# kb

id: enigmarelle-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enigmarelle-0.md
category: reference
title: Enigmarelle
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enigmarelle
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:59.593980+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: enigmarelle-20260505-0
summary:
Enigmarelle was a fake humanoid automaton, in fact with a person concealed inside, which was exhibited as a scientific and technical curiosity around 1905 in the US and Europe, chiefly in theaters. Enigmarelle was claimed to be able to perform several extraordinary tasks, which it demonstrated in performances: these included walking, riding a bicycle, and writing its name on a blackboard. == Presentation == Enigmarelle was shown in the US and then in parts of Europe, in vaudeville theaters and circuses. The booking agent, an American named Frederick J. Ireland, was represented at these appearances as the creator and owner of the automaton. Enigmarelle was a large automaton and was in fact operated by a human concealed within its body, although the precise operating mechanisms are not known. The operator is believed to have been a performer who had had both his legs amputated and who went by the name of Alba W. Root, and who also performed as a bicycle acrobat using leg prostheses. Enigmarelle was the subject of a short documentary film in 1905 and a detailed "scientific" description with three photos in Scientific American in 1906. It is mentioned in some modern publications on automatons. === Name


id: eo-rnis-pterovelox-gobiensis-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eoörnis_pterovelox_gobiensis-0.md
category: reference
title: Eoörnis pterovelox gobiensis
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eoörnis_pterovelox_gobiensis
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:00.756375+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: eo-rnis-pterovelox-gobiensis-20260505-0
summary:
Eoörnis pterovelox gobiensis is a fictional bird, a humorous hoax by Lester W. Sharp, professor of botany, Cornell University, United States. It was initially a short talk presented together with a graduate student, Cuthbert Fraser, about the most unusual bird from the Gobi Desert, called woofen-poof by the local populace. Eventually it grew into a 34-page monograph signed by an "Augustus C. Fotheringham, Sc.D. (Cantab.), F.R.G.S.", printed by "The Buighleigh Press" in 1928, full of illustrated detail of anatomy, physiology, ecology, evolution, and historical references, complete with Cro-Magnon cave paintings — all inspired by a car mascot of a pelican. For example, Pterovelox "is perhaps most frequently observed in a peculiar resting position — legs straight out behind with the feet on the rock, tree branch or other object, the body being supported by continuous vibration of wings". The monograph has later been reprinted several times. The peculiarities of the bird's mating were even unwittingly quoted in a eugenics article on consanguineous marriages in 1934: "A new, and recently authenticated, case of naturally determined incest, appears to have been discovered by the British Museum Expedition to the Gobi Desert in 1929, when a bird, the Eoörnis pterovelox gobiensis, was found,


id: fatu-liva-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatu-liva-0.md
category: reference
title: Fatu-liva
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatu-liva
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:01.925930+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: fatu-liva-20260505-0
summary:
The Fatu-liva is a fictional species of bird invented by George S. Chappell in his travel parody The Cruise of the Kawa: Wanderings in the South Seas, by Walter E. Traprock (1921). Fatu-liva were said to be found only in the fictional "Filbert Islands" in the South Pacific Ocean where they laid cube-like, black-spotted eggs that were very similar in appearance to dice. The bird's nest was described in the book as: "...a semi-spheric bowl of closely woven grass in which lay four snow-white, polka-dotted cubes, the marvelous square eggs of the fatu-liva." Additionally, a black-and-white photograph of what was supposedly the bird's dice-like eggs was provided. Its caption read: "This is without question the most extraordinary picture which has ever been taken of any natural history subject. It corroborates in most convincing manner the author's claim to the discovery of the wonderful fatu-liva bird with its unique gift of laying square eggs. Here we see the eggs themselves in all the beauty of their cubical form and quaint marking; here we see the nest itself, made of delicately woven haro and brought carefully from the tree's summit by its discoverer, Babai-Alova-Babai. An extremely interesting feature of the picture is


id: flying-penguin-hoax-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_penguin_hoax-0.md
category: reference
title: Flying penguin hoax
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_penguin_hoax
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:03.131460+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: flying-penguin-hoax-20260505-0
summary:
Miracles of Evolution is a BBC film trailer featuring flying penguins made in 2008 as an April Fools' Day hoax. The film was advertised as compelling evidence for Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. It was largely set on King George Island, 120 kilometres (75 mi) from mainland Antarctica. The Daily Telegraph wrote that the film was "an instant classic. It is accomplished work of this kind that guarantees the BBC its unique status." The BBC website still claims that it may attempt to film the flying penguins again because the original film did not explain how such small birds, that are not used to flying, could survive long migrations over vast, stormy oceans. Miracles of Evolution was filmed with animated penguins for the occasion of April Fools' Day, and to promote the BBC iPlayer. MSN included "The BBC's flying penguins" as one of their twelve "hoaxes of the decade." == The film == The film features Adélie penguins that live in Antarctica. Adélie penguins are one of the most southern seabirds in the world. The film claims that long and extremely cold Antarctic winters forced some groups of Adélies to adapt by (re)gaining the ability to fly. In the film


id: fur-bearing-trout-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fur-bearing_trout-0.md
category: reference
title: Fur-bearing trout
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fur-bearing_trout
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:04.254222+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: fur-bearing-trout-20260505-0
summary:
The fur-bearing trout (or furry trout) is a legendary creature found in American folklore and Icelandic folklore. According to folklore, the trout has created a thick coat of fur to maintain its body heat. Tales of furry fish date to the 17th century. The earliest known American publication dates from a 1929 Montana Wildlife magazine article by J.H. Hicken. A taxidermy furry trout produced by Ross C. Jobe is a specimen at the Royal Museum of Scotland; it is a trout with white rabbit fur "ingeniously" attached. There are no known examples of any fur-bearing trout species, but two examples of hair-like growths on fish are known. The "cotton mold", Saprolegnia, can infect fish, which can result in the appearance of fish covered in white "fur". Another fish, Mirapinna esau, has hairlike outgrowth and sports wing-like pectoral fins. == Commonalities == Fur-bearing trout are fictional creatures that are purportedly found in the Arkansas River, northern North America, and Iceland. The basic claim (or tall tale) is that the waters of lakes and rivers in the area are so cold that they evolved a thick coat of fur to maintain their body heat. Another theory says that it is due to


id: genpet-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genpet-0.md
category: reference
title: Genpet
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genpet
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:05.428633+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: genpet-20260505-0
summary:
Genpets are a mixed media installation art piece by artist Adam Brandejs. It is considered a hoax of exposure. The project has been shown in multiple galleries in Canada and Europe and has garnered some attention in the mass media. The creations were sculpted, automated creatures made of latex and plastic, and housed robotic circuitry to simulate slow respiration. They looked like small, hairless humanoids, and were intended to be displayed as living, but dormant, bio-engineered creatures for purchase as pets. The fabricated packaging indicated a purchaser had a choice of what personality traits their Genpet displayed based on a color-coded chemical behavioral modulation system, and that the creatures had a limited vocal capacity. The sculptures and packaging, along with the professional appearance and cleverly open ended interactive features website led many observers to assume that Genpets were real. In 2006, Genpets were featured on the weblog for The Museum of Hoaxes in San Diego, California. as well as broadcast on BBC News Worldwide on a BBC programme called Click as well as the Times (UK), the New York Times and G4TechTV. All the work was hand done by the artist Adam Brandejs, with assistance from makeup artist Crystal Pallister


id: golfballia-ambusta-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golfballia_ambusta-0.md
category: reference
title: Golfballia ambusta
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golfballia_ambusta
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:07.690226+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: golfballia-ambusta-20260505-0
summary:
Golfballia ambusta is a purported species of fungus with specimens primarily kept at Kew Gardens, London. The specimens are not of organisms but burnt golf balls. In 1962, they were described as a new fungal species by R. W. G. Dennis, the head of mycology at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, possibly to challenge the mycological criteria in place as to what could be considered a fungus. Its binomial name is 'burnt golf ball' in Dog Latin. == History == In 1952, a burnt golf ball was submitted to mycologists from an anonymous source in Lancashire, northwest England, and deposited in the Fungarium at Kew Gardens, London. The submitter claimed it to be a specimen of a "rare fungal species" belonging to the genus Queletia, but mycologists thought its appearance more closely resembled Scleroderma citrinum, which has an irregular, nearly spherical sporocarp with thick leathery skin and colours that vary from white to tan or brown. The surface of a golf ball is dimpled and, when burned, its outer shell cracks to expose the rubber core, which is similar to the dark gleba of a mature S. citrinum sporocarp. Kew mycologists unsuccessfully attempted to collect spores from the specimen before realizing


id: great-moon-hoax-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Moon_Hoax-0.md
category: reference
title: Great Moon Hoax
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Moon_Hoax
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:08.852773+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: great-moon-hoax-20260505-0
summary:
The "Great Moon Hoax", also known as the "Great Moon Hoax of 1835", was a series of six articles published in The Sun (a New York newspaper), beginning on August 25, 1835, about the supposed discovery of life and civilization on the Moon. The discoveries were falsely attributed to Sir John Herschel and his fictitious companion Andrew Grant. The story was advertised on August 21, 1835, as an upcoming feature allegedly reprinted from The Edinburgh Courant. The first in a series of six was published four days later on August 25. These articles were never retracted; however, on September 16, 1835, The Sun admitted the articles were in fact fabricated. == Hoax == The headline read: The articles described animals on the Moon, including bison, single-horned goats, mini zebras, unicorns, bipedal tail-less beavers and bat-like winged humanoids ("Vespertilio-homo") who built temples. There were trees, oceans and beaches. These discoveries were supposedly made with "an immense telescope of an entirely new principle". The telescope, transported to South Africa from New England, was said to be many times larger than any other telescope in the world. The lens measured "24 feet in diameter and 7 tons in weight". "Vespertilio-homo" can be translated


id: great-moon-hoax-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Moon_Hoax-1.md
category: reference
title: Great Moon Hoax
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Moon_Hoax
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:08.852773+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: great-moon-hoax-20260505-0
summary:
== Context == Locke's sensational reports were not out of place in the context of the mass proliferation of penny press newspapers such as the New York Sun which received much of their income from advertisements, a business practice made sustainable by large numbers of readers. The Sun was a pioneer when it came to producing shocking and often sensationalist journalism, being the first New York newspaper to report on murders, suicides, personal events, and divorces, and it was because of stories such as these that the Sun thrived in attracting readers to their articles, and thus to their advertisements. The success of such sensational stories as the "Great Moon Hoax" can be partly attributed to the influence of contemporary speculative science. Figures like the Reverend Thomas Dick, who claimed that the Moon was inhabited by billions of beings, had captured the public's imagination in the early 19th century. Locke's hoax played on similar popular beliefs, presenting them as the latest scientific findings from the well-respected astronomer Sir John Herschel, which lent the story credibility. == Legacy == The hoax is featured in Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for History. Nate


id: grievance-studies-affair-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievance_studies_affair-0.md
category: reference
title: Grievance studies affair
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievance_studies_affair
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:10.101456+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: grievance-studies-affair-20260505-0
summary:
The grievance studies affair was the project of a team of three authors—Peter Boghossian, James A. Lindsay, and Helen Pluckrose—to highlight what they saw as poor scholarship and erosion of standards in several academic fields. Taking place over 2017 and 2018, their project entailed submitting bogus papers to academic journals on topics from the field of critical social theory such as cultural, queer, race, gender, fat, and sexuality studies to determine whether they would pass through peer review and be accepted for publication. Four of these papers were subsequently published, which the authors cited in support of their contention. The affair echoed Alan Sokal's 1996 hoax in Social Text, a cultural studies journal, which inspired Boghossian, Lindsay, and Pluckrose. The trio set out with the intent to expose problems in what they called "grievance studies", referring to academic areas where they claim "a culture has developed in which only certain conclusions are allowed [...] and put social grievances ahead of objective truth". As such, the trio, identifying themselves as political liberals, though with Vox identifying prior transgressions made by each against left-liberalism, described their project as an attempt to raise awareness of what they believed was the damage that postmodernism


id: grievance-studies-affair-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievance_studies_affair-1.md
category: reference
title: Grievance studies affair
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievance_studies_affair
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:10.101456+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: grievance-studies-affair-20260505-0
summary:
=== Attempts === Prior to the affair, various academics highlighted concerns about the intellectual validity of much research influenced by postmodern philosophy and critical theory by publishing hoax articles in various journals. It was the 1996 hoax by Alan Sokal in Social Text, in particular, that influenced James A. Lindsay and Peter Boghossian to publish a hoax article of their own. On May 19, 2017, peer-reviewed journal Cogent Social Sciences published "The conceptual penis as a social construct", which argued that penises are not "male"; rather, they should be analyzed as social constructs instead. The same day, Lindsay and Boghossian revealed it to be a hoax aimed at discrediting gender studies, although Cogent Social Sciences is not exclusively a gender-studies journal. While the journal did conduct a postmortem, both authors concluded the "impact [of the hoax] was very limited, and much criticism of it was legitimate". The authorship of each paper was either fictional—such as "Helen Wilson" of "Portland Ungendering Research Initiative"—or real people willing to lend their name, such as Richard Baldwin, professor emeritus of history at Gulf Coast State College. The first acceptance, "Human Reactions to Rape Culture and Queer Performativity at the Dog Park", was achieved five


id: grievance-studies-affair-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievance_studies_affair-2.md
category: reference
title: Grievance studies affair
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievance_studies_affair
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:10.101456+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: grievance-studies-affair-20260505-0
summary:
=== Praise === Mounk of Johns Hopkins University said that while the authors received no favors for preparing the hoax, they demonstrated mastery in postmodern jargon and not only ridiculed the journals in question, but, more importantly, outed double standards of gender studies which happily welcome hoaxes against "morally suspect" fields like economics, but are unable to accept a criticism of their own methods. He also commented on the "sheer amount of tribal solidarity it has elicited among leftists and academics" and the fact that many of the reactions were purely ad hominem, while few have actually said that there is an actual problem highlighted by the hoax: "some of the leading journals in areas like gender studies have failed to distinguish between real scholarship and intellectually vacuous as well as morally troubling bullshit". Rejecting complaints that the trio, lacking a control group, engaged in a "confused attempt to import statistics into a question where it doesn't apply", Mounk stated that the trio had promised "nothing of the sort" in the first place, and had instead successfully accomplished their goal of demonstrating that it was "possible" to "get bullshit published" in the journals in question. Justin E. H. Smith defended


id: grievance-studies-affair-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievance_studies_affair-3.md
category: reference
title: Grievance studies affair
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievance_studies_affair
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:10.101456+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: grievance-studies-affair-20260505-0
summary:
(1) journals with higher impact factors were more likely to reject papers submitted as part of the project; (2) the chances were better, if the manuscript was allegedly based on empirical data; (3) peer reviews can be an important asset in the process of revising a manuscript; and (4) when the project authors, with academic education from neighboring disciplines, closely followed the reviewers' advice, they were able to learn relatively quickly what is needed for writing an acceptable article. The boundary between a seriously written paper and a "hoax" gradually became blurred. Finally (5), the way the project ended showed that in the long run, the scientific community will uncover fraudulent practices. Lagerspetz concludes that the experiment was flawed both experimentally and ethically, and failed to provide the evidence it sought. It is unclear, on what grounds the project group decided what journals to target. One third (7) of the 21 final editorial decisions the authors received were positive, two thirds of the decisions were negative. In the absence of a control group, it is impossible to tell whether this proportion would have been lower or higher within other disciplines. == List of hoax papers == === Accepted === ====


