Nature took no chances in checking the validity of recent paper.
The thrill of cloning a rhesus macaque monkey has already faded, even
though it was hailed as a major breakthrough only a few days ago. Now
it could be just another step up the blind alley of therapeutic
cloning. However, the way it was published in Nature has
intrigued some scientists. The editors decided to release the
research by a team at Oregon Health and Science University together
with a validation study by an Australian team. This is unusual, as
normally results are only validated by other scientists after
publication. But in the light of the disastrous affaire Hwang, Nature
could not risk being hoodwinked again.

An Australian researcher into scientific publication at Australian
National University, Danny Kingsley, says that there have been a
number of retractions in prestigious journals recently, especially in
stem cell science. "There’s a lot of money at stake," she
says. "Sometimes journals cultivate researchers and ask for
papers to try and get the scoop on other journals. I don’t know
whether that’s the case here but that does happen and it could lead
to work that’s not really ready to go being put out in the public
domain." ~
ABC Radio, Nov 16

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Michael Cook

Michael Cook edits BioEdge, a bioethics newsletter, and MercatorNet, an on-line magazine whose focus is human dignity. He writes from Sydney, Australia.

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