Taiwan researchers retract DNA paper

Oopsy.

[quote]A Taiwan research team has formally retracted an article published in a prestigious U.S. scientific journal because of concerns over image manipulation, officials from the university said Tuesday.

The October article in the journal Cell based on research that questioned common ideas about DNA was hailed on the island nation as the first report in the publication by an all-Taiwan group.

But the scientists were forced to withdraw the study after a few anonymous posters on a U.S. bulletin board for Chinese students provided evidence suggesting the images in the study had been manipulated.

National Chung Hsing University doctoral holder and lead author Chang Ban-Yang denied any tampering had taken place but wrote the journal last month asking to retract the team’s paper after a university committee recommended the retraction.

The university’s dean of the College of Life Sciences told the journal Science in an e-mail the episode was an “unfortunate case” and said “the university will take this as a serious lesson for ethics education at all the colleges in the future.”[/quote]

Ah, setting the example. Deny and then apologize. :unamused:
cbc.ca/technology/story/2007 … earch.html

Unfortunate, but just another episode in the too often practice of plagiarism and fabrication in scientific and engineering publications worldwide.

Which isn’t surprising given how badly academics need publications. It’s especially bad in England, where not hitting your publication quota for the year can get you fired, because it hurts the university’s rating and thereby its funding.