Sholto David
sholtodavid.bsky.social
Sholto David
@sholtodavid.bsky.social
Reposted by Sholto David
Unbelievable! How can this crap still be published?
Reverse Image Forensics Challenge: Try to find a unique area in Figure 9 of this recent Scientific Reports paper: 10.1038/s41598-025-17456-6 [Aug 2025] - Annotated by ImageTwin.ai
November 11, 2025 at 4:22 AM
Reverse Image Forensics Challenge: Try to find a unique area in Figure 9 of this recent Scientific Reports paper: 10.1038/s41598-025-17456-6 [Aug 2025] - Annotated by ImageTwin.ai
November 11, 2025 at 1:49 AM
Reposted by Sholto David
Oops. Ooooooooooooops.

I do hope that nobody has been given or denied a job/promotion based on their SpringerNature citation counts in the past 15 years.

arxiv.org/pdf/2511.01675

h/t @nathlarigaldie.bsky.social
November 7, 2025 at 2:02 PM
Something fishy about this figure🥁Scientific Reports September 2025. pubpeer.com/publications...
November 5, 2025 at 1:18 AM
Reposted by Sholto David
Looking forward to a @retractionwatch.com EXCLUSIVE !

retractionwatch.com/2025/01/02/i...
"The program is funded by a generous donation from George Tidmarsh."
November 2, 2025 at 10:11 PM
A brilliant post on For Better Science by Maarten.
November 3, 2025 at 12:50 PM
Reposted by Sholto David
@bmj.com Please look at PubPeer comments on an article you published last week. pubpeer.com/publications...
I think your research integrity dept shld act swiftly on this one, given clinical significance.
I'm aware of even more evidence of problems so let me know if this is not sufficient.
PubPeer - Prevention of acute myocardial infarction induced heart fail...
There are comments on PubPeer for publication: Prevention of acute myocardial infarction induced heart failure by intracoronary infusion of mesenchymal stem cells: phase 3 randomised clinical trial (P...
pubpeer.com
November 2, 2025 at 3:02 PM
Reposted by Sholto David
You may have seen reports about a paper claiming that "Stem cell therapy prevents heart attacks": bmj.altmetric.com/details/1830...

If so, you might want to grab some popcorn: pubpeer.com/publications...
Report for: Prevention of acute myocardial infarction induced heart failure by intracoronary infusion of mesenchymal stem cells: phase 3 randomised clinical trial (PREVENT-TAHA8)
In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
bmj.altmetric.com
November 2, 2025 at 3:12 PM
Reposted by Sholto David
Sadism, harassment, defamation, academic manipulation and derogatory falsification:
Yes, I admit to all of that.
But how bloody dare they connecting me to Retraction Watch!!!
November 1, 2025 at 8:26 PM
Reposted by Sholto David
"Additionally, the author stated that they have used AI tools for generating some images, including Fig. 1."

Reviewers and editors could not work that out for themselves.

link.springer.com/article/10.1...
October 31, 2025 at 5:42 PM
Struck me while reviewing (another) terribly faked figure in Scientific Reports that some (but not all) of their problems would be quickly solved if they just insisted authors present image data in an elegant way.
October 31, 2025 at 1:21 AM
Reposted by Sholto David
If scholarly publishers pledge to never publish papermill trash...

What shall they publish instead, to sustain their business model?
October 30, 2025 at 4:28 PM
Reposted by Sholto David
Inclusive: For Better Science is 10 years old now!
October 28, 2025 at 8:18 AM
Another wonderful diagram of "bacterial mitochondria", this time from Scientific Reports in 2025. The whole paper is fake, but the diagram is still delightful. pubpeer.com/publications...
October 25, 2025 at 9:19 AM
Happy to share a new peer-reviewed study on PubMed. Blessing eggs creates bigger and tastier chickens (p < 0.001). pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41035978/
October 22, 2025 at 11:48 PM
Science Family journals use Proofig for image duplication detection. In January, Holden said they'd only documented 23 problems out of the last 2000 papers scanned, impressive! I downloaded the last 80 papers from Science Advances and found this published 2 days ago.
October 19, 2025 at 5:50 PM
Recent MDPI paper including diagram of a bacterial cell with a mitochondrion 🤦‍♀️ The authors propose a mechanism for the toxicity of silver nanoparticles: "Ag+ ions in AgNPs bombard the bacterial mitochondria’s electron transport chain, resulting in cell death".
October 5, 2025 at 7:56 PM
A CRO has been scamming academic and industry labs in the US with fraudulent data that has been published in Nature and other high impact journals. Leonid has written a great piece on my findings: forbetterscience.com/2025/09/22/i...
In Bad Company
“Authors thank the members of NeuroDigitech for their contribution to data generation, and all the animals that contributed to these studies.”
forbetterscience.com
September 22, 2025 at 11:18 AM
In 2024 I cycled from the UK to China. I finally finished a vlog, so here it is if you'd like to watch it. It's a glorified holiday album with some complaints and maps 😂 youtu.be/MdgHZPfivVA
Cycling Alone from the UK to China: 10,000 km in 90 days
YouTube video by Sholto David
youtu.be
September 21, 2025 at 10:07 PM
I have been blogging at For Better Science. Revisiting Queen's University in Belfast: forbetterscience.com/2025/09/16/f...
September 16, 2025 at 9:51 AM
Even in 2024 and 2025 after so much scandal there are still name brand labs publishing photoshopped neuroscience images...
September 13, 2025 at 12:53 AM
Reposted by Sholto David
This is bad news.

Shooting people whose views we disagree with can only take us in a terrible direction.
September 10, 2025 at 9:05 PM
Reposted by Sholto David
Yes, I really marked every duplication of a particle in this SEM image. It might have taken me longer than it took them to fake it... Khan et al. 2017 (DOI: 10.1016/j.jallcom.2016.11.260)
This Elsevier article is a complete clown show... pubpeer.com/publications... #ImageForensics
September 9, 2025 at 12:15 AM
Harvard researchers publishing in Nature, some encouragement for those suffering imposter syndrome. pubpeer.com/publications...
September 8, 2025 at 1:34 PM