A CRO has been scamming academic and industry labs in the US with fraudulent data that has been published in Nature and other high impact journals. Leonid has written a great piece on my findings: forbetterscience.com/2025/09/22/i...

In 2024 I cycled from the UK to China. I finally finished a vlog, so here it is if you'd like to watch it. It's a glorified holiday album with some complaints and maps 😂 youtu.be/MdgHZPfivVA

I have been blogging at For Better Science. Revisiting Queen's University in Belfast: forbetterscience.com/2025/09/16/f...

Even in 2024 and 2025 after so much scandal there are still name brand labs publishing photoshopped neuroscience images...

This is bad news. Shooting people whose views we disagree with can only take us in a terrible direction.

Yes, I really marked every duplication of a particle in this SEM image. It might have taken me longer than it took them to fake it... Khan et al. 2017 (DOI: 10.1016/j.jallcom.2016.11.260) This Elsevier article is a complete clown show... pubpeer.com/publications... #ImageForensics

Harvard researchers publishing in Nature, some encouragement for those suffering imposter syndrome. pubpeer.com/publications...

A Cuban article on Carlo Croce @OhioState . It doesn't get all the facts correct, but it does include an image of @smutclyde.bsky.social @thatsregrettab1.bsky.social @forbetterscience.bsky.social @elisabethbik.bsky.social www.juventudtecnica.cu/articulos/fr...

They use the artwork of @smutclyde.bsky.social I commissioned from @sholtodavid.bsky.social ! forbetterscience.com/2023/10/09/c...

This is what happens when you entrust a chatbot with the task of writing your paper about the Chimp Optimization Algorithm and the Evolutionary Programming Algorithm. doi.org/10.1109/acce...

"The Committee extends its profound gratitude to Professor Andrew George, who has chosen not to renew his role as co-chair, for his valuable contributions and leadership." ukcori.org/2025/06/13/u... Because nobody reads FBS, right? forbetterscience.com/2025/02/10/a...

Kalam et al. 2017 (DOI: 10.1016/j.msec.2017.03.088) were not happy with the low number of larger particles in their SEM image, so they just duplicated a section of it. They rotated it so it's not very obvious to the reader. Peak science in Materials Science and Engineering C! #ResearchIntegrity

Sulistiawati et al. 2022 (DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpharm.2022.122327) were a bit too honest in their data availability statement. The paper seems completely made-up to me... Of course this didn't stop Elsevier from publishing it! pubpeer.com/publications...

Retracted yesterday by Dove Press (now T&F) - fair enough, it does seem beyond saving. I identified this with a large scale (semi) automated screen of T&F papers. It was then helpfully animated by ImageTwin.ai.

These IR spectra from an MDPI paper certainly look hand drawn to me, but how to describe exactly what is wrong with it? doi.org/10.3390/phar...

Published in "Smart Medicine" 2025. The authors used three cell lines to study HCC. None of these are HCC cell lines. Two of them are known to be HeLa since 2017. Last author at @stonybrooku.bsky.social

No matter how hard you try, you simply cannot guess the journal withe the highest “impact factor” in organic chemistry last year. Really. Nor will you guess many of the other “winners”:

I Lost My Pancreas in Heidelberg forbetterscience.com/2025/08/12/i...

Graphical Abstracts are my passion 08 Aug 2025 ($3090.00 APC)

A week ago I was crazy enough to email a paper's corresponding author for the data. No response. "The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request." Why is this data availability statement evil? A few reasons: ...

Retraction by ‪@mdpiopenaccess.bsky.social‬ of a paper in which a University of West Florida professor appears to have photoshopped his model airplane into a photo of a NASA wind tunnel mdpi.com/2226-4310/7/... pubpeer.com/publications...

Paper published on 06 August 2025 in Nature. Day after publication, I asked about a western blot. Author misunderstands my question, says it will take "a couple of weeks" to share the experimental repeats promised in the manuscript. Why is that data not close to hand?! pubpeer.com/publications...

A new blog, written together with @academic-integrity.bsky.social

“Rather than filing lawsuits and hiding behind carefully crafted statements, the scientific community should be engaging in a conversation about problems and potential solutions.” Holden Thorp writes in Science.

