rich repeat phosphatase cross-talk (PHLPP) in cancer cells and in transforming growth factor β-activated stem cells Journal of Biological Chemistry (2014) doi: 10.1074/jbc.m113.537241  

The retraction notice from 2017 mentioned that Figures 1C, 1E and 7B were falsified but that “The authors state that these errors do not affect the interpretation of their data or conclusions of this work.” So Stenius et al simply republished it in a different journal: Ghalali et al Biomed Pharmacother 2020. NPOF decided not to investigate any of that.

Here is the full report by the Swedish Research Misconduct Review Board (NPOF), sent to Clare Francis as original notifier:

“The board’s conclusion is therefore that any falsification in Article 1, 2 and 3 constitutes a serious deviation from good research practice.”

Papers older than 10 years were were excluded from investigation. Like these two:

Maria Malmlöf , Emilie Roudier , Johan Högberg , Ulla Stenius MEK-ERK-mediated phosphorylation of Mdm2 at Ser-166 in hepatocytes. Mdm2 is activated in response to inhibited Akt signaling Journal of Biological Chemistry (2007) doi: 10.1074/jbc.m604953200  

The Correction from 2016 informed that “This correction does not affect the results or conclusions of this work.” But no correction here:

These were the papers 1-3 which NPOF found to contain falsifications:

1. Rongrong Wu , Johan Högberg , Mikael Adner , Patricia Ramos-Ramírez , Ulla Stenius , Huiyuan Zheng Crystalline silica particles cause rapid NLRP3-dependent mitochondrial depolarization and DNA damage in airway epithelial cells Particle and Fibre Toxicology (2020) doi: 10.1186/s12989-020-00370-2

2. Sandeep Kadekar , Ilona Silins , Anna Korhonen , Kristian Dreij , Lauy Al-Anati , Johan Högberg , Ulla Stenius Exocrine pancreatic carcinogenesis and autotaxin expression PLoS ONE (2012) doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0043209

3. Lauy Al-Anati , Matti Viluksela , Anna Strid , Åke Bergman , Patrik L. Andersson , Ulla Stenius , Johan Högberg Hydroxyl metabolite of PCB 180 induces DNA damage signaling and enhances the DNA damaging effect of benzo[a]pyrene Chemico-Biological Interactions (2015) doi: 10.1016/j.cbi.2015.07.002  

Especially the duplication in the 3rd paper is nasty. But this is the NPOF verdict (Google-translated):

“The board notes that the researchers gave acceptable explanations for the failure of Western BIot panels published in Figure 3a in Article 1, in Figure 4a in Article 2, and in Figure 3c in Article 3, and that they were able to present the correct images. The board’s assessment is that the incorrect publications in all three articles have happened by mistake and without intention, and that the inaccuracies are to be regarded as oversights or carelessness and constitute
negligence. In light of the fact that these are individual errors, where the the circumstances show that carelessness or inadvertent mistakes have occurred, the board further states that, in an overall assessment, it has not been shown that the notified researchers acted grossly negligently.
Summary of decisions
In summary, the board decides that Mikael Adner, Lauy Al-Anati, Kristian Dreij, Aram Ghalali, Johan Högberg, Sandeep Kadekar, Anna Korhonen, Patricia Ramos-Ramirez, Ilona Silins, Ulla Stenius, Fredrik Wiklund, Rongrong Wu, Zhi-Wei Ye and Huiyuan Zheng are not guilty of research misconduct.”

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Italian Ethnobotany

Meet Vincenzo De Feo, not the dead Italian fascist admiral and colonialist, but the living professor of ethnobotany at the University of Salerno in Italy. This elder gentleman (CV here) has acted as WHO’s expert for traditional medicine since 1999

In recent years, Prof De Feo established productive ethnobotanical collaborations with Indian and Pakistani fraudsters, resulting (thanks to Smut Clyde) in this PubPeer record. Some examples:

Tarun K. Dua , Saikat Dewanjee , Ritu Khanra , Swarnalata Joardar , Sujata Barma , Shilpa Das , M. Zia-Ul-Haq , Vincenzo De Feo Cytoprotective and Antioxidant Effects of an Edible Herb, Enhydra fluctuans Lour. (Asteraceae), against Experimentally Induced Lead Acetate Intoxication PLoS ONE (2016) doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0148757

The next study provides a clue who is behind this Indian papermill, namely most likely Saikat Dewanjee, professor at Jadavpur University. It is his email account all other authors except De Feo were assigned.