id: vishwa-jit-gupta-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vishwa_Jit_Gupta-0.md
category: reference
title: Vishwa Jit Gupta
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vishwa_Jit_Gupta
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:11.304705+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: vishwa-jit-gupta-20260505-0
summary:
Vishwa Jit Gupta, alternatively spelt Viswa Jit Gupta, or Vishwajit Gupta, (1942—2022) was an Indian paleontologist and former professor of geology at Panjab University, Chandigarh. He is reputed for research in the geological settings and fossil records of the Himalayas, publishing five books and 458 articles on the subject between 1966 and 1989. However, many of his fossils were revealed to be fake or manipulated, and he became infamous for large-scale scientific fraud, the case that came to be known as the Himalayan fossil hoax. Once recognised as "India's most celebrated fossil scientist", he has been named as "the greatest" and "most notorious paleontological fraudster" and "Houdini of the Himalayas." == Biography == Gupta studied M.Sc. in the Department of Geology (at the time the Centre of Advanced Study in Palaeontology and Himalayan Geology) at Panjab University, Chandigarh. After enrolling in a doctoral programme under the supervision of Mulk Raj Sahni, he investigated on the fossils of the Himalayan region in Kashmir. He and Sahni published the first reports of fossils in 1964, the discovery of graptolites in two papers in Nature, and fossil assemblage in two papers in Current Science, and one in the Journal of the Palaeontological Society


id: john-william-heslop-harrison-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_William_Heslop-Harrison-0.md
category: reference
title: John William Heslop-Harrison
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_William_Heslop-Harrison
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:12.446334+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: john-william-heslop-harrison-20260505-0
summary:
John William Heslop Harrison, (1881–1967) was a professor of Botany at Kings College, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, specialising in the genetics of moths. He is now best remembered for a widely recognised academic fraud. == Early life and education == He was born in Birtley on 22 January 1881, the son of George Heslop-Harrison, a pattern-maker at Birtley Iron Works. He was educated at Bede College School in Durham then Rutherford School for Boys in Newcastle upon Tyne. His mother was a keen gardener, and other influences such as his uncle, Rev J E Hull, and neighbour, Charles Robson, led him to an early interest in botany and natural history. He then studied at Durham College of Science, where he obtained a BSc degree in 1903. He did further postgraduate study at the University of Newcastle, gaining an MSc degree in 1916 and a DSc in 1917. In 1921 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE). His proposers were James Hartley Ashworth, Sir Thomas Hudson Beare, Percy Hall Grimshaw, and James Ritchie. He served as the Society's Vice-President 1945–1948. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1928. He died in Birtley, Tyne and Wear


id: himalayan-fossil-hoax-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himalayan_fossil_hoax-0.md
category: reference
title: Himalayan fossil hoax
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himalayan_fossil_hoax
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:13.892347+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: himalayan-fossil-hoax-20260505-0
summary:
The Himalayan fossil hoax (also called the Himalayan hoax or the case of the peripatetic fossils) is a case of scientific misconduct perpetrated by Indian palaeontologist Vishwa Jit Gupta of Panjab University. Since his doctoral research in the 1960s and the following two decades, Gupta worked on the geology and fossil record of the Himalayan region, producing hundreds of research publications that were taken as fundamentals to understanding the geological formation of the Himalayas. Australian geologist John Talent from Macquarie University followed Gupta's research and happened to visit the Himalayas where he found that Gupta's fossils did not match those geological settings and were odd — some being extraordinarily similar to fossils from other parts of the world. In 1987, in the presence of Gupta at a scientific conference in Canada, Talent publicly displayed that Gupta's fossils were identical to those found in Morocco. Talent and his student Glenn Brock reanalysed Gupta's research, bringing out systematic evidence that Gupta had manipulated, faked, recycled, and plagiarised his data. Early in 1978, Gilbert Klapper and Willi Ziegler had suspected foul play as they noticed that Gupta's conodont fossils were similar to those collected by George Jennings Hinde from Buffalo, New York, a


id: himalayan-fossil-hoax-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himalayan_fossil_hoax-1.md
category: reference
title: Himalayan fossil hoax
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himalayan_fossil_hoax
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:13.892347+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: himalayan-fossil-hoax-20260505-0
summary:
In 1978, the American geologist Gilbert Klapper from the University of Iowa met Willi Ziegler at the University of Marburg in Germany to discuss the progress of research on extinct jawless vertebrates, the conodonts. At that time, Ziegler had Australian guests, John W. Pickett from the Geological Survey of New South Wales and his associate John Alfred Talent from Macquarie University in Sydney. Talent was by then an established expert in Devonian geology of Australian and Indian regions. As the leader of the research team of the first International Geological Correlation Programme (IGCP-1), a project of UNESCO, Talent had explored the Himalayas in 1973−1977. Pickett and Talent shared their Himalayan studies and discussed Gupta's research on Devonian conodonts. They had also investigated 20 locations around Nepal, where Gupta had claimed many discoveries from Triassic, Permian, Carboniferous, and Devonian deposits (rocks ranging from around 420 to 299 million years old), and to their astonishment, found no fossils except one which was Silurian (around 443 to 420 Ma, therefore pre-Devonian). In one specific case, they explored the area where Gupta and William B. N. Berry (Director of the University of California Museum of Paleontology) had reported in 1966 several fossils from Kashmir.


id: himalayan-fossil-hoax-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himalayan_fossil_hoax-2.md
category: reference
title: Himalayan fossil hoax
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himalayan_fossil_hoax
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:13.892347+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: himalayan-fossil-hoax-20260505-0
summary:
In 1980, Gupta met Philippe Janvier at the Museum of Natural History in Paris and showed him "a magnificent fossil fish skull" which he brought along. Gupta had travelled to China, but claimed that he had collected the fossil from Zanskar, Ladakh, at the foothills of the Himalayas. Recognising the fossil as a new species, Janvier made the identification, and with Gupta submitted the discovery to the journal Recent Researches in Geology the next year. Shortly after this, Janvier went to Sweden where he met Zhang Miman (Meemann Chang), director of the Chinese Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, who was working on some fish fossils from China. Janvier immediately noticed that some of these fossils were exactly like the one he and Gupta had recently described. When inquired, Miman explained to him that the particular specimen was an extinct Devonian coelacanth species she named Youngolepis praecursor (formally reported by Miman in 1995) that was found in Yunnan and North Vietnam, and so common in those regions that the fossils were frequently used as gifts to visitors. Chang had already published the discovery in January 1981. Janvier told Gupta to hold their publication, but it was eventually published in 1982


id: himalayan-fossil-hoax-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himalayan_fossil_hoax-3.md
category: reference
title: Himalayan fossil hoax
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himalayan_fossil_hoax
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:13.892347+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: himalayan-fossil-hoax-20260505-0
summary:
The database for the Silurian and Devonian of the Himalaya has become so extensively marred by error, inconsistency and implausibility as to throw grave doubts on the scientific validity of any conclusions that might be drawn from it. An appropriate way to approach this problem and clarify many of the questions raised would be through an independent fact-finding commission set up to probe most of the legions of paleontologically anomalous and suspect reports. The story became widely known from Nature and Science articles, especially by a series of four Nature articles titled "the peripatetic fossils" between 1989 and 1990; a defence from Gupta, comments by Arun Deep Ahluwalia, S. B. Bhatia, Udai K. Bassi, and Philippe Janvier and John Bruce Waterhouse, and last by Talent's summary. It was these reports that brought the case to an international level. == The fossils == === Conodonts === The principal fossils of dispute were the conodonts. One of the first and best-understood conodont fossils was from Amsdell Creek in New York, USA, which was determined as Devonian in age. With the help of the English geologists Frank H. T. Rhodes and R. L. Austin, Gupta reported a discovery titled "Devonian Conodonts from Kashmir"


id: himalayan-fossil-hoax-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himalayan_fossil_hoax-4.md
category: reference
title: Himalayan fossil hoax
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himalayan_fossil_hoax
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:13.892347+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: himalayan-fossil-hoax-20260505-0
summary:
== Gupta's strategy == Gupta was careful in his research publications, asking eminent scientists to collaborate. He provided the fossils and the basic geological details, and allowed his collaborators to make the fossil identification, so that they became "unsuspecting partners in crime", as Bhargava lamented, or unwitting "partners in the deception", according to Bangalore Puttaiya Radhakrishna, editor of the Journal of the Geological Society of India. As in his first major publication in Nature in 1967, Gupta was able to convince Rhodes from the University College of Swansea (later president of Cornell University) and Austin from the University of Southampton. Gary Webster at Washington State University had coauthored nine of Gupta's papers, and asserted that his identification of the crinoid fossils was genuine, but later conceded that he was "virtually certain" they were obtained from places other than the Himalayas. He declared that Gupta had "willfully tried to dupe the scientific community". By 1989, Gupta had collaborated with 128 scientists around the world, including Berry, Director of the University of California, Berkeley's Museum of Paleontology, Kiril J. Budurov of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Michael E. Brookfield of the University of Guelph in Ontario, J. B. Waterhouse of the University


id: himalayan-fossil-hoax-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himalayan_fossil_hoax-5.md
category: reference
title: Himalayan fossil hoax
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himalayan_fossil_hoax
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:13.892347+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: himalayan-fossil-hoax-20260505-0
summary:
Bassi of the Geological Survey of India, later verified that Kurig is not Devonian but a much younger Carboniferous sediment, and that the border and village records did not have any mention of Gupta visiting the site. In the same vein, Gupta and Erben reported in 1983 the occurrence of Carnian (298 to 272 million years old) conodonts and ammonoids from Khimokul La. Bassi, who had surveyed the area several times, attested that there is no Carnian sediment there, and that the check-post register or the villagers had no record of Gupta, Erben or any foreigner.


id: himalayan-fossil-hoax-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himalayan_fossil_hoax-6.md
category: reference
title: Himalayan fossil hoax
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himalayan_fossil_hoax
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:13.892347+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: himalayan-fossil-hoax-20260505-0
summary:
== Reactions == Talent wrote that Gupta "inundated geological and biogeographical literature of the Himalayas with a blizzard of disinformation so extensive as to render the literature almost useless." Gupta said to The New York Times that he had invited Talent to Panjab University and the Himalayan sites to verify the research findings following the Calgary incident, but he had declined. In trying to undermine the accusations, he described the affair as "minor disagreements over taxonomy among experts." He defended himself by claiming Talent's allegations as "malicious bias and professional jealousy" based on lies that were "building up a story without any basis." He added, "We've had differences for the past 20 years, and he's trying to cash in on them." Talent admitted that he did decline Gupta's invitation as he felt it was more appropriate for other scientists to make inspections independently. In the Science report, Webster admitted having already had the information on the similarity between the Himalayan fossils and those in America and Europe, especially the crinoids which were found only in the United States. Commenting on Talent's Calgary speech, he conceded: "I am now virtually certain that most of these specimens did come from places other


id: himalayan-fossil-hoax-20260505-7
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himalayan_fossil_hoax-7.md
category: reference
title: Himalayan fossil hoax
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himalayan_fossil_hoax
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:13.892347+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: himalayan-fossil-hoax-20260505-0
summary:
=== Geological Society of India === The Geological Society of India, which claimed to normally avoid publishing controversial matters in their academic journal, feared failure to publish Talent's accusations "could be construed as aquiescence in the alleged fraud", and published two articles from Talent criticizing Gupta's research. In the first paper, published in June 1989, Talent's team gave an elaboration of instances of plagiarism in Gupta's reports. The other, published in December 1989, presented further cases of fossil recycling and mismatching of the fossil sources. As Ian Anderson reported in New Scientist, the Geological Society of India made a "controversial move" by issuing an expression of concern, stating that "the fossil finds of V. J. Gupta are not reliable", but did not formally retract Gupta's papers. The society reassessed Gupta's papers and found "several discrepancies lending support to the accusations" in 19 publications. The society's scientists visited seven localities in the Himalayas where Gupta claimed to have collected Devonian fossils, but found no such evidence, declaring "the falsification of facts attempted by Gupta." They requested Gupta provide them access to his collection of specimens, research notes and laboratory register, but never received a response. The report titled "The Himalayan Fossil


id: himalayan-fossil-hoax-20260505-8
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himalayan_fossil_hoax-8.md
category: reference
title: Himalayan fossil hoax
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himalayan_fossil_hoax
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:13.892347+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: himalayan-fossil-hoax-20260505-0
summary:
== Consequences == The Panjab University Vice Chancellor Ram Prakash Bambah issued Gupta's suspension order in February 1991. As Triloki Nath Kapoor soon replaced Bambah, Gupta was reinstated in January 1992. That year, the University Grants Commission of India stopped its funding to Gupta, and Nature reported a note of disappointment over Gupta's reinstallation, calling it an "Indian rope trick". The resurgent controversy compelled Kapoor for a proper action. The affair was investigated in an official inquiry led by Man Mohan Singh Gujral, the retired Chief Justice of the Sikkim High Court. The inquiry started in February 1992 and lasted two years with the final report submitted in April 1994. Gupta could not make any evidential rebuttal, resorting to lame pretexts such as claiming that he did not have a good memory of his field research and never kept field notes. The verdict found Gupta guilty of all charges including data recycling, plagiarism, concocting research locations and conning other scientists. Panjab University imposed three penalties on Gupta: (1) he was officially reprimanded; (2) he was debarred from administrative positions, his becoming a dean which was due that year was stayed; and (3) his annual increments of salary were ceased. In


id: himalayan-fossil-hoax-20260505-9
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himalayan_fossil_hoax-9.md
category: reference
title: Himalayan fossil hoax
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himalayan_fossil_hoax
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:13.892347+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: himalayan-fossil-hoax-20260505-0
summary:
== Impact == Gupta's forgery has often been compared with the 1912 case of Piltdown Man, sometimes called the greatest hoax in science. Nature announced Talent's observations with a statement that it "will cast a longer shadow" than Piltdown Man because of its elaborate publications involving numerous discoveries through a quarter of a century, and multiple fossils and scientists. The Chicago Tribune described it as "the most serious case of its kind since the Piltdown hoax." The New York Times wrote: "Unlike the case of Piltdown man, in which a single skull was passed off as a fossil of a prehistoric human, this one involves a much broader range of reported finds that have become a part of scientific literature." Talent described the meaning and consequences of Gupta's research as proving the kangaroos as natives to Kashmir or rhinoceros to Rio. Given the scale of fossils and the research publications, he described it as "[perhaps] the biggest paleontological fraud of all time." In 1994, Down to Earth reported it as the "greatest scientific fraud of the century". According to Tony Mayer of the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, the saga "is possibly one of the most extensive instances of malpractice in


id: holly-oak-gorget-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holly_Oak_gorget-0.md
category: reference
title: Holly Oak gorget
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holly_Oak_gorget
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:15.087375+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: holly-oak-gorget-20260505-0
summary:
The Holly Oak Gorget or Holly Oak Pendant is an artifact made from a section of shell that is engraved with the image of an extinct woolly mammoth reportedly found in Holly Oak, Delaware and initially identified as an example of Paleoindian art. Purported to have been a gorget carved during the Pleistocene, this object is now widely believed to be an archaeological forgery. == History == The Holly Oak Gorget was claimed to have been found in 1864 near the railroad station in Holly Oak. The object was reportedly found by Hilborne T. Cresson in 1864, but was not brought to the attention of the scientific community until December 1889 or the public until February 1890. The supposed discovery of the gorget by Cresson coincides directly with the discovery of another depiction of a woolly mammoth, in France; while excavating the La Madeleine rock shelter in 1864 Édouard Lartet discovered a clear depiction of a woolly mammoth on a fragment of mammoth tusk, providing evidence that humans and mammoths might once have co-existed in Europe. Once the Holly Oak gorget had been introduced to the scientific community and the public at large, the shell was put aside and rarely


