Human Stem Cell Cloning Paper Contains Reused Images 38
An anonymous reader writes "A very recent paper in the prestigious biology journal Cell — 'Human Embryonic Stem Cells Derived by Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer' (openly accessible) — reports the novel creation of human embryonic stem cells from somatic nuclei. It has received massive media coverage and is surely penciled in as a strong candidate for scientific publication of the year. It does however have several examples of image reuse that have been pointed out by a submission on PubPeer. In the paper, it is recorded that the journal Cell accepted this paper just 4 days after submission. Perhaps, under the circumstances, the pre-publication peer review had to be a little hasty? At least at PubPeer, while conducting post publication review, we can take as long as necessary to make up for that lost time. 'In 2004 scientists led by Woo Suk Hwang of Seoul National University claimed to have produced human embryonic stem cells through the same technique used by the Oregon team. Their paper, published in Science, turned out to contain fabricated data. That came to light when scientists figured out that some of the images in the paper were copied or manipulated.''"
Re:Misleading headline (Score:4, Interesting)
Misleading headlines at Slashdot are not a new phenomenon, as most of the story submitters, /. "editors", and readers have a strong bias. This is normal for any non "News" (with a capital "N") web site. Bloggers may like to think of themselves as "journalists", but it's really not often accurate.
But it's been getting worse and worse here at /. and I think it's mostly driven by two things: Slashdot employees who call themselves "editors" but in fact are not, and a mandate for page views.
Page views I understand, but honestly, can we really say that there is any real "editing" going on? Do these so-called "editors" actually get paid to make minor formatting changes and for the most part simply push the most salacious / scandalous / titillating crap to the front page?
Has Slashdot become the National Enquirer of the Tech World?