Tarun K Dua , Saikat Dewanjee, Ritu Khanra, Niloy Bhattacharya, Bhuvan Bhaskar, Muhammad Zia-Ul-Haq , Vincenzo De Feo The effects of two common edible herbs, Ipomoea aquatica and Enhydra fluctuans, on cadmium-induced pathophysiology: a focus on oxidative defence and anti-apoptotic mechanism Journal of Translational Medicine (2015) doi: 10.1186/s12967-015-0598-6

Another regular coauthor, Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, is also not to be confused with the deceased Pakistani military dictator – he is some alive dude affiliated with the Patent Office in Karachi. Here another one by this team:

Niloy Bhattacharjee , Ritu Khanra , Tarun K. Dua , Susmita Das , Bratati De , M. Zia-Ul-Haq , Vincenzo De Feo , Saikat Dewanjee Sansevieria roxburghiana Schult. & Schult. F. (Family: Asparagaceae) Attenuates Type 2 Diabetes and Its Associated Cardiomyopathy PLoS ONE (2016)   doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0167131

One more, and I will stop, honestly:

Tarun K. Dua , Swarnalata Joardar , Pratik Chakraborty , Shovonlal Bhowmick , Achintya Saha , Vincenzo De Feo, Saikat Dewanjee Myricitrin, a Glycosyloxyflavone in Myrica esculenta Bark Ameliorates Diabetic Nephropathy via Improving Glycemic Status, Reducing Oxidative Stress, and Suppressing Inflammation Molecules (2021) doi: 10.3390/molecules26020258 

I think you got the gist of Prof De Feo’s contribution to ethnobotany. He chose not to reply to my emails.

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Harvard’s gender bias against women

Harvard University is about to sack a tenured professor, apparently it’s the first time they do it in the last 80 years. Normally, Harvard sacks whistleblowers:

Student newspaper Harvard Crimson reported on 28 August 2023:

“Harvard Business School professor Francesca Gino — who faces allegations of data fraud — was notified on July 28 by Harvard’s Office of the President that the school had begun the process of reviewing her tenure for potential revocation, according to an attorney for Gino. […]

In a series of four posts in June, data investigation blog Data Colada accused Gino of data fraud in four research papers she co-authored. After an HBS investigation committee determined that research misconduct had occurred, Business School Dean Srikant M. Datar placed Gino on unpaid administrative leave, barred her from campus, and revoked her named professorship.

Two of Gino’s papers were retracted following the posts from Data Colada — a third had been retracted in September 2021 — and the fourth is scheduled to be retracted in September 2023.

On Aug. 2, Gino filed a lawsuit against Harvard, Datar, and the three professors behind Data Colada — Uri Simonsohn, Leif D. Nelson, and Joseph P. Simmons — alleging that they conspired to damage her reputation with false allegations. […]

The suit also alleges that “Harvard’s gender bias against women was a motivating factor in HBS’s decision to subject Plaintiff to an onerous investigation and to impose upon her severe penalties,” in violation of federal anti-sex discrimination law Title IX.”

You can read about the fake psychology by Francesca Gino and her colleague at Duke University, the lying wanker Dan Ariely, in earlier Friday Shorts, e.g. here. Any suggestions which other tenured research fraudsters Harvard could sack? I have many, for example:

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Industry Giants

Science requires the same creativity, inventiveness, and passion that we expect from artists

A recent lengthy STAT News article by Lindsay Gellman reports about the supplement company LifeVantage:

“At first glance, LifeVantage, worth some $84 million, looks decidedly mainstream. It boasts plaudits from Nasdaq, has blue-chip investors like Fidelity and BlackRock, and Erin Brockovich, the iconic crusader for corporate accountability, sits on its board of directors. Its products are widely available; a bottle of its main supplement goes for around $56 on Amazon.