id: holly-oak-gorget-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holly_Oak_gorget-1.md
category: reference
title: Holly Oak gorget
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holly_Oak_gorget
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:15.087375+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: holly-oak-gorget-20260505-0
summary:
=== Style === In 1892, D.G. Brinton expressed the need to be suspicious of objects purported to have been made by aboriginal artists, listing the gorget and Lenape Stone as examples of such, citing the constant recurrence of frauds, and in 1893, after having examined the gorget and Lenape Stone, deemed both to have been recently made. Several people who have viewed the Holly Oak gorget have commented on how similar the drawing is to the La Madeleine tusk. Frederick Ward Putnam of the Peabody Museum, Thomas Wilson of the United States National Museum, Daniel Brinton of the University of Pennsylvania, and even Cresson himself, have all discussed the similarities present between the two objects. At the time the shell became public, there were less than a half-dozen depictions of a mammoth available, and of those the La Madeleine drawing is by far the clearest depiction. At the time of the Holly Oak pendant, as there were so few ways known of drawing a mammoth, the marked similarities between the two were not thought of as being unduly suspicious. David Meltzer lists several parallels between the two. They both have the same orientation and posture, and while most mammoths are


id: huemul-project-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huemul_Project-0.md
category: reference
title: Huemul Project
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huemul_Project
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:16.271377+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: huemul-project-20260505-0
summary:
The Huemul Project (Spanish: Proyecto Huemul) was an early 1950s Argentine effort to develop a fusion power device known as the Thermotron. The concept was invented by Austrian scientist Ronald Richter, who claimed to have a design that would produce effectively unlimited power. Richter was able to pitch the idea to President of Argentina Juan Perón in 1948, and soon received massive funding to build an experimental site on Huemul Island, on a lake just outside the town of San Carlos de Bariloche in Patagonia, near the Andes mountains. Construction began late in 1949, and by 1951 the site was completed and carrying out tests. On 16 February 1951, Richter measured high temperatures that suggested fusion had been achieved. On 24 March, the day before an important international meeting of the leaders of the Americas, Perón publicly announced that Richter had been successful, adding that in the future energy would be sold in packages the size of a milk bottle. A worldwide interest followed, along with significant skepticism on the part of other physicists. Little information was forthcoming: no papers were published on the topic, and over the next year a number of reporters visited the site but were denied


id: huemul-project-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huemul_Project-1.md
category: reference
title: Huemul Project
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huemul_Project
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:16.271377+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: huemul-project-20260505-0
summary:
== Germans in Argentina == In 1947, a dossier was provided to Argentina by the Spanish embassy in Buenos Aires listing a number of German aeronautical engineers who were looking to sneak out of Germany. Among them was Kurt Tank, designer of the famed Focke-Wulf Fw 190 and many other successful designs. The dossier was passed to the recently formed Argentine Air Force's Commander in Chief, who passed it to Brigadier César Raúl Ojeda, who was in charge of aerodynamics research. Ojeda and Tank communicated and formulated plans to begin building a jet fighter in Argentina, which would eventually emerge as the FMA IAe 33 Pulqui II. Just before leaving for Argentina, Tank briefly met Richter in London, where Richter told Tank of his ideas for nuclear-powered aircraft. Richter was at that time doing some work in the German chemical industry. Tank had also contacted a number of other engineers and even famed fighter pilot and Luftwaffe general Adolf Galland. Various members of the group made their way to Argentina under false passports during late 1947 and 1948. The Germans were warmly received by Perón, who effectively gave them a blank cheque in an effort to rapidly develop the Argentine


id: huemul-project-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huemul_Project-2.md
category: reference
title: Huemul Project
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huemul_Project
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:16.271377+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: huemul-project-20260505-0
summary:
== Announcement == On 16 February 1951, Richter claimed he had successfully demonstrated fusion. He re-ran the experiment for members of the CNEA, later claiming that they had witnessed the world's first thermonuclear reaction. On 23 February, a technician working for the project expressed his concerns about the claims, suggesting that the measurement was likely due to the accidental tilting of the spectrograph's photographic plate while the experimental run was being set up. Richter refused to re-run the experiment. Instead, a week later he ordered the reactor to be disassembled so a new one could be built that included a magnetic confinement system. Meanwhile, plans for a new Laboratory 1 were started with this new design, this time to be buried underground. A 14-metre (46 ft) deep hole in hard rock was constructed, but Richter changed the design and had the hole filled in with concrete. On 2 March, Edward Miller, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Station for Inter-American Affairs, visited Argentina. This was ostensibly to visit the Pan American Games, but in reality was in advance of calling a meeting of American leaders later that month to discuss China's entry into the Korean War. Perón gave Miller an introduction


id: huemul-project-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huemul_Project-3.md
category: reference
title: Huemul Project
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huemul_Project
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:16.271377+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: huemul-project-20260505-0
summary:
== Public reaction == Shortly after Richter's conference, the matter was discussed in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, where it was noted that Richter's announcement had revealed no details of the system of operation. They also noted that Richter claimed three key advances during experimentation, but failed to mention any of them during the conference. Finally, although the method for measuring temperature was announced, the temperature itself was not. The United States Atomic Energy Commission's (AEC) comment on the announcement was simply that "the Argentine Government announced more than a year ago that it was planning to engage in nuclear research." American physicists were universally dismissive of the announcement. Among the more famous responses was that of George Gamow, who said "It seemed to be 95% pure propaganda, 4¾% thermonuclear reactions on a very small scale, and the remaining ¼% probably something better." Ernest Lawrence was not so dismissive, noting that, "There is a tendency to laugh it off as being a lot of hot air or something. Well it may be, but we don't know all, and we should make every effort to find out." Edward Teller put it succinctly, "Reading one line one has to think he's


id: huemul-project-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huemul_Project-4.md
category: reference
title: Huemul Project
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huemul_Project
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:16.271377+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: huemul-project-20260505-0
summary:
== Cancellation == Argentine physicists were also critical of the announcement, but found little interest on the part of Perón, who was still at odds with the academic mainstream. González was growing increasingly frustrated with Richter, and in February 1952 told Perón that either Richter left the project, or he did. Perón accepted González's resignation and replaced him with his aide, Navy Captain Pedro Iraolagoitía. Iraolagoitía soon began to protest as well, finally convincing Perón to have the project investigated. Instead of calling upon the local physics community, Perón put together a team consisting of Iraolagoitía, a priest, two engineers including Mario Báncora, and young physicist José Antonio Balseiro, who was at that time studying in England and was asked to return with all haste. The team visited the site for a series of demonstrations between 5 and 8 September 1952. The committee analyzed Richter's work and published separate reports on the topic on 15 September. Balseiro, in particular, was convinced nothing nuclear was taking place. His report critiqued Richter's claims about how the system was supposed to work, especially the claims that the system was reaching the temperatures needed to demonstrate fusion; he stated that fusion reactions would require


id: hwang-woo-suk-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwang_Woo-suk-0.md
category: reference
title: Hwang Woo-suk
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwang_Woo-suk
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:17.477711+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: hwang-woo-suk-20260505-0
summary:
Hwang Woo-suk (Korean: 황우석; born January 29, 1953) is a South Korean veterinarian and researcher. He was a professor of theriogenology and biotechnology at Seoul National University until he was dismissed on March 20, 2006. He was considered a pioneering expert in stem cell research and even called the "Pride of Korea". However, he became infamous around November 2005 for fabricating a series of stem cell experiments that were published in high-profile journals in a case known as the Hwang affair. Hwang was best known for two articles published in the journal Science in 2004 and 2005, where he reported he had succeeded in creating human embryonic stem cells by cloning. However, soon after the first paper was released, an article in the journal Nature accused Hwang of having committed ethical violations by using eggs from his graduate students and from the black market. Although he denied the charges at first, Hwang admitted the allegations were true in November 2005. Shortly after this, data from his human cloning experiments was revealed to have been falsified. On May 12, 2006, Hwang was charged with embezzlement and bioethics law violations after it emerged much of his stem cell research had been faked.


id: hwang-woo-suk-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwang_Woo-suk-1.md
category: reference
title: Hwang Woo-suk
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwang_Woo-suk
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:17.477711+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: hwang-woo-suk-20260505-0
summary:
== Timeline == Hwang first caught media attention in South Korea when he announced he had successfully created a cloned dairy cow, Yeongrong-i in February 1999. His alleged success was touted as the fifth instance in the world in cow cloning, with a notable caveat: Hwang failed to provide scientifically verifiable data for the research, giving only media sessions and photo ops. Hwang's next claim came in April 1999, when he announced the cloning of a Korean cow, Jin-i, also without providing any scientifically verifiable data. Despite the notable absence of any of the scientific data needed to probe the validity of the research, Hwang's several claims were well received by the South Korean media and public, who were attracted by Hwang's claim of immeasurable economic prospect that his research was said to be promising. The claims of his research results resulted in him being awarded the Scientist of the Year Award by the Korea Science Journalists Association and the Inchon Award. Until 2004, Hwang's main area of research remained in creating genetically modified livestock that included cows and pigs. During that period, Hwang claimed to have created a BSE-resistant cow (which has not been verified), and also stated his


id: hwang-woo-suk-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwang_Woo-suk-2.md
category: reference
title: Hwang Woo-suk
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwang_Woo-suk
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:17.477711+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: hwang-woo-suk-20260505-0
summary:
This is an extension of the ten days he said he needed to re-create the stem cells that he asked for back on December 16, 2005. Seoul prosecutors started a criminal investigation and raided Hwang's home that day. On January 20, 2006, Hwang maintained that two of his 11 forged stem cell lines had been maliciously switched for cells from regular, not cloned, embryos. The allegation involves the lines Hwang claims to have created at Seoul-based MizMedi Hospital. On November 22, 2016, Hwang received a certificate of patent on NT-1 technology from the Korean Intellectual Property Office.


id: hwang-woo-suk-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwang_Woo-suk-3.md
category: reference
title: Hwang Woo-suk
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwang_Woo-suk
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:17.477711+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: hwang-woo-suk-20260505-0
summary:
== Hwang's laboratory technique == In the late 1990s, the method that scientists used in cloning was somatic cell nuclear transfer, which is the same procedure that was used to create Dolly the sheep. This laboratory technique begins when an egg is taken from a donor and the nucleus is removed from the egg, creating an enucleated egg. A cell, which contains DNA, is then taken from the animal being cloned. The enucleated egg is then fused together with the nucleus of the cloning subject's cell using electricity. This creates an embryo, which is implanted into a surrogate mother through in vitro fertilization. If the procedure is successful, then the surrogate mother will give birth to a baby that is a clone of the cloning subject at the end of a normal gestation period. In 2014 researchers were reporting cloning success rates of seven to eight out of ten but in 1996 it took 277 attempts to create Dolly. Hwang allegedly used this technique at his laboratory in SNU to clone dogs during his experiments throughout the early 2000s. He claimed that it was possible to clone mammals and that probability for success can be better than 1 in 277


id: hwang-woo-suk-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwang_Woo-suk-4.md
category: reference
title: Hwang Woo-suk
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwang_Woo-suk
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:17.477711+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: hwang-woo-suk-20260505-0
summary:
Until late November 2005, Hwang was criticized only for unpublicized ethical violations. Colleagues and media outlets asserted that he had paid female donors for egg donations and that he had received donations from two junior researchers, both of which were violations. Later controversies centered around scientific misconduct. His team, which cloned the first human embryo to use for research, said they had used the same technology to create batches of embryonic stem cells from nine patients. According to Hwang, the result was much more efficient than they had hoped. Hwang's integrity as a researcher was again put in doubt when it was revealed that PD Su-cheop had scheduled a follow-up report questioning his achievement published in Science in June 2005, which stated he had cloned 11 lines of embryonic stem cells. This caused furious backlash among many South Koreans, and the reaction only intensified when it was discovered that Kim Sun-Jong, one of Hwang's researchers from MizMedi, had been coerced by illegal means to testify against Hwang. As a result, the scheduled broadcast was canceled and the network made a public apology to the nation, everyone more or less operating under the assumption that the show was at fault and


id: hwang-woo-suk-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwang_Woo-suk-5.md
category: reference
title: Hwang Woo-suk
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwang_Woo-suk
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:17.477711+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: hwang-woo-suk-20260505-0
summary:
=== Official probe and confirmation of fraud === An internal panel was set up in Seoul National University to investigate the allegation, and the probe was started on December 17, 2005. The panel sealed off Hwang's laboratory and conducted a thorough investigation, collecting testimonies from Hwang, Roh and other people who were involved with the scandal. On December 23, the panel announced its initial finding that Hwang had intentionally fabricated stem cell research results creating nine fake cell lines out of eleven, and added that the validity of two remaining cell lines is yet to be confirmed. The panel stated that Hwang's misconduct is "a grave act damaging the foundation of science." Hwang's claim of having used only 185 eggs to create stem cell lines was also denied by the panel, which indicated that more eggs may have been used in the research process. The panel announced additional findings on December 29, and confirmed that no patient-matched embryonic stem cells existed, and that Hwang's team did not have the scientific data to prove any of the stem cells had ever been made. In its final report published on January 10, 2006, the panel reaffirmed its previous findings while announcing additional


id: hwang-woo-suk-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwang_Woo-suk-6.md
category: reference
title: Hwang Woo-suk
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwang_Woo-suk
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:17.477711+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: hwang-woo-suk-20260505-0
summary:
=== Indictment of Hwang and collaborators === On May 12, 2006, Hwang was indicted on charges of embezzlement and breach of the country's bioethics law, without physical detention. Prosecutors also brought fraud charges against the three stem cell researchers. He embezzled 2.8 billion won (US$3 million) out of some 40 billion won in research funds, for personal purposes and the illegal purchase of ova used in his experiments. The prosecution also said Hwang's three associates involved in his stem cell research, Yoon Hyun-soo, Lee Byeong-chun and Kang Sung-keun, also misappropriated tens of millions of won in research money. Investigators have been tracking 24.6 billion won to find out how the research money was spent. It was part of Hwang's 36.9 billion won research funds raised through state support and private donations. Investigators said Hwang used bank accounts held by relatives and subordinates in 2002 and 2003 to receive about 475 million won from private organizations. He allegedly laundered the money by withdrawing it all in cash, breaking it up into smaller amounts and putting it back in various bank accounts. Hwang also withdrew 140 million won in August 2001 to buy gifts for his sponsors, including politicians and other prominent


