Taiwanese Nanotech Paper Heading for Retraction, Professor/Student Punished

When we wrote about a controversial Nanopore paper last year (see Nanopore Sequencing by Divine Intervention?), we expected the authors to either receive multiple Nobel prizes or get elevated to the status of deity. The second option seemed more likely after additional details came out about the project (see Bizarro Details Coming out on Nanopore Sequencing by Divine Intervention Story). Apparently the ‘lab’, where those cutting-edge experiments were done, did not have any suitable equipment and was located far from the university near a well-known temple.

National Chiao Tung University, whose motto is ???? ???? (“Learn New Knowledge and Reach Far; Honor the Truth and Work Hard”), did not appreciate being a laughing stock any more and pulled the plug on this project. Those, who understand Chinese, can check about this latest development at this link. The jumbled up text from google translate text is not worth reproducing and the picture makes one think the professor/student got some big reward, not kicked out of the university.

This is a terrible tragedy for our blog, because we will have to restrict ourselves with making fun of domestic clowns, such as the ENCODE leaders and the positivity lady.