Stem-cell fraud makes for box office success
Fictionalized film follows fabricated findings … Read more
Fictionalized film follows fabricated findings … Read more
The German Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe has confirmed on 1 October that the University of Constance was within its rights to revoke the PhD thesis of physicist Jan Hendrik Schön, who was dismissed in 2002 from Bell laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey, for falsifying research results. Read more
New leaked emails from the research editors of Science and Nature provide additional insight into the saga of the STAP papers, which Nature published in January and retracted in July. Read more
Patients do not have an automatic right to a compassionate therapy for which there is no scientific evidence of efficacy, according to a landmark ruling of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Read more
When deciding whether a defendant is too intellectually disabled to receive the death penalty, courts must take into account inherent variability in IQ scores, the US Supreme Court ruled today. Read more
The Institute of Physics, a respected academic publisher, has hit back at claims in a newspaper that one of its journals declined to publish a paper because the results in it contradicted the scientific consensus on climate change. Read more
The RIKEN institute today confirmed reports out yesterday that it would turn down Haruko Obokata’s request for a re-examination of her case, and advised her to retract two Nature papers she published in January. Read more
A timid silence often follows public attacks on scientists who use animals in their research. But today a group of ten heavyweight academic organisations in Germany shed its habitual reserve and raised a stern collective voice against animal-rights activists whose recent advertising campaign targeted an individual neuroscientist. Read more
The head of a Japanese committee investigating claims that stem cells could be made using mechanical stress or acid resigned from the committee today over anonymous allegations that at least one of his own papers contained problematic data. He says he resigned out of concern that the incident could complicate the current investigation. Read more
Most would acknowledge women and minorities already face more hurdles in academia than their white, male peers. A lack of mentors, occasional overt discrimination and the academy’s poor work-life balance, are well-documented issues. But now a study has suggested that these groups may be at a disadvantage even before the starting whistle sounds. Read more