id: hwang-woo-suk-20260505-7
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwang_Woo-suk-7.md
category: reference
title: Hwang Woo-suk
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwang_Woo-suk
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:17.477711+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: hwang-woo-suk-20260505-0
summary:
=== Government involvement === After having acquired a celebrity status in South Korea, Hwang actively sought to establish every possible tie to political and economic institutions in the country. Hwang especially tried to win favor from the Roh Moo-hyun government, which in turn was suffering from a lack of popular support and wanted to demonstrate its competency by creating and promoting an exemplary policy success. Hwang approached Park Ki-young, a former biology professor, then appointed as the Information, Science and Technology Advisor for the President, and put her as one of the co-authors in his 2004 Science paper. Ties with Park yielded a favorable environment for Hwang in the government, as a non-official group consisting of high-ranking government officials was created to support Hwang's research that includes not only Hwang and Park, but also Kim Byung-joon, Chief National Policy Secretary, and Jin Dae-je, Information and Communications Minister. The group was dubbed as "Hwang-kum-pak-chui", a loose acronym made from member's family names, which means "golden bat" in Korean. After Hwang's paper was published in Science in 2005, support for Hwang came in full swing. In June 2005, the Ministry of Science and Technology selected Hwang as the first recipient of the


id: hwang-woo-suk-20260505-8
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwang_Woo-suk-8.md
category: reference
title: Hwang Woo-suk
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwang_Woo-suk
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:17.477711+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: hwang-woo-suk-20260505-0
summary:
=== Rallies supporting Hwang === The same day many South Korean citizens rallied outside Hwang's laboratory; as more than 1,000 women pledged to donate their eggs for the scientist's research. [ ... ] Hwang has been in seclusion since apologizing in November 2005, for ethical lapses in human egg procurement for his research. The symbolic event was as a gesture from Hwang's supporters that says they intend to donate their eggs with 1,000 of their members after they took egg-donation pledges online via their website. "Dr. Hwang will not be able to return to the lab, at least, until at the end of this week because he is extremely exhausted, mentally and physically", a key team member, Ahn Cu Rie, wrote in an e-mail to Reuters. [ ... ] At Hwang's lab at Seoul National University, women left bouquets of the national flower, a hibiscus called the Rose of Sharon, for the scientist along with notes of encouragement. The stem cell research center that Hwang led before resigning said it hoped he would return, even though his lapses could hurt its efforts to work with other research institutions. "So far more than 700 South Korean women have pledged to donate


id: journal-for-geoclimatic-studies-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_for_Geoclimatic_Studies-0.md
category: reference
title: Journal for Geoclimatic Studies
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_for_Geoclimatic_Studies
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:18.674179+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: journal-for-geoclimatic-studies-20260505-0
summary:
The Journal for Geoclimatic Studies is the name given to a nonexistent journal which published a fabricated global warming study in November 2007 entitled, "Carbon dioxide production by benthic bacteria: the death of manmade global warming theory?" The published study identified the Journal for Geoclimatic Studies as an official publication of Okinawa University's Institute for Geoclimatic Studies (The Institute for Geoclimatic Studies is also fraudulent and does not exist). The spurious study, ostensibly authored by Daniel Klein and Mandeep J. Gupta of the University of Arizona's Department of Climatology, and Philip Cooper and Arne FR Jansson at the University of Gothenburg's Department of Atmospheric Physics, claimed that global warming was not human caused, but the work of carbon-dioxide emitting bacteria based on the ocean floor. The report was circulated by a number of global warming deniers before discovery that the study authors and university departments identified in the publication did not exist. The website where the study was published was taken down once the deception was revealed, and its ownership was traced to David Thorpe, a science journalist and web designer based in the United Kingdom. The true author of the article is purportedly a man identifying himself as Mark


id: kensington-runestone-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kensington_Runestone-0.md
category: reference
title: Kensington Runestone
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kensington_Runestone
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:19.883519+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: kensington-runestone-20260505-0
summary:
The Kensington Runestone is a slab of greywacke stone covered in runes that was discovered in Western Minnesota, United States, in 1898. Olof Ohman, a Swedish immigrant, reported that he unearthed it from a field in the largely rural township of Solem in Douglas County. It was later named after the nearest settlement, Kensington. The inscription purports to be a record left behind by Scandinavian explorers in the 14th century (internally dated to 1362). There has been a drawn-out debate regarding the stone's authenticity, but since the first scientific examination in 1910, the scholarly consensus has classified it as a 19th-century hoax, with some critics directly charging Ohman with fabrication. Nevertheless, there remains a community convinced of the stone's authenticity. == Provenance == A Swedish immigrant, Olof Ohman, said that he found the stone late in 1898 while clearing his recently acquired land of trees and stumps before plowing. The stone was said to be near the crest of a small knoll rising above the wetlands, lying face down and tangled in the root system of a stunted poplar tree estimated to be from less than 10 to about 40 years old. The artifact is about 30 × 16 ×


id: kensington-runestone-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kensington_Runestone-1.md
category: reference
title: Kensington Runestone
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kensington_Runestone
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:19.883519+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: kensington-runestone-20260505-0
summary:
här : (10) : mans : ve : havet : at : se : äptir : vore : skip : 14 : dagh : rise : from : deno : öh : ahr : 1362 : The sequences rr, ll and gh represent actual digraphs. The AVM is written in Latin capitals. The numbers given in Arabic numerals in the above transcription are given in pentadic numerals. At least seven of the runes, including those transcribed a, d, v, j, ä, ö above, are not in any standard known from the medieval period (see below for details). The language of the inscription is close to modern Swedish, the transliterated text being quite easily comprehensible to any speaker of a modern Scandinavian language. The language, being closer to the Swedish of the 19th than of the 14th century, is one of the main reasons for the scholarly consensus dismissing it as a hoax. The text translates to: "Eight Geats and twenty-two Norwegians on an exploration journey from Vinland to the west. We had camp by two skerries one day's journey north from this stone. We were [out] to fish one day. After we came home [we] found ten men red of


id: kensington-runestone-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kensington_Runestone-2.md
category: reference
title: Kensington Runestone
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kensington_Runestone
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:19.883519+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: kensington-runestone-20260505-0
summary:
A possible origin for the irregular shape of the runes was discovered in 2004, in the 1883 notes of a then-16-year-old journeyman tailor with an interest in folk music, Edward Larsson. Larsson's aunt had migrated with her husband and son from Sweden to Crooked Lake, just outside Alexandria, Minnesota in 1870. Larsson's sheet lists two different Futharks. The first Futhark consists of 22 runes, the last two of which are bind-runes, representing the letter-combinations EL and MW. His second Futhark consists of 27 runes, where the last three are specially adapted to represent the letters å, ä, and ö of the modern Swedish alphabet. The runes in this second set correspond closely to the non-standard runes in the Kensington inscription. Another possible origin was discovered in 2019, when two short inscriptions with runes closely resembling the ones on the Kensington stone, dated 1870 and 1877 respectively, were discovered in a farm-hand's room in the village Kölsjön in the parish of Hassela, not too far from Olof Öhman's home parish Forsa. In 2020, Swedish archaeologist Mats G. Larsson discovered that Anna Ersson, cousin and childhood friend of Olof Öhman, lived in Kölsjön during 1878. Their relationship seems to have been close,


id: list-of-spurious-inventions-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spurious_inventions-0.md
category: reference
title: List of spurious inventions
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spurious_inventions
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:21.033997+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: list-of-spurious-inventions-20260505-0
summary:
This is a list of spurious inventions, technologies which are generally considered to not possess their claimed capabilities, to be hoaxes, or to not have ever existed in the first place. == See also == List of hoaxes == References ==


id: claude-mile-jean-baptiste-litre-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Émile_Jean-Baptiste_Litre-0.md
category: reference
title: Claude Émile Jean-Baptiste Litre
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Émile_Jean-Baptiste_Litre
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:22.248423+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: claude-mile-jean-baptiste-litre-20260505-0
summary:
Claude Émile Jean-Baptiste Litre (1716–1778) is a fictional character created in 1978 by Kenneth Woolner of the University of Waterloo to justify the use of a capital L to denote litres. The International System of Units usually only permits the use of a capital letter when a unit is named after a person. The lower-case character l might be difficult to distinguish from the upper-case character I or the digit 1 in certain fonts and styles, and therefore both the lower-case (l) and the upper-case (L) are allowed as the symbol for litre. The United States National Institute of Standards and Technology now recommends the use of the uppercase letter L, a practice that is also widely followed in Canada and Australia. Woolner perpetrated the April Fools' Day hoax in the April 1978 issue of "CHEM 13 News", a newsletter concerned with chemistry for school teachers. According to the hoax, Claude Litre was born on 12 February 1716, the son of a manufacturer of wine bottles. During Litre's extremely distinguished fictional scientific career, he purportedly proposed a unit of volume measurement that was incorporated into the International System of Units after his death in 1778. The hoax was mistakenly printed


id: fran-ois-de-loys-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/François_de_Loys-0.md
category: reference
title: François de Loys
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/François_de_Loys
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:36.472378+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: fran-ois-de-loys-20260505-0
summary:
Louis François Fernand Hector de Loys (1892–1935) was a Swiss oil geologist. He is remembered today for the claim that he discovered a previously unknown primate, De Loys's ape (Ameranthropoides loysi), during a 1920 oil survey expedition in Venezuela. The identity of the animal he photographed has long been established with considerable confidence to be a spider monkey, and the identification as a new species is generally regarded as a hoax. == References == == Further reading == Brian Regal, Human Evolution: A Guide To The Debates, pp. 63–64 (ABC-CLIO, Inc., 2004). ISBN 1-85109-423-7 Robert Silverberg, Scientists and Scoundrels: A Book of Hoaxes, pp. 178–187 (New York: Crowell, 1965). ISBN 978-0-8032-5989-8 Dunning, Brian (March 20, 2012). "Skeptoid #302: De Loys' Ape". Skeptoid. Viloria, A. L.; Urbani, F.; Urbani, B. (1998). "François de Loys (1892-1935) y un hallazgo desdenado: La historia de una controversia antropologica". Intercienca (in Spanish). 32 (2): 94–100. Viloria, A. L.; Urbani, F.; McCook, S.; Urbani, B. (1999). "De Lausanne aux forêts vénézuéliennes. Mission géologique de François de Loys (1892-1935) et les origines d'une controverse anthropologique". Bulletin de la Société Vaudoise des Sciences Naturelles (in French). 86 (3): 157–174.


id: mars-hoax-email-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_hoax_email-0.md
category: reference
title: Mars hoax email
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_hoax_email
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:37.613468+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: mars-hoax-email-20260505-0
summary:
A hoax circulated by email in 2003 claimed that Mars would look as large as the full Moon to the naked eye on August 27 of that year. The hoax has since resurfaced each time before Mars is at its closest to Earth, about every 26 months. It began from a misinterpretation and exaggeration of a sentence in an email message that reported the close approach between Mars and the Earth in August 2003. At that time, the distance between the two planets was about 55,758,000 kilometres (34,646,000 mi), which was the closest distance between them since September 24, 57,617 BC, when the distance has been calculated to have been about 55,718,000 kilometres (34,622,000 mi). == Background == Both Earth and Mars are in elliptical orbits around the Sun in approximately the same plane. By the nature of the laws of physics, the distance between them varies periodically from a minimum equal to the distance between their orbits at some point along them, to a maximum when they are on opposite sides of the Sun. These minimum (opposition) and maximum distances vary considerably as the two planets progress along their elliptical orbits, and occur about every 780 days. Mars was


id: mechanical-turk-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_Turk-0.md
category: reference
title: Mechanical Turk
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_Turk
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:38.944310+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: mechanical-turk-20260505-0
summary:
The Mechanical Turk (German: Schachtürke, lit. 'chess Turk'), also known as the Automaton Chess Player or simply the Turk (Hungarian: A Török), was a chess-playing machine first displayed in 1770, which appeared to be able to play a strong game of chess autonomously, but whose pieces were in reality moved via levers and magnets by a chess master hidden in its lower cavity. The machine was toured and exhibited for 84 years as an automaton, and continued giving occasional exhibitions until 1854, when it was destroyed in a fire. In 1857, an article published by the owner's son provided the first full explanation of the mechanism, which had been widely suspected to be a hoax but never accurately described while the machine still existed. Constructed by Wolfgang von Kempelen to impress Empress Maria Theresa, the Turk won most games, including those against statesmen such as Napoleon Bonaparte and Benjamin Franklin. It was purchased in 1804 by Johann Nepomuk Mälzel, who continued to exhibit it. Chess masters who operated it over this later period included Johann Allgaier, Boncourt, Aaron Alexandre, William Lewis, Jacques Mouret and William Schlumberger, but its operators during Kempelen's original tour remain unknown. The device could also perform


id: mechanical-turk-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_Turk-1.md
category: reference
title: Mechanical Turk
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_Turk
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:38.944310+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: mechanical-turk-20260505-0
summary:
The interior had complications designed to mislead observers. When opened on the left, the front doors of the cabinet exposed gears and cogs resembling clockwork. The section was designed so that if the back doors of the cabinet were open at the same time one could see through the machine. The other side of the cabinet did not house machinery; instead it contained a red cushion and some removable parts, as well as brass structures. This too was designed to provide a clear line of vision through the machine. Underneath the robes of the Ottoman model, two other doors were hidden. These also exposed clockwork machinery and provided a similarly unobstructed view through the machine. The design allowed the presenter of the machine to open every available door to the public, to maintain the illusion of a purely clockwork mechanism. Neither the clockwork visible on the left side of the machine nor the drawer that housed the chess set extended fully to the rear of the cabinet; they instead went only one-third of the way. A sliding seat was also installed, allowing the operator inside to move from place to place and thus evade observation as the presenter opened various


id: mechanical-turk-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_Turk-2.md
category: reference
title: Mechanical Turk
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_Turk
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:38.944310+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: mechanical-turk-20260505-0
summary:
The first person to play against the Turk was Ludwig von Cobenzl, an Austrian courtier at the palace. Along with other challengers that day, he was quickly defeated, with observers of the match stating that the machine played aggressively and typically beat its opponents within thirty minutes. Another part of the machine's exhibition was the completion of the knight's tour, a famed puzzle requiring the player to move a knight around a chessboard, visiting each square once along the way. While most experienced chess players of the time still struggled with this, the Turk could complete the tour without any difficulty from any starting point thanks to a pegboard marked with a closed-loop solution (a "reentrant tour"). Furthermore, the Turk could converse with spectators using a letterboard. The operator during the period when Kempelen presented the machine at Schönbrunn Palace, whose identity is unknown, was able to do this in English, French and German. Carl Friedrich Hindenburg, a mathematician, kept a record of the conversations during the Turk's time in Leipzig and published it in 1784. Topics of questions put to and answered by the Turk included its age, marital status and secret workings. == European tour == Following word


id: mechanical-turk-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_Turk-3.md
category: reference
title: Mechanical Turk
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_Turk
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:38.944310+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: mechanical-turk-20260505-0
summary:
== Mälzel == Following the death of Kempelen, the Turk remained unexhibited until 1805, when Kempelen's son decided to sell it to Johann Nepomuk Mälzel, a Bavarian musician with an interest in machines and devices. Mälzel, whose successes included patenting a form of metronome, had tried to buy the Turk before Kempelen's death. That attempt failed, owing to Kempelen's asking price of 20,000 francs; his son sold the machine to Mälzel for half this sum. On acquiring the Turk, Mälzel learned how it worked and returned it to working order. His goal was to make explaining the Turk a greater challenge. The completion of this task took ten years, during which the Turk still made appearances, most notably with Napoleon Bonaparte. In 1809, Napoleon I of France arrived at Schönbrunn Palace to play the Turk. The details of the encounter have been published over the years in numerous accounts, among which even those by Silas Mitchell and George Allen (see below) are contradictory (Allen's being the more plausible). According to Bradley Ewart, it is believed that the Turk sat at its cabinet, and Napoleon sat at a separate chess table. Napoleon's table was in a roped-off area and he was


