By Leonid Schneider, on research integrity, biomedical ethics and academic publishing
Smut Clyde and TigerBB8 investigate another case of nanotechnology research in China. Connected teams of authors pretended to work on cleaning up the environment of radioactive pollution, and instead released a toxic sludge of fraudulent data and citations.
The story of two data fabricators and Elsevier regulars, Sudheer Khan and Ali Fakhri. Smut Clyde brings them together in this new guest post about nanotechnology
Ariel University is a settlers’ university, located outside of legal Israel borders. What Ariel lacks in academic performance or even official recognition, it makes up in support from right-wing politicians. This post addresses the scientific qualifications of Ariel’s rector Michael Zinigrad. Or the pretence thereof.
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.
Nanotechnology is the way to cure cancer and to save humanity of all its problems in general. The photoshopping team around the physicist Prashant Sharma and Rashmi Madhuri rode this train, till PubPeer sleuth interfered.
Two somewhat controversial approaches to nanoparticle delivery: the striped nanoparticles by Francesco Stellacci, and the spherical nucleic acids by Chad Mirkin.
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