Science journalism by Leonid Schneider, on research integrity and academic publishing in life sciences and biomedicine
“How I would have loved it if a brilliant genius, in the style of Jeff Goldblum, had discovered, on a corner of a grubby lab bench, THE miracle treatment for SARS-cov-2! But we’re not in a Hollywood style blockbuster.”
Smut Clyde follows the dark path of Traditional Chinese Medicine again. What will he find there? As usual, all the big publishers peddling TCM fraud, that’s what.
A former Harvard postdoc from the lab of George Q Daley tells his story.
This is the second part of the Bologna whistleblower account. As the university was burying their own misconduct findings, Oxford University Press and their ignoble editor were busy punishing and gaslighting the whistleblower.
Elisabetta Ciani uses mouse models to help children with neurological genetic disorders. Problem is: her own lab members reported Ciani for data manipulation. Records reveal that University of Bologna gaslighted the whistleblower, blamed the transgenic mice alone and fibbed the funding charities.
Smut Clyde investigates two more Chinese paper mills. One teamed up with an obscure Italian publisher, the other offers access to respectable society journals. How much of published and allegedly peer reviewed science is real?
“Aaronson may have finally realized the need to modify his behavior when his young children confronted him one day and complained, “Daddy, we’re afraid of you”. After he told us this story he added that perhaps he was being too harsh at work as well.”
In this 3rd instalment of her Celixir investigation, Patricia Murray learns whose side the British authority MHRA is on. Not the patients’, and certainly not on the side of facts.
“Publishing in natural sciences proceeds under structures similar to the mafia. Professors exploit the creativity of their subordinates. Predatory authorship increases the number of authors. This leads to a loss of scientific quality and destroys trust in science.”
An investigation by Elisabeth Bik, Smut Clyde, Morty and Tiger BB8 reveals the workings of a paper mill. Its customers are Chinese doctors desperate for promotion. Apparently even journal editors are part of the scam, publishing fraudulent made-up science.