id: mechanical-turk-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_Turk-4.md
category: reference
title: Mechanical Turk
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_Turk
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:38.944310+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: mechanical-turk-20260505-0
summary:
== North American tour == The appearances of the Turk were profitable for Mälzel, and he continued by taking it and his other machines to the United States. In 1826, he opened an exhibition in New York (in the National Hotel, on 112 Broadway) that was very popular, averaging a hundred people in April, while in May "the hall was filled, and sometimes two hundred were turned away for lack of seats". It prompted many newspaper articles and anonymous threats of exposure of the hoax. Mälzel's problem was finding a talented operator for the machine, having trained an unknown woman in France before touring the United States. The "subsistence" in Paris of a former operator from Alsace, William Schlumberger "was both scanty and precarious"; and Mälzel induced him to come to Boston. As the Turk's main operator in the new world, Schlumberger "considered himself to have been fairly and kindly treated by Maelzel, and remained faithfully attached to his person and his interests to the last". Upon Schlumberger's arrival, the Turk debuted in Boston, in the Julien Hall. Mälzel claimed that "the players of Boston are at least equal to those of New York" and promised that in Boston the


id: mechanical-turk-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_Turk-5.md
category: reference
title: Mechanical Turk
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_Turk
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:38.944310+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: mechanical-turk-20260505-0
summary:
== Publication of the mechanism == According to James Cook, by the mid-1820s "hundreds, if not thousands, of 'approaches' had been made toward discovering the secret [of the mechanical Turk], many of which were actually very close to the answer". The young Robert Willis (later a mechanical engineer and architectural historian) carefully observed Mälzel's exhibitions of the Turk, and in an 1821 booklet summarily dismissed some earlier theories: "[I]t has been suggested that [Mälzel] might touch certain springs, or pull 'a wire not much thicker than a hair', or be furnished with a powerful magnet. But such conjectures are unworthy of serious refutation". Willis noted anomalies such as the lack of correlation between the degree to which the clockwork was wound up and the number of moves the Turk then executed. He showed how "any person, well skilled in the game, and not exceeding the ordinary bulk or stature, may secretly animate the Automaton" – even if with some inaccuracies, notably that "[the operator's] head being above the table, he will see the chess-board through the waistcoat, as easily as through a veil". In 1826, the Massachusetts physician Gamaliel Bradford published a booklet, The History and Analysis of the Supposed


id: mechanical-turk-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_Turk-6.md
category: reference
title: Mechanical Turk
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_Turk
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:38.944310+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: mechanical-turk-20260505-0
summary:
[N]obody credited the pretended discovery. The world had set its heart upon believing that the secret, which had puzzled mechanicians, mathematicians, and monarchs, for more than half a century, was something quite too deep to be penetrated by a couple of boys. The National Intelligencer, of Washington ... sagaciously treated the Gazette article as having emanated from Maelzel himself – "the tale of a discovery was but a clever device of the proprietor to keep alive the interest of the community in his exhibition". Lesser newspapers, suggests Allen, were too timid to contradict the prestigious Intelligencer and Mälzel's business was little impacted. Of the many contemporary books and articles written about the mechanism of the Turk, most were inaccurate and drew incorrect inferences. An exception was "Automate joueur d'échecs", published in the popular magazine Le Magasin pittoresque in 1834, and widely believed to have been informed, or perhaps even written, by one of the Turk's operators, Jacques Mouret. In 1836, Mathieu de Tournay based a more detailed description of the Turk for the chess magazine Le Palamède on the Magasin pittoresque article. It was not until Silas Mitchell's article for The Chess Monthly in 1857 that the secret was fully


id: mechanical-turk-20260505-7
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_Turk-7.md
category: reference
title: Mechanical Turk
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_Turk
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:38.944310+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: mechanical-turk-20260505-0
summary:
=== In literature and the arts === The Turk has inspired works of various kinds of fiction. An early example is Jean Paul's story Menschen sind Maschinen der Engel, written in 1785. Its narrator starts by saying that we humans are merely the furniture of the true inhabitants of the world, angels; and it is "obvious [that] our industriousness, which works against our happiness, is conducive to other beings' happiness, whose hands conduct ours as their tools". Chess-playing machines exemplify the building by machines (that is, people) of machines; of which the narrator's description culminates in a "deliberate confusion of chess-playing humans and chess-playing machines", leaving the reader "incessantly bewildered about the status of the story's actors (as well as the reader's own status) as machine or as human". Fiction has also been passed off as fact. In 1859 an article in Littell's Living Age purported to be an account of the Turk from the celebrated French magician Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin; its content soon reappeared in Robert-Houdin's memoir. Its many errors ranged from mistaken dates to outright inventions, most conspicuously the story of "an officer by the name of Worousky" whose legs had been amputated after battle, but who was


id: mephisto-automaton-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mephisto_(automaton)-0.md
category: reference
title: Mephisto (automaton)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mephisto_(automaton)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:40.117669+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: mephisto-automaton-20260505-0
summary:
Mephisto was a 19th-century pseudo-automaton chess player built in London by the Alsatian artificial limb maker Charles Godfrey Gumpel (c. 1835–1921). It took some 6 or 7 years to build and was first shown in 1878 at Gumpel's home in Leicester Square, London. Unlike earlier so-called "chess automatons" such as The Mechanical Turk and Ajeeb, which concealed a human player inside the cabinet, Mephisto was operated remotely by a chess master located in a different room and connected via a system of mechanical and electrical transmissions, leading later commentators to describe it as a "pseudo-automaton". It is most closely associated with the Hungarian-British master Isidor Gunsberg, who served as its principal operator during public exhibitions and on tour. == Description == Mephisto consisted of a life-size figure representing the mythical Mephistopheles. Dressed in elegant red velvet attire, the figure had a cloven hoof as a foot and was seated in an armchair in front of an unenclosed, open-sided table with a chessboard and pieces. This setup was intended to reassure the player that there were no hidden compartments beneath the board where a person could hide (as in "The Turk"). Contemporary accounts describe the figure's head and upper body as


id: isadore-nabi-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isadore_Nabi-0.md
category: reference
title: Isadore Nabi
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isadore_Nabi
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:41.275479+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: isadore-nabi-20260505-0
summary:
Isadore Nabi (sometimes Isidore Nabi or Isador Nabi) was a pseudonym used by a group of scientists including Richard Lewontin, Richard Levins, Robert MacArthur, and Leigh van Valen in the 1960s. Inspired by the work of Nicolas Bourbaki, they allegedly hoped to create a unified approach to evolutionary biology. However, the project was aborted and the name was reused in the 1980s for satirical purposes. Nabi's biography was listed in American Men and Women of Science, articles and letters were published in prominent journals under his name, and he was listed on the editorial board of Evolutionary Theory. He has primarily written on sociobiology. His article, "An Evolutionary Interpretation of the English Sonnet" was delivered as the First Annual Piltdown Lecture on Man and Nature and appeared under the heading "Advances in Sociobiopsy". (The author was noted as a "Satirical Commentator".) He has also written articles critical of the systems-theoretical approach to mathematical ecology, as illustrated by what our laws of motion in physics would look like if early physicists had used the methods of the systems ecologists (this time listing the author as "Intrepid Investigator"). In 2002 he published a piece (under the name "Isador Nabi") on stock tips


id: nacirema-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nacirema-0.md
category: reference
title: Nacirema
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nacirema
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:42.426206+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: nacirema-20260505-0
summary:
Nacirema ("American" spelled backwards) is a term used in anthropology and sociology in relation to aspects of the behavior and society of citizens of the United States. The neologism attempts to create a deliberate sense of self-distancing in order that American anthropologists might look at their own culture more objectively, thus comparing emic and etic views of it. == "Body Ritual among the Nacirema" == The original use of the term in a social science context was in "Body Ritual among the Nacirema", which satirizes anthropological papers on "other" cultures, and the culture of the United States. Horace Mitchell Miner wrote the paper and originally published it in Volume 58, Issue 3 of American Anthropologist issued June 1956. In the paper, Miner describes the Nacirema, a little-known tribe living in North America. The way in which he writes about the curious practices that this group performs distances readers from the fact that the North American group described actually corresponds to modern-day Americans of the mid-1950s. Miner presents the Nacirema as a group living in the territory between the Canadian Cree, the Yaqui and Tarahumare of Mexico, and the Carib and Arawak of the Antilles. The paper describes the typical Western


id: nasology-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasology-0.md
category: reference
title: Nasology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:43.713061+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: nasology-20260505-0
summary:
Nasology: Or, Hints towards a Classification of Noses (reissued as Notes on Noses) was a 1848 book published in London under the authorship of Eden Warwick, pen name of a George Jabet, an elaborate parody on phrenology, 282 pages thick. There were several editions of the book in the mid-19th century, and it was taken seriously, in press and among doctors. == The author == George Jabet (1815–1873) was a solicitor and he was actively involved in the public life of Birmingham, being associated with many literary and educational societies of the city. In addition to Nasology, he published several other books under the pen name Eden Warwick, the first one being The Poets' Pleasaunce, or, Garden of All Sorts of Pleasant Flowers (1847), as its Preface says, "to illustrate the extent of homage which our best Poets, prior to the present century, have paid to Nature, in Flowers" and "it is intended to exhibit a History of the Poetry in Flowers". == The book == Nasology originated as a paper communicated to a small literary society as Handsworth, later expanded into a book. However the title proved to be unattractive, and the publisher reissued the book under the title


id: haruko-obokata-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haruko_Obokata-0.md
category: reference
title: Haruko Obokata
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haruko_Obokata
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:44.870523+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: haruko-obokata-20260505-0
summary:
Haruko Obokata (小保方 晴子, Obokata Haruko; born 1983) is a former stem-cell biologist and research unit leader at Japan's Laboratory for Cellular Reprogramming, Riken Center for Developmental Biology. She claimed in 2014 to have developed a radical and remarkably easy way to generate stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency (STAP) cells that could be grown into tissue for use anywhere in the body. In response to allegations of irregularities in Obokata's research publications involving STAP cells, Riken launched an investigation that discovered examples of scientific misconduct on the part of Obokata. Attempts to replicate Obokata's STAP cell results failed. The ensuing STAP cell scandal gained worldwide attention. == Early life, education and career == Obokata was born in Matsudo, Chiba, Japan, in 1983. She attended Toho Senior High School, which is attached to Toho University, and graduated from Waseda University with a B.S. degree in 2006, and an M.S. degree in applied chemistry in 2008. Obokata later joined the laboratory of Charles Vacanti at Harvard Medical School, where she was described as "a lab director’s dream" with "fanatical devotion". In 2011, Obokata completed her Ph.D. in Engineering at the Graduate School of Advanced Engineering and Science at Waseda University. Obokata became a


id: ompax-spatuloides-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ompax_spatuloides-0.md
category: reference
title: Ompax spatuloides
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ompax_spatuloides
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:46.010349+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ompax-spatuloides-20260505-0
summary:
Ompax spatuloides was a hoax fish "discovered" in Australia in August, 1872. Said to be poisonous, it could be found on some lists of Australian fishes through the 1930s. The fish was a joke perpetrated by people at Gayndah station, Queensland, who prepared it from the body of a mullet, the tail of an eel and the head of a platypus or needlefish. They served it cooked for Karl Theodor Staiger, the director of the Brisbane Museum, and he forwarded a sketch and description of the fake to expert Francis de Laporte de Castelnau, who described the supposed "species" in 1879. The first publication was in the proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales, in which Count Castelnau gave his description with figures reproducing the sketches executed at the time by "a draughtsman" at Staiger's request. Doubts about the existence of the species were expressed as soon as 1881, when William John Macleay included it in a faunal list, but the name continued to appear throughout the twentieth century. Staiger is quoted as saying the fish was brought to him by indigenous people who had obtained it around ten miles away. The components of the specimen were said


id: orgueil-meteorite-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orgueil_(meteorite)-0.md
category: reference
title: Orgueil (meteorite)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orgueil_(meteorite)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:47.190863+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: orgueil-meteorite-20260505-0
summary:
Orgueil is a scientifically important carbonaceous chondrite meteorite that fell in southwestern France in 1864. == History == The Orgueil meteorite fell on May 14, 1864, a few minutes after 20:00 local time, near Orgueil in southern France. About 20 stones fell over an area of 5-10 square kilometres. A specimen of the meteorite was analyzed that same year by François Stanislaus Clöez, professor of chemistry at the Musée d'Histoire Naturelle, who focused on the organic matter found in this meteorite. He wrote that it contained carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, and its composition was very similar to peat from the Somme valley or to the lignite of Ringkohl near Kassel. An intense scientific discussion ensued, continuing into the 1870s, as to whether the organic matter might have a biological origin. == Curation and Distribution == Orgueil specimens are in curation by bodies around the world. Given the large mass, samples are in circulation for nondestructive (and with sufficient justification, destructive) study and test. Source: Grady, M. M. Catalogue of Meteorites, 5th Edition, Cambridge University Press == Composition and classification == Orgueil is one of five known meteorites belonging to the CI chondrite group (see meteorites classification), and is the largest


id: pacific-northwest-tree-octopus-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Northwest_tree_octopus-0.md
category: reference
title: Pacific Northwest tree octopus
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Northwest_tree_octopus
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:48.363137+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: pacific-northwest-tree-octopus-20260505-0
summary:
The Pacific Northwest tree octopus is an Internet hoax created in 1998 by a humor writer under the pseudonym Lyle Zapato. Since its creation, the Pacific Northwest tree octopus website has been commonly referenced in Internet literacy classes in schools and has been used in multiple studies demonstrating children's gullibility regarding online sources of information. == Description == This fictitious endangered species of cephalopod was given the Latin name Octopus paxarbolis (the species name being coined from Latin pax, the root of Pacific, and Spanish arbol meaning "tree"). It was purportedly able to live both on land and in water, and was said to live in the Olympic National Forest and nearby rivers, spawning in water where its eggs are laid. The Pacific Northwest tree octopus was said to prey on insects, small vertebrates, and bird eggs. Its major predator was said to be the Sasquatch, a mythical creature said to inhabit the same region, as well as bald eagles and cats. The conceit of the website was that the Pacific Northwest tree octopus was an endangered species, threatened by habitat loss, overexploitation for the fashion industry during the early 20th century, and eradication as a nuisance animal by loggers.


