Eleanor Olcott

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China’s fake science industry: how ‘paper mills’ threaten progress

MundoAsia, ,

As part of his job as fraud detector at a biomedical publisher, John Chesebro trawls through research papers, scrutinising near identical images of cells. For him, the tricks used by “paper mills” — the outfits paid to fabricate scientific studies — have become wearily familiar.

They range from clear duplication — the same images of cell cultures on microscope slides copied across numerous, unrelated studies — to more subtle tinkering. Sometimes an image is rotated “to try to trick you to think it’s different”, Chesebro says. “At times you can detect where parts of an image were digitally manipulated to add or remove cells or other features to make the data look like the results you are expecting in the hypothesis”.…  Seguir leyendo »

Long lockdowns, tough learning conditions and family separations have made inequality worse for China’s children and teenagers © FT montage: Getty Images/VCG/AFP

MundoAsia, , , ,

In late September, Tashi, a student in a rural village of fewer than 100 people in south-eastern Tibet, returned to school after a six-week lockdown.

The 15-year-old’s grades had deteriorated markedly after weeks of trying to take classes on a smartphone with patchy internet in a crowded house while being cared for by ageing grandparents. His parents were 750km away in Lhasa, the capital, working.

“It was very difficult to concentrate during the lockdown. My three younger siblings were also taking classes in a noisy house”, he says, sitting next to baskets of dried fungi and herbal medicines, which are his village’s main trade.…  Seguir leyendo »

© Giles Sabrié/New York Times/Redux/Eyevine | Children at a Beijing exhibition ‘100 Years Towards Greatness’

MundoAsia

Fish ponds have been abandoned, fields growing bamboo and flowers have been torn up. Instead, Xi Jinping wants China’s farmers to grow rice and wheat.

In the run-up to next week’s Chinese Communist party congress at which Xi, 69, is expected to be appointed for a third term as leader, farmers across China have been contending with unwelcome ultimatums from local authorities.

In accordance with Xi’s determination to enhance China’s food security in the face of what he sees as a hostile west led by the US, they have been told to divert resources from profitable agribusinesses to basic staples.

These edicts represent a departure from the historic agricultural reforms that, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, set the foundation for China’s rapid transformation into the world’s second-largest economy.…  Seguir leyendo »