Category Archives: Research publishing

Academic paper based on Uyghur genetic data retracted over ethical concerns

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Exclusive: Study published in 2019 used blood and saliva samples from 203 Uyghur and Kazakh people living in Xinjiang capital

Concerns have been raised that academic publishers may not be doing enough to vet the ethical standards of research they publish, after a paper based on genetic data from China’s Uyghur population was retracted and questions were raised about several others including one that is currently published by Oxford University Press.

In June, Elsevier, a Dutch academic publisher, retracted an article entitled “Analysis of Uyghur and Kazakh populations using the Precision ID Ancestry Panel” that had been published in 2019.

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The real Santa’s face: ID software sorts Father Christmas from his stand-ins

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The man in red’s distinct visage emerges by algorithm, proving not any old bearded man looks like him

Santa impersonators watch out. Scientists have created a Santa-detection machine and used it to prove what children have been telling adults for generations – that Santa has a unique face which clearly distinguishes him from other elderly bearded men.

Previous research has suggested that children as young as three can identify Santa Claus based on his distinctive appearance.

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UK vulnerable to major animal disease outbreaks, report finds

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Inadequate management and underinvestment in main Animal and Plant Health Agency facility has left country at risk, MPs warn

The UK’s main animal disease facility has been left to deteriorate to an “alarming extent” leaving the country vulnerable to major outbreaks on the scale of the devastating 2001 foot-and-mouth crisis, MPs have warned.

An inquiry by the Public Accounts Committee found that the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) in Weybridge was “continually vulnerable to a major breakdown” because the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs had “comprehensively failed” in its management of the site.

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‘A moral issue to correct’: the long tail of Elena Ceaușescu’s fraudulent scientific work

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Nicolae Ceaușescu’s Romanian communist regime hailed his wife as an eminent chemistry researcher, though she had no genuine qualifications. But her name lives on in academic journals, and British institutions have yet to retract honours bestowed on her

Romanian researchers have called on academic publishers to remove Elena Ceaușescu’s name from almost two dozen scientific papers and books fraudulently published as her work, more than 30 years after the wife of the former communist dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu was executed.

Elena Ceaușescu was celebrated by state propaganda under her husband’s regime as a world-famous chemistry researcher, despite having no credible qualifications. The researchers say some of her work is still being cited and accessed, even though she was barely literate in science and unable to recognise basic formulas taught to first-year chemistry students.

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Insanity the common verdict on suicides in 18th century England

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Official records contrast with witness evidence of loneliness and physical decline among older people in Georgian society

By the time he reached his 60s Isaac Hendley could look back proudly on his life as a shoemaker in 18th century London. But when he looked forward he could only see the shame of being “passed to his parish” since his “bodily infirmities” meant the end of his independence and self-reliance.

After a year of grappling with his physical deterioration and fears that “he should come to want”, Hendley took his own life in 1797. An inquest recorded the state of his mind according to the testimonies of friends and colleagues.

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Million-year-old mammoth genomes set record for ancient DNA

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DNA from teeth found in Siberia permafrost the oldest yet sequenced, pushing science into ‘deep time’

Teeth from mammoths buried in the Siberian permafrost for more than a million years have led to the world’s oldest known DNA being sequenced, according to a study that shines a genetic searchlight on the deep past.

Researchers said the three teeth specimens, one roughly 800,000 years old and two more than a million years old, provided important insights into the giant ice age mammals, including into the ancient heritage of, specifically, the woolly mammoth.

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Aberdeen could be whisky birthplace, researchers claim

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City document of 1505 may be first record of a still for making aquavite to drink rather than use in gunpowder

Aberdeen could have been the site of the first whisky still, according to researchers who have uncovered a reference from 1505 mentioning apparatus in the city for making aquavite or “water of life”, as it was known in Middle Scots.

The discovery – locating the still 85 miles north of mediaeval abbey ruins where some believe the spirit was first produced – was made during a digitisation project involving the city’s municipal registers.

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