id: palestinabuch-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinabuch-0.md
category: reference
title: Palestinabuch
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinabuch
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:49.528067+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: palestinabuch-20260505-0
summary:
The Palestinabuch (Book of Palestine), also Palestina Buch, Palästinabuch or Palästina Buch, is an allegedly lost manuscript by the German-Dutch historian and antisemite Herman Wirth (1885–1981), founder of the German Ahnenerbe, which its adherents claim would have changed the world if it had not disappeared. The myth plays a part in antisemitic theories maintaining that the Ashkenazi Jews descend largely or entirely from the Khazars or from Central Asia. == Herman Wirth == Wirth, who was one of the main spokesmen of Pre-War Ariosophy, first referred to the Palestinabuch in his commentary to the Ura Linda Chronicle (1933), a 19th-century literary forgery that he thought to be genuine. The Chronicle tells the story of a lost civilization in the Polar Region or the Northern Atlantic, from which the Aryan, Hyperborean or Nordic races descended. The Frisian people, as being the direct offspring of the first Nordic settlers, had been able to preserve the cultural traditions of their forebears, which he considered as a key to the understanding of primeval monotheism. According to Wirth, Christ descended from a lost tribe of the original Aryans, who had left their traces in the Near East in the form of Megalithic monuments. Christianity, however,


id: palestinabuch-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinabuch-1.md
category: reference
title: Palestinabuch
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinabuch
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:49.528067+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: palestinabuch-20260505-0
summary:
[...] there is no line, not a word in the Old Testament that would not succumb to such Hyperborean deconstruction. It is not a question of criticizing the text [...]. What Wirth did was resacralize, reveal the original, Hyperborean gnosis - the true foundation of the Old Testament tradition, free it from biased interpretative models. [...] Unfortunately, now we can only guess about its contents. [...] Already in the 70s, when Wirth almost finished writing it, the only completed edition disappeared without a trace. In the scientist's absence, unknown people entered the house, turned everything upside down, but only took the Palestina Buch. Wirth turned to his students (there were two or three unfinished copies), but the mysterious strangers had also visited them. Dugin, who does not cite any sources, claims that the manuscript counted several thousands of pages. According to Dugin's former associate, Yury Vorobyevsky, the manuscript had already been stolen in the 1950s, probably by the Israeli Secret Service. Scholarly literature on the Ahnenerbe, on the other hand, does not present any evidence that the organisation ever conducted archaeological excavations in Palestine. The only relevant (but non-archaeological) expedition in 1938 went to Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq. Since Dugin's


id: pami-tnik-handlowca-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamiętnik_handlowca-0.md
category: reference
title: Pamiętnik handlowca
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamiętnik_handlowca
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:50.688121+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: pami-tnik-handlowca-20260505-0
summary:
Pamiętnik handlowca (A Merchant's Memoir, or Memoirs of a Merchant; in Latin, Memorialium commercatori) is the name of a purported diary written by a Polish merchant, Zbigniew Stefański, in 1625. No copy of the original text is known to exist. The diary was said to be written in Polish and to contain a first-hand account of the Jamestown Colony in Virginia. It was claimed to be the only extant primary source from the Jamestown Colony that provides the perspective of Polish artisans who had been brought in by Captain John Smith in 1608. As the existence of the diary has been confirmed by only a single researcher, its veracity and very existence have been questioned. == Doubts about authenticity == The Memoir is said to have surfaced in Chicago, Illinois, in 1947, when a person offered to sell it to Mieczysław Haiman, the director of the Polish Museum of America. The book was popularized through the writings of the journalist and ethnographer Arthur Waldo, who claimed to have seen it and to have made a partial copy for his records, but more recently, researchers have questioned the authenticity of the source, which cannot be located in any museum, library, or


id: paper-generator-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_generator-0.md
category: reference
title: Paper generator
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_generator
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:51.856945+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: paper-generator-20260505-0
summary:
A paper generator is computer software that composes scholarly papers in the style of those that appear in academic journals or conference proceedings. Typically, the generator uses technical jargon from the field to compose sentences that are grammatically correct and seem erudite but are actually nonsensical. The prose is supported by tables, figures, and references that may be valid in themselves, but are randomly inserted rather than relevant. Examples include the Postmodernism Generator, snarXiv and SCIgen. The latter has been used to generate many computer science papers that were accepted for publication. == See also == Sokal affair List of scholarly publishing stings == References ==


id: p-t-de-foie-gras-short-story-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pâté_de_Foie_Gras_(short_story)-0.md
category: reference
title: Pâté de Foie Gras (short story)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pâté_de_Foie_Gras_(short_story)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:53.009473+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: p-t-de-foie-gras-short-story-20260505-0
summary:
"Pâté de Foie Gras" is a 1956 science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov, originally published by Astounding Science Fiction. Like Asimov's "The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline", "Pâté de Foie Gras" is a scientific spoof article, updating one of Aesop's Fables, The Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs. == Plot == A Department of Agriculture employee tells of the discovery on a farm in Texas of a goose that lays golden eggs, and how US government and academic researchers try to solve the mystery of the goose. While its eggs are valuable as pure gold, learning how the bird produces the metal is more important. After the scientists realize that the goose is unharmed despite the enzyme-catalyzed nuclear process that converts oxygen-18 to gold-197 producing gamma rays, they discover that it is immune to all radioactivity, converting any unstable isotope to a stable isotope. The goose is "the perfect defense against the atomic age", one researcher observes; large-scale industrial reproduction of its biological transmutation process would ease nuclear waste disposal and defend against radioactive fallout, and modifying the mechanism would produce any element as needed. The bird poses a dilemma, however. A biopsy of the liver provides


id: piltdown-man-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piltdown_Man-0.md
category: reference
title: Piltdown Man
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piltdown_Man
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:54.143803+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: piltdown-man-20260505-0
summary:
The Piltdown Man was a paleoanthropological fraud in which bone fragments were presented as the fossilised remains of a previously unknown early human. Although doubts about Piltdown Man's authenticity began to be expressed almost immediately after its announcement in 1912, it was still broadly accepted for many years, and the hoax was only definitively exposed in 1953. An extensive scientific review in 2016 established that the hoax had been perpetrated by amateur archaeologist Charles Dawson, apparently in pursuit of recognition from other archaeologists. In 1912, Dawson claimed that he had discovered the "missing link" between early apes and humans. If the Piltdown Man was found to be legitimate, it would have been a crucial transitional form between the two species. In February 1912, Dawson contacted Arthur Smith Woodward, Keeper of Geology at the Natural History Museum, stating he had found a section of a human-like skull in Pleistocene gravel beds near Piltdown, East Sussex. The find of the Piltdown Man, and the claims that Dawson was making were taken seriously due to Dawson's reputation in the archaeology community and for other local archaeological "discoveries". These "discoveries" were later found to also be false. That summer, Dawson and Woodward purportedly discovered


id: piltdown-man-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piltdown_Man-1.md
category: reference
title: Piltdown Man
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piltdown_Man
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:54.143803+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: piltdown-man-20260505-0
summary:
The find was considered legitimate by Otto Schoetensack who had discovered the Heidelberg fossils just a few years earlier; he described it as being the best evidence for an ape-like ancestor of modern humans. Almost from the outset, Woodward's reconstruction of the Piltdown fragments was strongly challenged by some researchers. At the Royal College of Surgeons, copies of the same fragments used by the British Museum in their reconstruction were used to produce an entirely different model, one that in brain size and other features resembled a modern human. This reconstruction, by Arthur Keith, was called Homo piltdownensis in reflection of its more human appearance. Woodward's reconstruction included ape-like canine teeth, which was itself controversial. In August 1913, Woodward, Dawson and Teilhard de Chardin began a systematic search of the spoil heaps specifically to find the missing canines. Teilhard de Chardin soon found a canine that, according to Woodward, fitted the jaw perfectly. A few days later, Teilhard de Chardin moved to France and took no further part in the discoveries. Noting that the tooth "corresponds exactly with that of an ape", Woodward expected the find to end any dispute over his reconstruction of the skull. However, Keith attacked the


id: piltdown-man-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piltdown_Man-2.md
category: reference
title: Piltdown Man
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piltdown_Man
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:54.143803+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: piltdown-man-20260505-0
summary:
=== Scientific investigation === Some scientists expressed scepticism about the Piltdown find from the beginning. Gerrit Smith Miller Jr., for example, wrote in 1915 that "deliberate malice could hardly have been more successful than the hazards of deposition in so breaking the fossils as to give free scope to individual judgment in fitting the parts together". When Dawson first said he discovered the cranium and jawbone, chemical dating techniques were primitive, meaning that there was heavy reliance on morphological comparison and expert opinions in order to classify and date artifacts and bones. Discoveries that happened after Piltdown Man, such as Australopithecus in South Africa and Homo erectus, contradicted many aspects of the Piltdown Man. These early hominid fossils showed small braincases and human jaws, which was the opposite of what Piltdown Man suggested. Despite this, Piltdown Man was treated as a different lineage for many years instead. In the decades prior to its exposure as a forgery in 1953, scientists increasingly regarded Piltdown as an enigmatic aberration, inconsistent with the path of hominid evolution as demonstrated by fossils found elsewhere. In the early 1950s, Kenneth Oakley, Wilfrid Le Gros Clark, and Joseph Weiner, scientists at the British Museum, developed a


id: piltdown-man-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piltdown_Man-3.md
category: reference
title: Piltdown Man
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piltdown_Man
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:54.143803+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: piltdown-man-20260505-0
summary:
The focus on Dawson as the main forger is supported by the accumulation of evidence regarding other archaeological hoaxes he perpetrated in the decade or two before the Piltdown discovery. The archaeologist Miles Russell of Bournemouth University analysed Dawson's antiquarian collection, and determined that at least 38 of his specimens were fakes. Among these were the teeth of a multituberculate mammal, Plagiaulax dawsoni, "found" in 1891 (and whose teeth had been filed down in the same way that the teeth of Piltdown Man were to be some 20 years later); the so-called "shadow figures" on the walls of Hastings Castle; a unique hafted stone axe; the Bexhill boat (a hybrid seafaring vessel); the Pevensey bricks (allegedly the latest datable "finds" from Roman Britain); the contents of the Lavant Caves (a fraudulent "flint mine"); the Beauport Park "Roman" statuette (a hybrid iron object); the Bulverhythe Hammer (shaped with an iron knife in the same way as the Piltdown elephant bone implement would later be); a fraudulent "Chinese" bronze vase; the Brighton "Toad in the Hole" (a toad entombed within a flint nodule); the English Channel sea serpent; the Uckfield Horseshoe (another hybrid iron object) and the Lewes Prick Spur. Of his


id: piltdown-man-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piltdown_Man-4.md
category: reference
title: Piltdown Man
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piltdown_Man
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:54.143803+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: piltdown-man-20260505-0
summary:
== Legacy == === Early humans === In 1912, the majority of the scientific community believed the Piltdown Man was the "missing link" between apes and humans. The Piltdown man delayed the correct understanding of human evolution for many years. However, over time the Piltdown Man lost its validity, as other discoveries such as the Taung Child and Peking Man were made. R. W. Ehrich and G. M. Henderson note, "To those who are not completely disillusioned by the work of their predecessors, the disqualification of the Piltdown skull changes little in the broad evolutionary pattern. The validity of the specimen has always been questioned". Eventually, during the 1940s and 1950s, more advanced dating technologies, such as the fluorine absorption test, proved scientifically that this skull was actually a fraud. === Influence === The Piltdown Man fraud significantly affected early research on human evolution. Notably, it led scientists down a blind alley in the belief that the human brain expanded in size before the jaw adapted to new types of food. Discoveries of Australopithecine fossils such as the Taung child found by Raymond Dart during the 1920s in South Africa were ignored because of the support for Piltdown Man as


id: piltdown-man-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piltdown_Man-5.md
category: reference
title: Piltdown Man
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piltdown_Man
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:54.143803+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: piltdown-man-20260505-0
summary:
== Further reading == The Times, 21 November 1953; 23 November 1953 Blinderman, Charles (1986), The Piltdown Inquest, Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, ISBN 978-0-87975-359-7. Dawson, Charles; Woodward, Arthur Smith (18 December 1912). "On the Discovery of a Palæolithic Human Skull and Mandible in a Flint-bearing Gravel overlying the Wealden (Hastings Beds) at Piltdown, Fletching (Sussex)". Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society. 69 (1–4): 117–122. doi:10.1144/GSL.JGS.1913.069.01-04.10. S2CID 129320256. De Groote, Isabelle (10 August 2016). "Solving the Piltdown Man crime: how we worked out there was only one forger". The Conversation. United States. Retrieved 11 August 2016.. Feder, Kenneth L. (2008), Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology (6th ed.), New York: McGraw-Hill, pp. 73–101, ISBN 978-0-07-340529-2. Grasse, Steven A. (2007). The Evil Empire: 101 Ways That England Ruined the World. Philadelphia, PA: Quirk Books. ISBN 978-1-59474-173-9., The Evil Empire, Google Books Haddon, A. C. (17 January 1913). "Eoanthropus (reporting the 1912 publication by Charles Dawson and Arthur Smith Woodward)". Science. 37 (942): 91–92. doi:10.1126/science.37.942.91. PMID 17745373. Millar, Ronald (1972). The Piltdown Men. New York: Ballantine Books. ISBN 978-0-575-00536-5. OCLC 2009318.. Oakley, Kenneth (October–November 1954). "Solving the Piltdown Problem: Part I". The Archaeological News Letter. 5 (6): 100–101. Oakley, Kenneth


id: anil-potti-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anil_Potti-0.md
category: reference
title: Anil Potti
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anil_Potti
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:55.346672+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: anil-potti-20260505-0
summary:
Anil Potti is a physician and former Duke University associate professor and cancer researcher, focusing on oncogenomics. He, along with Joseph Nevins, are at the center of a research fabrication scandal at Duke University. On 9 November 2015, the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) found that Potti had engaged in research misconduct. According to Potti's voluntary settlement agreement with ORI, Potti can continue to perform research with the requirement of supervision until year 2020, while he "neither admits nor denies ORI's findings of research misconduct." As of 2024, Potti, employed at the Cancer Center of North Dakota, had 11 of his research publications retracted, one publication received an expression of concern, and two others had been corrected. == Biography == Anil Potti graduated from Christian Medical College, Vellore, India in 1995. He finished an internship in Internal Medicine at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine in 1999. In 2006 Potti completed training in hematology and oncology at Duke University. Potti resigned from Duke in 2010, following the discovery of flaws in the genomics research conducted at Duke and allegations of embellishments in his resume, assuming responsibility for the anomalies in the scientific research. Following his resignation from Duke,


id: anil-potti-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anil_Potti-1.md
category: reference
title: Anil Potti
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anil_Potti
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:55.346672+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: anil-potti-20260505-0
summary:
== Aftermath == Healthcare companies cut ties with Potti after evidence surfaced that Potti had fabricated awards on his resume. The American Cancer Society stopped payments of a five-year grant which totalled $729,000 as Potti had received the grant based on his credentials. Duke University later reimbursed the American Cancer Society for the full amount of the grant. Three clinical trials at Duke University Medical Center based on Potti's research came under scrutiny in 2009 and were temporarily suspended, then were permanently stopped in 2010. The United States Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) reviewed one of the studies in 2009, several years after its initiation, and concluded that the study would require an Investigational New Drug application, which had not been submitted. An FDA audit in 2011 further showed that an Investigational Device Exemption application had not been filed, but otherwise found "no significant deficiencies" in Duke's IRB conduct. Potti's medical licence record with the North Carolina Medical Board shows eleven settlements, each of at least $75,000, for incidents that appear to be related to these trials. In late 2011, the North Carolina Medical Board reprimanded Potti but he retains his medical licence. The board issued its disciplinary action against