But in interviews with LifeVantage distributors, executives, and former scientists, as well as in court filings, documents obtained through records requests, and online material, a pattern emerged in the way the company and its representatives have sought to straddle the mainstream and the fringe.

LifeVantage and some of its distributors promote — and in many cases, distort — scientific evidence to tout the benefits of the products they’re selling. While that might be common among supplement companies, what has experts and some employees uniquely concerned is how LifeVantage has capitalized on conspiracist thinking about Covid-19 and the broader health care system to draw customers and sellers looking to resist mainstream medicine altogether.”

LifeVantage sells worldwide the product named Protandim which they say is an “Nrf2 Synergizer—a patented blend shown by multiple studies to activate your body’s ability to increase antioxidants and defend against damaging oxidative stress.” Cheshire got inspired, and looked into the company’s papers.

Delira Robbins , Xin Gu , Runhua Shi , Jianfeng Liu , Fei Wang , Jacqulyne Ponville , Joe M. McCord, Yunfeng Zhao The Chemopreventive Effects of Protandim: Modulation of p53 Mitochondrial Translocation and Apoptosis during Skin Carcinogenesis PLoS ONE (2010) doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0011902 

The last author Yunfeng Zhao, associate professor at Louisiana State University in USA, replied on PubPeer by posting irrelevant pictures of irrelevant gels. Joe McCord is described by STAT News as “a biochemist credited with inventing the Protandim compound who went on to serve as the company’s lead scientific officer“.

A Here another Protandim paper, a collaboration with Ohio State University:

Binata Joddar , Rashmeet K. Reen , Michael S. Firstenberg , Saradhadevi Varadharaj , Joe M. McCord, Jay L. Zweier , Keith J. Gooch Protandim attenuates intimal hyperplasia in human saphenous veins cultured ex vivo via a catalase-dependent pathway Free Radical Biology and Medicine (2011) doi: 10.1016/j.freeradbiomed.2010.12.008 

And this study, done in collaboration with VU Medical Center in Amsterdam, Netherlands, where McCord insisted to have “no conflicts of interest” except having been “previously associated with LifeVantage Corp., the manufacturer of Protandim, but currently has no affiliation with, nor financial interest in the company.” Which is of course hardly credible.

So the preclinical research by LifeVantage is not reliable because possibly fraudulent. And their clinical tests? STAT News writes in this regard:

“A handful of small-scale studies have evaluated Protandim’s effects in humans; by the researchers’ own account, “results were mixed.” A study of 29 adults published in 2005 suggested Protandim reduced measures of oxidative stress after a month, but lacked a placebo group. Another, published in 2016, looked at 38 runners to see whether the supplement improved their performance, or reduced a measure of oxidative stress, over a period of 90 days, and found that it did neither. There is no research demonstrating that reducing oxidative stress can improve health outcomes, though limited studies have linked oxidative stress to a range of health issues.”

Still, the crap sells beautifully.

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Refined medicinal marijuana

An Australian biotech startup worth $200 million goes tits up.

ABC reports:

“Curing cancers using genetic sequencing, rapid tests for livestock diseases, a near infallible COVID-19 test, more refined medicinal marijuana — Xing Technologies promised so much.

The Queensland biotech company founded by prominent Brisbane oncologist and researcher Paul Mainwaring, rode a wave of favourable publicity in the late 2010s.

Headlines like “game changer” and “breakthrough” were regularly used to describe the Queensland company’s research involving patents owned by the University of Queensland (UQ).

Offering lab tests to detect genetic alterations in cancer patients’ tumours to enable more specific treatment was just one of Xing’s developing fields of research. […]

Some of Dr Mainwaring’s patients also invested. One was Brisbane greengrocer Sam Coco who attributed his recovery from cancer to Dr Mainwaring.”

Mainwaring is still listed as “Non-Executive Director” of the Australian company Promethean BioPharma which sells cannabis. And this is what sped up his Xing’s demise – last year’s misconduct findings by the Australian Health Ombudsman against Mainwaring:

“But less than a year after the company launched, one of Dr Mainwaring’s patients died in controversial circumstances.

The 76-year-old cancer patient was alleged to have suffered fatal side effects from immunotherapy treatment prescribed to him by Dr Mainwaring.

