

Still no stem cells via easy 'STAP' path - lelf
http://www.nature.com/news/still-no-stem-cells-via-easy-stap-path-1.16606

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dolphin2k2
If this was truly fraud, how did the people involved expected to get a way
with it? They must know that the results will be checked multiple times and
independently verified. Especially on ground breaking advances such as this.

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jmnicolas
I think at one point we're gonna have to stop calling this scientific studies
unless it has been tested and repeated by at least 2 other independent labs.

Or we can continue like this and let the word science lose its meaning.

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smackfu
This is how the system is supposed to work. You create an experiment, you
perform it, if there are interesting results you publish them. Then since it's
public, other people can try to reproduce the results. If they do, the results
are stronger. If not, there must have been a mistake.

The fact that the press tends to report on the initial experimental results as
INFALLIBLE SCIENTIFIC TRUTH is not the fault of the scientists.

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epistasis
100% agree with this. Further, it's important for the "mistake" to be out in
the public for everybody to see, because it implies a change in the paradigm
of what's required for repeatable experiments; some unknown factor that needs
to be reported.

And discovery of those new, unknown factors are where the exciting discoveries
come from! Fields where we know all the governing principles are really
boring, IMHO.

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WhitneyLand
What's Haruko Obokata's current status? Is she still trying to reproduce the
results or has she conceded that mistakes were made?

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puzzlingcaptcha
[http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20141218p...](http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20141218p2g00m0dm050000c.html)

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tokenadult
Please, please, please submit some more original journalistic source rather
than PhysOrg for stories like this. It's unclear from this incomplete PhysOrg
write-up if the reference is to a considerably older original story in
_Nature_ [1] The Retraction Watch group blog, a good source for interesting
stories for Hacker News, had some reporting about this story a while ago.[2]
That commentary reporting links to a story in _Science_ that is not
paywalled,[3] and an easy Google search found another blog with commentary on
what the STAP fiasco does to research on stem cells.[4] There is not a lot of
new news or added value in this PhysOrg submission.

[1] [http://www.nature.com/news/papers-on-stress-induced-stem-
cel...](http://www.nature.com/news/papers-on-stress-induced-stem-cells-are-
retracted-1.15501)

[2] [http://retractionwatch.com/2014/09/11/potentially-
groundbrea...](http://retractionwatch.com/2014/09/11/potentially-
groundbreaking-highly-provocative-nature-stap-cell-peer-reviews-published/)

[3] [http://news.sciencemag.org/asiapacific/2014/09/exclusive-
nat...](http://news.sciencemag.org/asiapacific/2014/09/exclusive-nature-
reviewers-not-persuaded-initial-stap-stem-cell-papers)

[4] [http://www.ipscell.com/tag/stap-cells/](http://www.ipscell.com/tag/stap-
cells/)

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debacle
phys.org is a perfectly fine resource. I think you're being unnecessarily
picky.

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epistasis
As a biologist, I groan every time somebody tries to send me a phys.org link.
It's a really really terrible PR regurgitation site, I've never seen a quality
article from it.

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debacle
Most science journalism is PR regurgitation. Most journalism in general is PR
regurgitation of one sort or another.

The nice thing about phys.org is that it doesn't talk down to the reader.

