Stem Cell Research Paper Recalled

MattSparkes writes "One of the best-known stem cell papers describes adult cells that seemed to hold the same promise as embryonic stem cells. Now some of the data contained within the paper is being questioned, after staff at a consumer science magazine noticed errors. It shows how even peer-reviewed papers can sometimes 'slip through the net' and get to publication with inaccurate data."

Comments

Sexy science, bad science

[Ra Zen]

Stem cells are a hot topic, so people are willing to publish sloppy research or even fake date (remember Dr Hwang Woo-suk) just to get published fast and first. The same turns out to be true with other hot topics like flu research, where claims that the 1918 flu pandemic was of avian origin are severely overblown (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v440/n7088/f ull/nature04824.html; a free version is here: http://www.amherst.edu/~mhood/pubs.htm). Most scientifc research is solid, and most review processes work, but publications like Science and Nature often publish articles based on how sexy they are and can curtail the review process if they think the story will be a hit. Most other journals keep things steady and have very solid review proceedures.

Of course

[benhocking]

Anyone who's read a significant number of journal articles has spotted some huge errors that somehow got published. I know of one paper (not naming any names!) where in explaining how a calculation was done it had the line: 18-7=9. Clearly (from context) the line meant to say 17-8=9, but I found it humorous that such a fundamental error got past both the original authors proof-reading and the peer-review process. These things go back and forth a couple times, usually.

Peer review isn't a perfect process. It just helps reduce the noise-to-signal ratio.