An investigation was undertaken by the Health Ombudsman and late last year the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal (QCAT) found Dr Mainwaring’s actions to have constituted “professional misconduct” in relation to the treatment of the patient. […]

Shortly afterwards the company was put into liquidation.”

No worries. There’s plenty biomedical fraud and patient abuse still going on in Australian universities.

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Scholarly Publishing

Concerns have been raised

Elsevier is concerned, as a brief note from 11 September 2023 states:

Expression of Concern to Recent Advances in Battery Thermal Management Special Issue

Subsequent to the acceptance of these special issue papers by the Guest Editors, concerns have been raised about the integrity and rigor of the peer-review process. The journal is currently investigating the concerns. If deemed necessary following this assessment, readers will be further updated in accordance with Elsevier and Committee on Publication Ethics best practices.

The backstory is in this article:

This is the affected special issue in the Journal of Energy Storage. It took 13.5 months since Alexander Magazinov’s first notification to the Expression of Concern:

Recent Advances in Battery Thermal Management

Edited by

• Nader Karimi
• Mohammad Arjmand
• Cong Qi
• Masoud Afrand

These gentlemen are papermillers who publish massive fraud and run citation scams. Afrand and Karimi have been also kicked off the editorial board of another Elsevier journal, Engineering Analysis with Boundary Elements, (read here), the publisher is still investigating how much damage this gang caused. Arjmand however is a heavyweight, the Canadian government stands fully behind him.

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A configuration error

Elsewhere, in the journal Microprocessors & Microsystems, Elsevier is mass-retracting Chinese papermilled fraud. But because this is Elsevier, they can’t avoid lying in their retraction notice to avert shame and responsibility.

For backstory: in 2021, Alexander Magazinov and two colleagues published a preprint, which focussed on the business relationship this Elsevier journal developed with papermills:

Guillaume Cabanac, Cyril Labbé, Alexander Magazinov Tortured phrases: A dubious writing style emerging in science. Evidence of critical issues affecting established journals arXiv (2021) doi: 10.48550/arXiv.2107.06751

During their investigation, the authors informed the journal’s Editor-in-Chief Lech Jozwiak, Professor Emeritus at the Eindhoven University of Technology in The Netherlands, who in August 2021 replied to them with a promise “to analyse and solve the problems caused by dishonest guest editors and reviewers“. Neither Jozwiak nor his chief editor colleague Francesco Leporati of University of Pavia, Italy, replied to my email in May 2022. So Smut Clyde‘s article about the Microprocessors & Microsystems papermill fraud had to do without their esteemed input:

The retraction notices (officially dated 28 June 2023) are all the same, and here is one representative retracted paper with a particularly stupid title:

Jing Li , Chuanzhen Li , Yanhua Shi Big data medical system and analgesic effect of dezocine in alleviating uterine contractions in pregnant women based on embedded processor Microprocessors and Microsystems (2021) doi: 10.1016/j.micpro.2021.103874 

The retraction notice, highlights mine:

“This article has been retracted at the request of the Editor-in-Chief.

Significant similarities were noticed post-publication between this special issue article and other published sources. There is an indication that attempts have been made to disguise the copying using automated paraphrasing. Subsequent to acceptance of these special issue papers by the responsible guest editor, Hameem Shanavas, the integrity and rigor of the peer-review process of the Special Issue were investigated and confirmed to fall beneath the high standards expected by Microprocessors & Microsystems. Due to a configuration error in the editorial system, unfortunately neither the Editor in Chief nor the designated Handling Editors received these papers for approval as per the journal’s standard workflow.”

Lie Nr 1: the new Eugenio Villar (professor at University of Cantabria, Spain) was merely unaware of the goings-on because he was not editor-in-chief of Microprocessors and Microsystems when those papers were published. Jozwiak was. However, to be fair, Elsevier claimed already in several Expressions of Concern issued in 2021:

“Due to a configuration error in the editorial system, unfortunately the Editor in Chief or designated Handling Editor did not receive these papers for approval as per the journal’s standard workflow.”

