Sholto David
@sholtodavid.bsky.social
I have written a new blog at ForBetterScience. A German lab has published dozens of papers with images that have been either scribbled on, or manipulated with the clone tool. Blogs can take a while to read, but maybe scroll through the pictures! Plenty to see! forbetterscience.com/2025/11/11/l...
November 11, 2025 at 12:33 PM
I have written a new blog at ForBetterScience. A German lab has published dozens of papers with images that have been either scribbled on, or manipulated with the clone tool. Blogs can take a while to read, but maybe scroll through the pictures! Plenty to see! forbetterscience.com/2025/11/11/l...
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
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
Something fishy about this figure🥁Scientific Reports September 2025. pubpeer.com/publications...
November 5, 2025 at 1:18 AM
Something fishy about this figure🥁Scientific Reports September 2025. pubpeer.com/publications...
I think this one is real. I can tell by the scissors and USB connected sperm cells.
October 31, 2025 at 6:15 PM
I think this one is real. I can tell by the scissors and USB connected sperm cells.
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
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.
Academics will publish anything in a journal if you'll let them.
October 30, 2025 at 6:22 PM
Academics will publish anything in a journal if you'll let them.
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
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...
Looks exactly like the kind of guy who would bless an egg and then eat the chicken too.
October 22, 2025 at 11:48 PM
Looks exactly like the kind of guy who would bless an egg and then eat the chicken too.
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
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/
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
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.
Alison found another... I think it might be worse.
October 6, 2025 at 12:52 AM
Alison found another... I think it might be worse.
Adding to the previous diagram by Anna, I can see tiny little football looking things (red arrows) and some of the surrounding area.
October 6, 2025 at 12:50 AM
Adding to the previous diagram by Anna, I can see tiny little football looking things (red arrows) and some of the surrounding area.
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
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".
Four different papers, including one in Nature. The images appear to have been provided by a CDMO (Neurodigitech, LLC) to different teams in the US. Researchers have been adding these beautified and recycled images into their papers like they're filling up a sticker book.
September 13, 2025 at 12:53 AM
Four different papers, including one in Nature. The images appear to have been provided by a CDMO (Neurodigitech, LLC) to different teams in the US. Researchers have been adding these beautified and recycled images into their papers like they're filling up a sticker book.
September 13, 2025 at 12:53 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
Even in 2024 and 2025 after so much scandal there are still name brand labs publishing photoshopped neuroscience images...
Harvard researchers publishing in Nature, some encouragement for those suffering imposter syndrome. pubpeer.com/publications...
September 8, 2025 at 1:34 PM
Harvard researchers publishing in Nature, some encouragement for those suffering imposter syndrome. pubpeer.com/publications...
Retracted yesterday by Dove Press (now T&F) - fair enough, it does seem beyond saving. I identified this with a large scale (semi) automated screen of T&F papers. It was then helpfully animated by ImageTwin.ai.
August 27, 2025 at 11:14 PM
Retracted yesterday by Dove Press (now T&F) - fair enough, it does seem beyond saving. I identified this with a large scale (semi) automated screen of T&F papers. It was then helpfully animated by ImageTwin.ai.
These IR spectra from an MDPI paper certainly look hand drawn to me, but how to describe exactly what is wrong with it? doi.org/10.3390/phar...
August 27, 2025 at 10:58 PM
These IR spectra from an MDPI paper certainly look hand drawn to me, but how to describe exactly what is wrong with it? doi.org/10.3390/phar...
Published in "Smart Medicine" 2025. The authors used three cell lines to study HCC. None of these are HCC cell lines. Two of them are known to be HeLa since 2017. Last author at @stonybrooku.bsky.social
August 19, 2025 at 10:07 PM
Published in "Smart Medicine" 2025. The authors used three cell lines to study HCC. None of these are HCC cell lines. Two of them are known to be HeLa since 2017. Last author at @stonybrooku.bsky.social
Graphical Abstracts are my passion 08 Aug 2025 ($3090.00 APC)
August 10, 2025 at 10:55 PM
Graphical Abstracts are my passion 08 Aug 2025 ($3090.00 APC)
Paper published on 06 August 2025 in Nature. Day after publication, I asked about a western blot. Author misunderstands my question, says it will take "a couple of weeks" to share the experimental repeats promised in the manuscript. Why is that data not close to hand?! pubpeer.com/publications...
August 9, 2025 at 1:47 PM
Paper published on 06 August 2025 in Nature. Day after publication, I asked about a western blot. Author misunderstands my question, says it will take "a couple of weeks" to share the experimental repeats promised in the manuscript. Why is that data not close to hand?! pubpeer.com/publications...
Springer Nature and others have published dozens of papers by Egyptian and Saudi researchers with totally fabricated comet assay images. I have written about these papers here, and provided some tips on how to identify these problematic images: forbetterscience.com/2025/06/24/c...
June 24, 2025 at 11:30 AM
Springer Nature and others have published dozens of papers by Egyptian and Saudi researchers with totally fabricated comet assay images. I have written about these papers here, and provided some tips on how to identify these problematic images: forbetterscience.com/2025/06/24/c...
Image forensics you laugh, you lose edition. Presented exactly how it appears in the paper. I did not adjust the brightness or contrast. pubpeer.com/publications...
June 6, 2025 at 9:03 PM
Image forensics you laugh, you lose edition. Presented exactly how it appears in the paper. I did not adjust the brightness or contrast. pubpeer.com/publications...
The corrected figure still has an overlap, and still includes images that were published previously by the same group as representing different treatment conditions.
June 1, 2025 at 4:38 PM
The corrected figure still has an overlap, and still includes images that were published previously by the same group as representing different treatment conditions.