Science journalism by Leonid Schneider, on research integrity and academic publishing in life sciences and biomedicine
The hero of this new nano-malfeasance story by Smut Clyde is another Chinese Photoshop-enthusiast, Rijun Gui, a “specially recruited professor” at Qingdao University in China. There is also a female lead, Gui’s wife and colleague Hui Jin. Almost 30 of their papers, mostly published in Elsevier journals, are being discussed on and by PubPeer, one was already retracted by the Royal Society of Chemistry.
My regular contributor Smut Clyde will now lead you back on a trip to the magic world of “Nanotechnology”, where tiny particles are created, sometimes in real chemical laboratories, sometimes in the fake world of the Photoshop. Dong Ge Tong, of Chengdu University of Technology in China, is not just a photoshopper, but also a true philosopher.
This is Appeal by several European scientists protesting against Plan S, recently revealed by the EU and a coalition of European research funders. Lynn Kamerlin and her coauthors worry that Plan S will deprive them of quality journal venues and of international collaborative opportunities, while disadvantaging scientists whose research budgets preclude paying and playing in this OA league. They offer instead their own suggestions how to implement Open Science.
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, done in collaboration with certain Photoshop artists like Claudio Napoli, contain clearly fabricated data.
Giovanni Tarantino andC armine Finelli are two medical plagiarists from Naples in Italy, who became infamous after one of them was caught having stolen the work of a US colleague he was peer reviewing. In other cases, the two Napolitans were even too lazy to plagiarise. They simply republished their already plagiarised “works” several times, even as book chapters. The journals were informed, but most couldn’t care less.
Russian officials found an ingenious way to cure cancer and to impress their autocratic president Putin: they simply rig statistics.Continue Reading
David Latchman, Master of Birkbeck and professor of genetics at UCL was once again cleared of all suspicions of research misconduct, while his two subordinates took all the blame, for just 7 papers. Over 40 flagged for suspected data manipulations were ignored. Latchman is namely also Chair of the over £100 Million-heavy Maurice Wohl Charitable Foundation, which gave Birkbeck over £ 5mn.
Neanderthals colonised Europe and Middle East long before modern humans and went extinct less than 30,000 years ago, when our species has spread there. Their story inspired the fantasies of generation of scientists, some of whom still cannot accept the idea that Neanderthals were just another kind of humans very similar or maybe simply just like us. Even new age phrenology is paraded as scientific explanation to why Neanderthal died out.
Paloma was supposed to the second trachea transplant patient of Paolo Macchiarini’s in Barcelona, in summer 2008. The scandal surgeon gave her a fake diagnosis of a lethal tracheal cancer which she never had, and also “accidentally” mislocated her stent during a enforced bronchoscopy. All to coerce his patient to agree to a trachea transpalnt. Paloma had a lucky escape, twice. She namely also encountered Thorsten Walles.
Smut Clyde is a natural force I insidiously chose to harvest and unleash upon the worst cheaters of the researchContinue Reading
