shame in academia

Time to put on your academic glasses!
Because this blog post is gonna be science-y.
This will be my take on Science Communication.
I think Scie. Comm is interesting.
Well, it LOOKS interesting.
More than my Environmental Economics stuff anyway.
So here's a short review of the latest scandal in science.

Has anyone heard of STAP Cells?
It stands for Stimulus-triggered Acquisition of Pluripotency.
STAP cells can basically become any cells that we want.
That's what we call "Pluripotency".
We make STAP cells by putting stress on normal cells.
Said stress can be…squeezing them or,
if you like something more extreme,
dumping them in acid. *ouch*

Isn't this great!?
We can turn normal cells into any cells we want.
And the best part is it's so easy.
Take some lemon juice (which is basically weak acid).
Dip some cells in it.
Viola! God-like Cells!

And we owe it all to a wonderful,
charming, cute scientist:
Obokata Haruko-chan.
And she's not just your ordinary scientist.
She wears an apron to work,
instead of a lab coat.
And her lab is covered in kawaii stickers!
Her work was published in one of the most
prestigious scientific journal in the world:
Nature.
She shot to fame in her home country Japan.
All was well,
and Miss Obokata became an instant hit!

But (there's ALWAYS a 'but'),
several claims came in from different scientists.
They've read about STAP cells in the journal.
STAP cells are great.
They tried to make some too!
But the replication of the experiment failed.
And this is where the biggest scandal/
scientific misconduct in the scientific community started.
With Miss Obokata right in the middle of it all.

The STAP cells paper was retracted from Nature in July,
having only been there for six months.
The scientific community criticised the lack of integrity
in Miss Okobata's work.
But she was the only one who received the blame.
Her supervisor and co-author of the paper,
Yoshiki Sasai,
was also criticised by the scientific community
for not properly fulfilling his duties as supervisor.
Unfortunately,
Mr Sasai was found to have taken his own life.
It's believed that the cause of his death,
was caused by the "shame" of being involved in this
"scandal of the decade".

Miss Obokata has agreed to repeat the experiments
in an attempt to prove to the world
that STAP cells really exist.
So far,
the organisation responsible (RIKEN)
has worked with Miss Obokata
on the experiment 22 times.
With no signs of STAP cells yet.
Perhaps the answer is quite clear now.
That there are no STAP cells.
Or rather, STAP cells have yet to be found.
And we've still got a fair way to go before the next breakthrough in science.

~The End~

I hate these sad endings.
And that wasn't really an scientific article.
It was more like "Dramas in Science".
There's still a bit to write about regarding this case.
But I'll leave that for next time.
Wouldn't wanna bore you.
If you DID manage to finish reading the whole article.
What do you think ?
Am I THAT bad at writing ?


Listening to Superheroes - The Script

Reading lots,

TK