id: anil-potti-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anil_Potti-2.md
category: reference
title: Anil Potti
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anil_Potti
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:55.346672+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: anil-potti-20260505-0
summary:
"A Genomic Approach to Colon Cancer Risk Stratification Yields Biologic Insights into Therapeutic Opportunities" This article was published by PNAS. Gene expressions could allow the researchers to see if tumours are uniform throughout. This could also be used with Colon Cancer. They also can help predict how a person will respond to treatment and improve prognosis. The authors said they wanted to retract this article because "…we have been unable to reproduce certain key experiments described in the paper regarding validation and use of the colon cancer prognostic signature. This includes the validation performed with dataset E-MEXP-1224, as reported in Fig. 2A, as well as the generation of prognostic scores for colon cancer cell lines, as reported in Fig. 4…" "Validation of Gene Signatures that Predict the Response of Breast Cancer to Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy" This article was published in Lancet Oncology. This study involved patients with oestrogen-receptor-negative breast cancer. The researchers wanted to confirm their previous studies of gene-expression signatures in predicting the effects of chemotherapeutic drugs. The article was retracted because the validity of the results was beginning to be questioned and because predictions were made off of the Nature Medicine article that was retracted. "Genomic Signatures to Guide


id: project-alpha-hoax-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Alpha_(hoax)-0.md
category: reference
title: Project Alpha (hoax)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Alpha_(hoax)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:56.533475+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: project-alpha-hoax-20260505-0
summary:
Project Alpha was an effort by magician James Randi to test the quality of scientific rigor of a well-known test of paranormal phenomena. In the late 1970s, Randi contacted the newly established McDonnell Laboratory for Psychical Research ("MacLab") with suggestions on how to conduct tests for paranormal phenomena. At the same time, two teenage boys (Steve Shaw, later known as Banachek, and Mike Edwards) independently contacted the McDonnell Laboratory and volunteered as subjects for such tests from 1979 to 1982. They quickly proved to exhibit a range of paranormal abilities far and away better than the other subjects of the experiment. The lab began leaking reports of the pair's capabilities, which were in fact simple magic tricks. When rumors of the test subjects' connection to Randi reached Peter Phillips, head of the MacLab, he instituted tighter protocols for the experiments; the two subjects' results declined sharply. In 1983, Randi held a press conference to expose the deception in the wake of Project Alpha, as there were a number of controversies about the ethics of interference in scientific research and the validity of paranormal research as it then existed. It remains a watershed event in the field of parapsychology. == McDonnell


id: project-alpha-hoax-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Alpha_(hoax)-1.md
category: reference
title: Project Alpha (hoax)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Alpha_(hoax)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:56.533475+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: project-alpha-hoax-20260505-0
summary:
== Steven Shaw and Michael Edwards == When the establishment of the laboratory was announced, Mike Edwards, 18, and Steven Shaw, 17, now known as Banachek, both magicians, each contacted Randi independently with a plan. They proposed to use their skills to deceive the researchers with tricks during the first stages of the investigations. They were chosen as test subjects and the hoax began. The project had originally started with spoon bending, so the two quickly developed a way to accomplish this. Contrary to one of the caveats Randi noted in his letter, the test setup included not one, but many and various spoons, labeled with paper on a loop of string instead of any sort of permanent marking. When starting to bend a spoon, the two magicians would complain the labels were in the way and remove them. They would then simply switch the labels when putting them back and wait. The spoons were measured before and after the experiment, and since all sorts of spoons were used, simply switching the labels would produce different measurements, causing the scientist to believe that something paranormal had occurred. In other cases, they would drop one of the spoons in their lap


id: project-alpha-hoax-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Alpha_(hoax)-2.md
category: reference
title: Project Alpha (hoax)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Alpha_(hoax)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:56.533475+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: project-alpha-hoax-20260505-0
summary:
Phillips decided to release a research brief at a workshop of the Parapsychological Association Convention in August 1981. According to the researchers' official version, in preparation Phillips also wrote to Randi to ask for a tape of fake metal-bending, which was to be shown alongside the recording of Shaw and Edwards. The researchers were looking for critical input from the parapsychology community and afterward released a revised abstract that reflected the received criticism. After the Project Alpha announcements in the press, Randi wrote to the lab again and stated that it was entirely possible the two were magicians using common sleight of hand to fool the researchers. He also started to leak stories that the two were his plants. The story had been widely circulated by the time the meeting was held the next month. Upon returning from the meeting, Phillips immediately changed the test protocols; Shaw and Edwards found that they were no longer able to fool the experimenters so easily, and in most cases, unable to fool them at all. During this time the lab started releasing additional reports that seriously toned down the success rate. In their own words, "We did not conclude that they must be


id: red-mercury-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_mercury-0.md
category: reference
title: Red mercury
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_mercury
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:57.782261+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: red-mercury-20260505-0
summary:
Red mercury is a discredited substance, most likely a hoax perpetrated by con artists who sought to take advantage of gullible buyers on the black market for arms. These con artists described it as a substance used in the creation of nuclear weapons; because of the secrecy surrounding nuclear weapons development, it is difficult to disprove their claims completely. However, all samples of alleged "red mercury" analyzed in the public literature have proven to be well-known, common substances of no interest to weapons makers. == History == References to red mercury first appeared in major Soviet and western media sources in the late 1980s. The articles were never specific as to what exactly red mercury was, but nevertheless claimed it was of great importance in nuclear bombs, or that it was used in the building of boosted fission weapons. Almost as soon as the stories appeared, people started attempting to buy it. At that point, the purported nature of the substance started to change, and eventually turned into anything the buyer happened to be interested in. As New Scientist reported in 1992, a Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory report outlined that: When red mercury first appeared on the international black market


id: red-mercury-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_mercury-1.md
category: reference
title: Red mercury
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_mercury
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:57.782261+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: red-mercury-20260505-0
summary:
== Analysis == Several common mercury compounds are indeed red, such as mercury sulfide (from which the bright-red pigment vermilion was originally derived), mercury(II) oxide (historically called red precipitate), and mercury(II) iodide. No use for any of these compounds in nuclear weapons has been publicly documented. "Red mercury" could also be a code name for a substance that contains no mercury at all. A variety of different items have been chemically analyzed as putative samples of "red mercury" since the substance first came to the attention of the media, but no single substance was found in these items. A sample of radioactive material was seized by German police in May 1994. This consisted of a complex mixture of elements, including about 10% by weight plutonium, with the remainder consisting of 61% mercury, 11% antimony, 6% oxygen, 2% iodine and 1.6% gallium. The reason why somebody had assembled this complex mixture of chemicals is unknown; equally puzzling was the presence of fragments of glass and brush bristles, suggesting that someone had dropped a bottle of this substance and then swept it up into a new container. In contrast, an analysis reported in 1998 of a different "red mercury" sample concluded that


id: red-mercury-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_mercury-2.md
category: reference
title: Red mercury
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_mercury
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:57.782261+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: red-mercury-20260505-0
summary:
=== Red mercury as a ballotechnic === Samuel T. Cohen, the "father of the neutron bomb", claimed for a long time that red mercury is a powerful explosive-like chemical known as a ballotechnic. The energy released during its reaction is allegedly enough to directly compress the secondary without the need for a fission primary in a thermonuclear weapon. He claimed that he learned that the Soviet scientists perfected the use of red mercury and used it to produce a number of softball-sized pure fusion bombs weighing as little as 10 lb (4.5 kg), which he claimed were made in large numbers. He went on to claim that the reason this is not more widely known is that elements within the US power structure are deliberately suppressing or hiding information due to the frightening implications such a weapon would have on nuclear proliferation. Since a red mercury bomb would require no fissile material, it would seemingly be impossible to protect against its widespread proliferation given current arms control methodologies. Instead of trying to do so, they simply claim it does not exist, while acknowledging its existence privately. Cohen also claimed that when President Boris Yeltsin took power, he secretly authorized the


id: red-mercury-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_mercury-3.md
category: reference
title: Red mercury
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_mercury
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:57.782261+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: red-mercury-20260505-0
summary:
=== Saudi Arabia === In April 2009 it was reported from Saudi Arabia that rumors that Singer sewing machines contained "red mercury" had caused the prices of such machines to massively increase in the Kingdom, with some paying up to SR200,000 for a single machine which could previously have been bought for SR200. Believers in the rumor claimed that the presence of red mercury in the sewing machines' needles could be detected using a mobile telephone; if the line cut off when the telephone was placed near to the needle, this supposedly proved that the substance was present. In Medina there was a busy trade in the sewing machines, with buyers seen using mobile phones to check the machines for red mercury content, while it was reported that others had resorted to theft, with two tailors' shops in Dhulum broken into and their sewing machines stolen. At other locales, there were rumors that a Kuwait-based multinational had been buying up the Singer machines, while in Al-Jouf, the residents were led to believe that a local museum was buying up any such machines that it could find, and a number of women appeared at the museum offering to sell their Singer


id: charles-redheffer-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Redheffer-0.md
category: reference
title: Charles Redheffer
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Redheffer
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:58.927602+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: charles-redheffer-20260505-0
summary:
Charles Redheffer was an American inventor who claimed to have invented a perpetual motion machine. First appearing in Philadelphia, Redheffer exhibited his machine to the public, charging high prices for viewing. When he applied to the government for more money, a group of inspectors were sent to examine the machine. It was discovered the machine was actually powered by a device Redheffer claimed was powered by the machine. Redheffer moved to New York City and set up a similar scam after rebuilding his machine. However, an engineer detected that it was a fake by listening to its unsteady motions at an exhibition. He discovered that the machine was operated by a man using a crank in a room on the floor above. Redheffer returned to Philadelphia. He later claimed to have created another machine, but refused to demonstrate it to anyone. He managed to get a patent for his machine in 1820, but after this his fate is unknown. == Personal life == Little has been recorded about Redheffer's life, other than his connection to the hoax. According to one source, he was from Germantown in Philadelphia, but most sources simply state that he appeared in Philadelphia with his machine.


id: scott-reuben-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Reuben-0.md
category: reference
title: Scott Reuben
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Reuben
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:00.148714+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: scott-reuben-20260505-0
summary:
Scott S. Reuben (born 1958) is an American anesthesiologist who falsified data heralding the benefits of the Pfizer pain medication Celebrex while downplaying its negative side effects. He was Professor of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts and chief of acute pain at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Massachusetts from February 1991 until 2009 when he was sentenced to prison for healthcare fraud. Reuben was considered to be a prolific and influential researcher in pain management, and his purported findings altered the way millions of patients are treated for pain during and after orthopedic surgeries. Reuben has now admitted that he never conducted any of the clinical trials on which his conclusions were based "in what may be considered the longest-running and widest-ranging cases of academic fraud." Scientific American has called Reuben the medical equivalent of Bernie Madoff, the former NASDAQ chairman who was convicted of orchestrating a $65-billion Ponzi scheme. == Background == Reuben was educated at Columbia University. He graduated from medical school at the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1985 and undertook his anesthesiology residency at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City. Reuben fell under suspicion when Baystate


id: rhinogradentia-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinogradentia-0.md
category: reference
title: Rhinogradentia
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinogradentia
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:01.299956+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: rhinogradentia-20260505-0
summary:
Rhinogradentia is a fictitious order of extinct shrew-like mammals invented by German zoologist Gerolf Steiner. Members of the order, known as rhinogrades or snouters, are characterized by a nose-like feature called a "nasorium", which evolved to fulfill a wide variety of functions in different species. Steiner also created a fictional persona, naturalist Harald Stümpke, who is credited as author of the 1961 book Bau und Leben der Rhinogradentia (translated into English in 1967 as The Snouters: Form and Life of the Rhinogrades). According to Steiner, it is the only remaining record of the animals, which were wiped out, along with all the world's Rhinogradentia researchers, when the small Pacific archipelago they inhabited sank into the ocean due to nearby atomic bomb testing. Successfully mimicking a genuine scientific work, Rhinogradentia has appeared in several publications without any note of its fictitious nature, sometimes in connection with April Fools' Day. == Background == Rhinogradentia, their island home of Hy-yi-yi, zoologist Harald Stümpke, and a host of other people, places, and documents are fictional creations of Gerolf Steiner (1908–2009), a German zoologist. Steiner is best known for his fictional work as Stümpke, but he was an accomplished zoologist in his own right. He


id: rhinogradentia-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinogradentia-1.md
category: reference
title: Rhinogradentia
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinogradentia
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:01.299956+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: rhinogradentia-20260505-0
summary:
== Publication history == Steiner's books as Stümpke have been translated into other languages, sometimes crediting other names based on the country of publication. "Harald Stümpke", "Massimo Pandolfi", "Hararuto Shutyunpuke", and "Karl D. S. Geeste" are pseudonyms. Translator names are real. Stümpke, Harald (1957). Bau und Leben der Rhinogradentia. Stuttgart: Gustav Fischer Verlag. ISBN 3-437-30083-0. OCLC 65616734. Stümpke, Harald (1962). Anatomie et Biologie des Rhinogrades — Un Nouvel Ordre de Mammifères (Trans. Robert Weill). Paris: Masson. ISBN 978-2-10-005449-7. OCLC 46829688. Stümpke, Harald (1967). The Snouters: Form and Life of the Rhinogrades (Trans. Leigh Chadwick). Garden City, NY: The Natural History Press. OCLC 436148. Pandolfi, Massimo (1992). I Rinogradi di Harald Stümpke e la zoologia fantastica (Trans. Achaz von Hardenberg). Padua: Franco Muzzio. ISBN 88-7021-485-0. OCLC 875787215. Shutyunpuke, Hararuto (1997). Bikōri: atarashiku-hakken-sareta-honyūrui-no-kōzō-to-seikatsu. Tokyo: Hakuhinsha. ISBN 4-938706-19-9. OCLC 76500640. Geeste, Karl D. S. (1988). Stümpke's Rhinogradentia: Versuch einer Analyse. Stuttgart: Gustav Fischer Verlag. ISBN 3-437-30597-2. OCLC 28345723. == Legacy == Rhinogradentia is considered one of the best known biological hoaxes and scientific jokes and Steiner's pseudonymous works on the subject continue to be reprinted and translated. The first edition did not explicitly state that it was a hoax. Following the publication of


id: sch-n-scandal-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schön_scandal-0.md
category: reference
title: Schön scandal
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schön_scandal
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:02.514203+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: sch-n-scandal-20260505-0
summary:
German physicist Jan Hendrik Schön (born August 1970 in Verden an der Aller, Lower Saxony, West Germany) briefly rose to prominence after a series of apparently successful experiments with semiconductors that were discovered later to be fraudulent. Before he was exposed, Schön had received the Otto-Klung-Weberbank Prize for Physics and the Braunschweig Prize in 2001, as well as the Outstanding Young Investigator Award of the Materials Research Society in 2002, all of which were later rescinded. He was also supposed to receive the William L. McMillan Award from the University of Illinois in 2002, but due to the intervention of Daniel C. Ralph of Cornell University (who was on the committee of the McMillan Award), Schön was never given the award. The scandal provoked discussion in the scientific community about the degree of responsibility which coauthors and reviewers of scientific articles bear in cases of scientific misbehavior. The discussion mainly concerned whether peer review, traditionally designed to find errors and determine relevance and originality of articles, should also be required to detect deliberate fraud. == Beginning of fame == Schön's topic of research was condensed matter physics and nanotechnology. He received his PhD from the University of Konstanz in 1997.