Springer Nature and others have published dozens of papers by Egyptian and Saudi researchers with totally fabricated comet assay images. I have written about these papers here, and provided some tips on how to identify these problematic images: forbetterscience.com/2025/06/24/c...

Image forensics you laugh, you lose edition. Presented exactly how it appears in the paper. I did not adjust the brightness or contrast. pubpeer.com/publications...

Iran-Man of Sussex and Wonder-Woman of Amsterdam forbetterscience.com/2025/06/03/i...

Frontiers issued a correction to one of the papers in this swamp of Italian fraud. The "corrected" figure still contains duplicated images. At what point would you simply lose faith? @frontiersin.bsky.social pubpeer.com/publications...

Sixth retraction for the lab of Professor Guang-Xian Zhang at Thomas Jefferson University - but no action by the university? HT: @smutclyde.bsky.social pubpeer.com/publications...

Based on the outcomes of our project, we have created a pamphlet designed to be used in research laboratories. #researchintegrity #researchclimate #researchmisconduct

Truly baffling from the "excellent team" at Scientific Reports. What further explanation is required beyond what the PubPeer link says? "Unexpected overlapping areas between images that should show different experimental conditions. I've added the coloured rectangles to show where I mean."

Retraction May 27, 2025. Another one bites the dust from Martin Birchall and Alex Seifalian, UCL Ear Institute. HT @sholtodavid.bsky.social and @elisabethbik.bsky.social

A 2016 paper from UCL researchers has been retracted. The paper includes photoshopped microscopy images. Two of the authors (Martin Birchall and Alexander M. Seifalian) were involved in the Macchiarini trachea transplant catastrophe. Seifalian manufactured transplants, Birchall performed surgeries.

Well, I was hoping to learn so much about the interaction network by examining this spiderweb, but there are no names. Scientific Reports working hard to add value to scientific publishing in 2025.

Note that only Barcelo and Elsevier received that email, now published by anon Science Guardians. Thus, Barcelo just outed himself as a member.

This is an interesting example of (more) Photoshop in cancer research. Mostly patient samples were manipulated. Very little room for an "innocent" explanation here. Whoever did it knew they were making stuff up.

Thank God we have this handy review to clear up this particular controversy.

More excellence and dedication from Scientific Reports in April 2025 👨‍🦯😎

Published April 2025 in Scientific Reports, APC £2190.00. Still does not pay for ImageTwin.ai or employ any effective in house tool to scan papers. pubpeer.com/publications...

I have been blogging about fraudulent research at Yale by a "1000 talents" researcher: forbetterscience.com/2025/04/30/y...

The scientific integrity community has many members with no current academic affiliation, who hence make a lot of #ICanHazPDF requests. Sympathetic institutions could make 1 or 2 fixed-term unremunerated positions available, just for the library access. Can your university help? 🙏 (Please boost!)

For more than a decade, Insug Kang and co-authors from Kyung Hee University, #Korea have published fabricated data. pubpeer.com/search?q=Ins... Misbeaviour of scientific publishing results in the spread of misinformation and a serious misuse of public research funds. #science #fraud

Current draft

Finally able to get these clone articles retracted. @elisabethbik.bsky.social @smutclyde.bsky.social @sholtodavid.bsky.social e-century.us/web/journal_...

ACS issued a correction for this paper, I should specify that this is not an April fools' joke. pubpeer.com/publications...

COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) has one integrity officer, Iratxe Puebla. She has authored only one biology research paper. It is now retracted for image manipulation. Learn by experience!

Ayurvedic nasal drop, dropped forbetterscience.com/2025/03/24/a...

Academics at QMUL and Oxford (including a dame, no less) published a paper claiming success for their nasal spray in preventing COVID infection. The paper has now been retracted due to the suspicious nature of the design and reporting. See commentary on PubPeer: www.pubpeer.com/publications...

Prolific research fraud Sam S Yoon still employed by Columbia. The eternal internal investigation grinds on. I suspect his job is likely safer than ever given the recent cuts, presumably his surgery is a revenue stream. forbetterscience.com/2023/11/01/m...

March for Science.