Catching up on news that broke while I was doing stuff: the results of the University of Pittsburgh investigation of Gerald Shatten’s conduct are out. As reported in the New York Times:

Dr. Gerald P. Schatten, a biologist at the University of Pittsburgh who was involved with Dr. Hwang Woo Suk and his discredited claim to have cloned human cells, was accused yesterday of “research misbehavior” by an investigative panel appointed by the university.

That’s right, not research misconduct (which has a more or less standard definition, at least from the point of view of federal funders of scientific research like NSF and NIH). Research misbehavior. My interpretation of this verdict: “We can’t nail you on a high crime against science (i.e., fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism), but you were sleazy in your conduct.”
And, judging from the findings of the panel investigating Schatten’s conduct, the sleaze was rather relevant to Schatten’s reliability as a member of the community of science.

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I’m hammering away at the next edition of Tangled Bank (going up tomorrow) — plus, you know, teaching and stuff — but I wanted to give you a little something to work on. From New Scientist:

YOU could be forgiven for thinking that scientific fraud was in fashion. Weeks after the cloning superstar Woo Suk Hwang admitted faking research using human embryos, doubts have been cast over two other high-profile scientists.
Jon Sudbo of the Norwegian Radium Hospital, Oslo, has already admitted inventing a study into whether anti-inflammatory drugs can improve the prognosis for oral cancer patients, which was published in The Lancet in 2005. But fresh concerns have now been raised over papers published in the New England Journal of Medicine in April 2001 and April 2004 and the Journal of Clinical Oncology in October 2005.
…
Meanwhile on Monday, the newspaper Japan Today alleged that Kazunari Taira, a biochemist at the University of Tokyo, faked his research into coaxing E. coli bacteria to produce a human enzyme called Dicer. A university investigation team is preparing a report on the matter.

Has peer pressure replaced peer review? (“All the cool scientists are covered by the major networks!”) Is this evidence of a new epidemic of cheating, or of a new epidemic of catching cheaters? Or is this all a ploy to distract us from the hurried development of a super-secret weapon by which the scientists will finally zap scientific literacy directly into our skulls, the better to get new recruits? (“One of us! One of us!”)
Report your findings in the comments.

Since I’m in the blessed wee period between semesters, it’s time to revisit some “old news” (i.e., stuff that I had to set aside in the end-of-semester crush). Today, a story from about a month ago, wherein the Rick Weiss of the Washington Post reports on the University of North Carolina’s troubles obeying animal welfare regulations in its research labs.
You knew that the National Institutes of Health had all sorts of regulations governing the use of animals in research (and even an Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare, whose webpages have a bunch of helpful links for those involved in such research), right? You’d assume that the folks running a major research university (like UNC) would know that, too. Because you know who else knows it? PETA. And somehow, PETA had an inkling that researchers at UNC were maybe not taking the regulations on animal use all that seriously.

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[Finally I’m actually healthy again, and not in a hotel charging $10 a day for internet access. So, on with the blog!]
It must be a law of nature that when past and current graduate students dine together at the end of December the conversation turns, sooner or later, to cheaters. First, of course, you discuss the head-slappingly stupid techniques cheating students employ. (“If they thought we wouldn’t notice them doing that, they must think we’re really stupid!”) Then, you recount a sting operation or two (like planting someone next to a habitual cheater during an exam and having the plant spend the exam period writing utter nonsense — all dutifully copied by the cheater onto her own exam). Finally, there is the wringing of hands over how the graduate students’ efforts against cheaters are for nought given the policies at certain universities that, basically, don’t let you do jack to the cheaters.
It’s that last part that’s been sticking in my craw since the cheating cheaters discussion of which I was a part on New Year’s Eve.

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