Elsevier also informed Retraction Watch in July 2021 that it was Jozwiak who uncovered the fraud all by himself:

“In the spring of 2021, the Editor in Chief raised concerns regarding some individual accepted papers in various Special Issues. Elsevier then supported the Editor by initiating a broader investigation“

And here comes Lie Nr 2: “Special Issue Editor-in-Chief” Francesco Leporati is certainly not an innocent bunny, and he still remains in this position (i.e., as Special Issue EiC and innocent bunny). Leporati, Jozwiak and an obscure German in his late 70ies (Karl-Erwin Grosspietsch) used to run the society Euromicro with which Microprocessors and Microsystems used to be listed to be “affiliated”. More likely than not, Leporati knew perfectly well what went on in his Special Issues, that being part of his own Diversity & Inclusion Pledge.

Also, Magazinov noticed:

“Leporati is even a co-guest-editor of MicPro’s “Embedded multi/manycore processors for ml/dl in medical cyber physical systems” “special issue”

This is the Special Issue by Leporati, it is now full of retractions. All maintain that “Due to a configuration error in the editorial system, unfortunately neither the Editor in Chief nor the designated Handling Editors received these papers for approval as per the journal’s standard workflow.“

Bloody computers, eh?

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The Full Truth

It is very rare I feel the need to defend Nature, but you may have noticed the reporting by conservative and right-wing media that the climate change is nothing but a huge conspiracy of Nature editors. Basically, those many thousands deaths in Libya, the constantly burning forests all over the world, the droughts and the deadly heatwaves, the floods and the enormous stroms: all nothing but an evil conspiracy by left-wing scientists in order to publish their climate change lies in Nature.

This is the paper in question:

Patrick T. Brown, Holt Hanley , Ankur Mahesh , Colorado Reed , Scott J. Strenfel , Steven J. Davis , Adam K. Kochanski , Craig B. Clements Climate warming increases extreme daily wildfire growth risk in California Nature (2023) doi: 10.1038/s41586-023-06444-3

CarbonBrief has a long read about what really happened:

“The study, led by US scientist Dr Patrick Brown and published in Nature last week, found that rising global temperatures are increasing the risk of “extreme daily wildfire growth” in California. 

However, a mere six days later, Brown penned an article online claiming that the research was only published because he “stuck to a narrative I knew the editors would like” regarding the impacts of climate change.

Right-leaning media in the UK and US amplified his claims that he omitted other key contributors to wildfire risk because it would “dilute” the story that journals “wanted to tell”.

However, other scientists were quick to point out that the study’s reviewers had indeed recommended that these other factors were considered.

In addition, Brown and his co-authors themselves had argued in their response to the peer reviewers that including the other factors was “very difficult” and that was “precisely why” they had chosen to focus on “the much cleaner but more narrow question of what the influence of warming alone”.

In a statement, Nature’s editor-in-chief Dr Magdalena Skipper accused Brown of “poor research practices” that were “not in line with the standards we set for our journal”.”

Brown claimed that he was forced by the journal to drop other causes for forest fires, specifically in how own words: “poor forest management and the increasing number of people who start wildfires either accidentally or purposely.” In fact, peer reviewers wanted the authors to discuss confounding factors “Vegetation type (fuel), ignitions (lightning and people), fire management activities (direct and indirect suppression, prescribed fire, policies such as fire bans and forest closures) and fire load” and “changes in atmospheric humidity“. But the authors rejected those concerns and insisted on “studying the influence of warming in isolation“.

I am no expert, but the disastrous socio-economic situation in Libya is also a big confounding factor to explain the many thousands of flood deaths as compared to Greece, which still doesn’t explain why the Mediterranean storm was so massive in the first place. But antropogenic climate change does explain that.

CarbonBrief mentions this interesting fact:

“Dr Patrick Brown is currently co-director of the climate and energy team at the Breakthrough Institute – a controversial thinktank in California which “promotes technological solutions to environmental and human development challenges”.

Breakthrough Institute was founded in 2007 by Michael Shellenberger, a known climate change denialist and nuclear power shill. Here a crazy conspiracy theory: what if Breakthrough Institute and Brown meant to publish his study as a sting all along, for no other purpose but to go cry conspiracy afterwards? It sure worked, look at the media coverage worldwide.

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