Posted on 01/23/2006 10:05:37 PM PST by neverdem
Among the many temptations of the digital age, photo-manipulation has proved particularly troublesome for science, and scientific journals are beginning to respond.
Some journal editors are considering adopting a test, in use at The Journal of Cell Biology, that could have caught the concocted images of the human embryonic stem cells made by Dr. Hwang Woo Suk.
At The Journal of Cell Biology, the test has revealed extensive manipulation of photos. Since 2002, when the test was put in place, 25 percent of all accepted manuscripts have had one or more illustrations that were manipulated in ways that violate the journal's guidelines, said Michael Rossner of Rockefeller University, the executive editor. The editor of the journal, Ira Mellman of Yale, said that most cases were resolved when the authors provided originals. "In 1 percent of the cases we find authors have engaged in fraud," he said.
The two editors recognized the likelihood that images were being improperly manipulated when the journal required all illustrations to be submitted in digital form. While reformatting illustrations submitted in the wrong format, Dr. Rossner realized that some authors had yielded to the temptation of Photoshop's image-changing tools to misrepresent the original data.
In some instances, he found, authors would remove bands from a gel, a test for showing what proteins are present in an experiment. Sometimes a row of bands would be duplicated and presented as the controls for a second experiment. Sometimes the background would be cleaned up, with Photoshop's rubber stamp or clone stamp tool, to make it prettier.
Some authors would change the contrast in an image to eliminate traces of a diagnostic stain that showed up in places where there shouldn't be one. Others would take images of cells from different experiments and assemble them as if all were growing...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
How to Spot a Fraud You'll have to go to the actual Times' webpage. i.e. URL = http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/24/science/24frau.html?_r=1 , to click on the link so that the captions can be read. 56K dialup beware. It's one of those huge astronomy graphics that displace the format when browsing comments.
Yeah, the NYT has some nerve talking about photo fraud in other publications!
HOW TO SPOT A FRAUD 101
1) Go to "http://www.nytimes.com/".
2) Take a good look.
3) Think on it.
That photo was my first thought.
Time magazine is running with that photo. Anything to make the US look bad is printable by the leftist media.
Actually, using that yellow turdban as a reference yardstick, it would look as an 8-inch shell, not a sixer. Where did they find 203 mm?
That was my first thought when I saw the title.
I'm glad the NYT is all over this scientific fraud thing. Wouldn't want the public to be misled, now would we?
(/sarcasm)
THWAPPP!!!!
Piece of cake. But the bottom left photo must have been at lower resolution than their original. Couldn't get the backbround right.
BUMP.
These commies will be made to pay in the history books one day. The Old Grey Lady is nothing but a whore.
Diabetes From Plastic? Estrogen Mimic Provokes Insulin Resistance Comment 24 links the original article.
FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.
Aw, you can tell that one's a fake. The Jackelope's real enough, but have you ever seen a tree look like that?
I'VE BEEN BUSTED!
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