id: sch-n-scandal-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schön_scandal-1.md
category: reference
title: Schön scandal
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schön_scandal
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:02.514203+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: sch-n-scandal-20260505-0
summary:
== Allegations and investigation == Soon after Schön published his work on single-molecule semiconductors, others in the physics community alleged that his data contained anomalies. Julia Hsu and Lynn Loo originally noticed problems with Schön's paper describing the assembly of molecular transistors while attempting to patent research concerning lithography, realizing that Schön had duplicated some numbers. Hsu and Loo had attempted initial experiments to gather evidence for their patent but relied on the scientific outcomes of Schön's work. It was not until April 19, 2002, when Loo and Hsu were meeting with their patent lawyer John McCabe, that they noticed the duplicated data. Hsu and Loo both contacted Robert Willett, who then contacted one of his old postdoctoral students, Lydia Sohn, telling her to look out for a correction in one of Schön's papers. Sohn, then of Princeton University, noticed that two experiments carried out at very different temperatures had identical noise. When the editors of Nature mentioned this to Schön, he claimed to have accidentally submitted the same graph twice. Paul McEuen of Cornell University then found the same noise in a paper describing a third experiment. More research by McEuen, Sohn, Loo, and other physicists revealed a number


id: sch-n-scandal-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schön_scandal-2.md
category: reference
title: Schön scandal
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schön_scandal
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:02.514203+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: sch-n-scandal-20260505-0
summary:
J. H. Schön; S. Berg; Ch. Kloc; B. Batlogg (2000). "Ambipolar Pentacene Field-Effect Transistors and Inverters". Science. 287 (5455): 1022–3. Bibcode:2000Sci...287.1022S. doi:10.1126/science.287.5455.1022. PMID 10669410. (Retracted, see doi:10.1126/science.298.5595.961b, PMID 12416506) J. H. Schön; Ch. Kloc; R. C. Haddon; B. Batlogg (2000). "A Superconducting Field-Effect Switch". Science. 288 (5466): 656–8. doi:10.1126/science.288.5466.656. PMID 10784445. S2CID 37783357. (Retracted, see doi:10.1126/science.298.5595.961b, PMID 12416506) J. H. Schön; Ch. Kloc; B. Batlogg (2000). "Fractional Quantum Hall Effect in Organic Molecular Semiconductors". Science. 288 (5475): 2338–40. doi:10.1126/science.288.5475.2338. PMID 17769842. (Retracted, see doi:10.1126/science.298.5595.961b, PMID 12416506) J. H. Schön; Ch. Kloc; A. Dodabalapur; B. Batlogg (2000). "An Organic Solid State Injection Laser". Science. 289 (5479): 599–601. Bibcode:2000Sci...289..599S. doi:10.1126/science.289.5479.599. PMID 10915617. (Retracted, see doi:10.1126/science.298.5595.961b, PMID 12416506) J. H. Schön; Ch. Kloc; B. Batlogg (2000). "A Light-Emitting Field-Effect Transistor". Science. 290 (5493): 963–6. Bibcode:2000Sci...290..963S. doi:10.1126/science.290.5493.963. PMID 11062124. (Retracted, see doi:10.1126/science.298.5595.961b, PMID 12416506) J. H. Schön; Ch. Kloc; H. Y. Hwang; B. Batlogg (2001). "Josephson Junctions with Tunable Weak Links". Science. 292 (5515): 252–4. doi:10.1126/science.1058812. PMID 11303093. S2CID 38719808. (Retracted, see doi:10.1126/science.298.5595.961b, PMID 12416506) J. H. Schön; A. Dodabalapur; Ch. Kloc; B. Batlogg (2001). "High-Temperature Superconductivity in Lattice-Expanded C60". Science. 293 (5539): 2432–4. Bibcode:2001Sci...293.2432S. doi:10.1126/science.1064773. PMID 11533443. S2CID 28759665. (Retracted, see doi:10.1126/science.298.5595.961b, PMID


id: sch-n-scandal-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schön_scandal-3.md
category: reference
title: Schön scandal
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schön_scandal
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:02.514203+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: sch-n-scandal-20260505-0
summary:
J. H. Schön; Z. Bao (2002). "Organic insulator/semiconductor heterostructure monolayer transistors". Applied Physics Letters. 80 (2): 332. Bibcode:2002ApPhL..80..332S. doi:10.1063/1.1431697. S2CID 95860889. J. H. Schön; Ch. Kloc; A. Dodabalapur; B. Crone (2001). "Grain boundary transport and vapor sensing in α-sexithiophene". Applied Physics Letters. 79 (24): 3965. Bibcode:2001ApPhL..79.3965S. doi:10.1063/1.1423787. J. H. Schön; C. Kloc (2001). "Charge transport through a single tetracene grain boundary". Applied Physics Letters. 78 (24): 3821. Bibcode:2001ApPhL..78.3821S. doi:10.1063/1.1379986. J. H. Schön; C. Kloc (2001). "Organic metal–semiconductor field-effect phototransistors". Applied Physics Letters. 78 (22): 3538. Bibcode:2001ApPhL..78.3538S. doi:10.1063/1.1376666. J. H. Schön; C. Kloc; B. Batlogg (2000). "Efficient photovoltaic energy conversion in pentacene-based heterojunctions". Applied Physics Letters. 77 (16): 2473. Bibcode:2000ApPhL..77.2473S. doi:10.1063/1.1318234. J. H. Schön; C. Kloc; B. Batlogg (1999). "Reversible gas doping of bulk α-hexathiophene". Applied Physics Letters. 75 (11): 1556. Bibcode:1999ApPhL..75.1556S. doi:10.1063/1.124753. J. H. Schön; Ch. Kloc; R. A. Laudise; B. Batlogg (1998). "Surface and bulk mobilities of oligothiophene single crystals". Applied Physics Letters. 73 (24): 3574. Bibcode:1998ApPhL..73.3574S. doi:10.1063/1.122828. The retraction notice from March 20, 2003, in Advanced Materials mentions concerns about another article written by Schön: J. H. Schön; C. Kloc; Z. Bao; B. Batlogg (2000). "Electron Transport in Fluorinated Copper-Phthalocyanine". Advanced Materials. 12 (20): 1539–1542. doi:10.1002/1521-4095(200010)12:20<1539::AID-ADMA1539>3.0.CO;2-S. == See


id: scigen-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCIgen-0.md
category: reference
title: SCIgen
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCIgen
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:03.709962+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: scigen-20260505-0
summary:
SCIgen is a paper generator that uses context-free grammar to randomly generate nonsense in the form of computer science research papers. Its original data source was a collection of computer science papers downloaded from CiteSeer. All elements of the papers are formed, including graphs, diagrams, and citations. Created by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, its stated aim is "to maximize amusement, rather than coherence." Originally created in 2005 to expose the lack of scrutiny of submissions to conferences, the generator subsequently became used, primarily by Chinese academics, to create large numbers of fraudulent conference submissions, leading to the retraction of 122 SCIgen generated papers and the creation of detection software to combat its use. == Sample output == Opening abstract of Rooter: A Methodology for the Typical Unification of Access Points and Redundancy: Many physicists would agree that, had it not been for congestion control, the evaluation of web browsers might never have occurred. In fact, few hackers worldwide would disagree with the essential unification of voice-over-IP and public/private key pair. In order to solve this riddle, we confirm that SMPs can be made stochastic, cacheable, and interposable. == Prominent results == In 2005, a paper generated by


id: scigen-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCIgen-1.md
category: reference
title: SCIgen
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCIgen
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:03.709962+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: scigen-20260505-0
summary:
==== In journals ==== Students at Iran's Sharif University of Technology published a paper in Elsevier's Journal of Applied Mathematics and Computation. The students wrote under the surname "MosallahNejad", which translates literally from Persian language (in spite of not being a traditional Persian name) as "from an Armed Breed". The paper was subsequently removed when the publishers were informed that it was a joke paper. Mikhail Gelfand published a translation of the "Rooter" article in the Russian-language Journal of Scientific Publications of Aspirants and Doctorants in August 2008. Gelfand was protesting against the journal, which was apparently not peer-reviewed and was being used by Russian PhD candidates to publish in an "accredited" scientific journal, charging them 4,000 Rubles to do so. The accreditation was revoked two weeks later. (See Dissernet for related information.) Springer Science+Business Media and IEEE were also the subject of similar pranks. === Spoofing Google Scholar and h-index calculators === Refereeing performed on behalf of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers has also been subject to criticism after fake papers were discovered in conference publications, most notably by Labbé and a researcher using the pseudonym of Schlangemann. Cyril Labbé from Grenoble University demonstrated the vulnerability of


id: skvader-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skvader-0.md
category: reference
title: Skvader
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skvader
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:04.854490+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: skvader-20260505-0
summary:
The skvader (pronounced [ˈskvɑ̌ːdɛr]) is a Swedish fictional creature that was constructed in 1918 by the taxidermist Rudolf Granberg and is permanently displayed at the museum at Norra Berget in Sundsvall. It has the head, forequarters and hindlegs of a European hare (Lepus europaeus), and the back, wings and tail of a female wood grouse (Tetrao urogallus). It was later jokingly given the Latin name Tetrao lepus pseudo-hybridus rarissimus L. The term has taken on a general meaning of two disparate elements put together, often conveying a sense of a less fortunate such combination. == Name == The name is a combination of two words, explained by the Svenska Akademiens ordbok (Dictionary of the Swedish Academy) as being from the "prefix skva- from skvattra (quack or chirp), and the suffix -der from tjäder (wood grouse)". == Origins == The skvader originates from a tall tale hunting story told by a man named Håkan Dahlmark during a dinner at a restaurant in Sundsvall in the beginning of the 20th century. To the amusement of the other guests, Dahlmark claimed that he in 1874 had shot such an animal during a hunt north of Sundsvall. On his birthday in 1907, his housekeeper


id: andriy-slyusarchuk-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andriy_Slyusarchuk-0.md
category: reference
title: Andriy Slyusarchuk
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andriy_Slyusarchuk
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:06.020817+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: andriy-slyusarchuk-20260505-0
summary:
Andriy Tykhonovych Slyusarchuk (Ukrainian: Андрі́й Ти́хонович Слюсарчу́к, born 10 May 1971) is a Ukrainian mnemonist who has claimed to be a general aviation pilot, psychotherapist, Doctor of Science in medicine, psychiatrist, psychologist and neurosurgeon. He has performed brain surgery throughout Ukraine in state and municipal hospitals. Slyusarchuk has been employed by the V. Chornovol Lviv State Institute of Modern Technology and Management, the Kyiv National University of Construction and Architecture, the P.L. Shupyk National Medical Academy of Postgraduate Education, and the A. P. Romodanov Institute of Neurosurgery. He has lectured at the Lviv Polytechnic, and worked for the government of Ukraine as an adviser to Oleksandr Turchynov. Slyusarchuk claimed to have set several world records in mnemonics by memorizing data and figures (such as pi) and performing complex calculations in his mind. Because of this, he came to be known as "Doctor Pi". Slyusarchuk defrauded two Ukrainian presidents: Viktor Yushchenko and Viktor Yanukovych. The Verkhovna Rada (the Ukrainian Parliament) referred to his activities as "the largest-scale fraud in Ukraine's 20 years of independence". On 14 February 2014, the Sykhiv Raion Court sentenced Slyusarchuk to eight years in prison. == Education and career == Slyusarchuk's education began in an institutional school


id: andriy-slyusarchuk-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andriy_Slyusarchuk-1.md
category: reference
title: Andriy Slyusarchuk
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andriy_Slyusarchuk
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:06.020817+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: andriy-slyusarchuk-20260505-0
summary:
== Biography == The details of Andriy Slyusarchuk's life were uncovered through investigative journalism. Slyusarchuk was born in Zhytomyr, Ukraine on 10 May 1971. His 21-year-old mother, Natalia Tykhonovna Slyusarchuk of Zhytomyr, left her newborn son at a maternity home. She did not know the name of the father of her child, and Slyusarchuk's middle name was recorded on his birth certificate as "Tykhonovych" (the masculine version of Natalia Slyusarchuk's patronymic). He was hospitalized at the Zhytomyr psychiatric hospital eight times between 1974 and 1987. From 1980 to 1987 (second to eighth grade) Slyusarchuk lived and studied at an institutional school for young orphans in the town of Hryshkivtsi in Berdychiv Raion, receiving a certificate for the completion of his education there. Nearly all the documents pertaining to his education at the school were later destroyed; his birth date became 19 May 1974 on some documents, yielding negative results for official inquiries about his time at the school. From 1987 to 1989, Slyusarchuk studied in the 208th group at the inter-regional Higher Vocational School of Railway Transport in Kozyatyn, Vinnytsia Oblast, to become a plasterer-tiler-facing worker. On 2 October 1989, according to order No. 31, he was transferred to the


id: andriy-slyusarchuk-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andriy_Slyusarchuk-2.md
category: reference
title: Andriy Slyusarchuk
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andriy_Slyusarchuk
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:06.020817+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: andriy-slyusarchuk-20260505-0
summary:
It was followed by "The First Victims of Pseudo-professor Pi", "Pseudo-doctor Slyusarchuk Kills People", "The Cheap Tricks of Professor Pi", "The New Victims of the Pseudo-Doctor", "Pseudo-doctor Slyusarchuk is in a Trap", "Pseudo-doctor Slyusarchuk Buried His Mother Alive", "The Pseudo-Doctor Sows New Deaths", "It is Just a Shock. The Pseudo-doctor Kills the Child of a Priest", "The Pi Record is Cancelled", "The Pi Record is Falsified," "The Secret Protectors of Doctor Pi", "The Pseudo-Doctor Again Picked Up a Scalpel", "The Perverts of Minister Tabachnyk", "The Pseudo-Doctor, Sex and Drugs", "The Grave Sin of Minister Tabachnyk", "Three More New Victims of the Pseudo-Doctor" (a video), "The New Attitude of Doctor Pi", "The Intelligentsia of the Lviv Oblast Demand that Tabachnyk, Who is an Accessory of Doctor Pi, Be Relieved of His Position", "The Computer Operator of Doctor Pi Speaks Out", "New Actions Brought Against the Pseudo-Doctor", "A New Death in the Case of Doctor Pi", "The Millions of Doctor Pi Against Ekspres", "The Inquest Breaks the Action Brought Against Doctor Pi", "Doctor Pi is Ignorant of Even Arithmetic", "Doctor Pi Took Up to Tens of Thousands". After the Ekspres articles were published, criminal complaints were again brought against Slyusarchuk. On 14


id: andriy-slyusarchuk-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andriy_Slyusarchuk-3.md
category: reference
title: Andriy Slyusarchuk
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andriy_Slyusarchuk
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:06.020817+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: andriy-slyusarchuk-20260505-0
summary:
=== Biography based on Slyusarchuk's own interviews === According to a birth certificate shown by him to journalists, Slyusarchuk was born in the village of Tuğ in the Hadrut Rayon of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic. His father was Mushegyan Vartan Aramovich, an ethnic Armenian. His mother, a Ukrainian, was Ruslana Tykhonovna Slyusarchuk. The Hadrut Rayon civil registry reportedly changed his birth details to his mother's by request in 1984, and he became Andriy Tykhonovych Slyusarchuk. Slyusarchuk said that he graduated from a secondary school in Vinnytsia at the age of nine. His parents, medical professionals (his mother a pediatrician and his father a cardiac surgeon), died in a car accident the year he graduated from secondary school. During the 1980s he was subjected to punitive psychiatry, physically abused and sent to a psychiatric hospital where he was tied to a bed, given psychoactive drugs and injected with sulfozin. When the psychiatrists asked him which books he was reading, Slyusarchuk said that he was reading medical literature and works by Ivan Pavlov and Vladimir Lenin. He was sent to an institution for the mentally-ill children. Slyusarchuk was placed in a Soviet orphanage where he was


id: andriy-slyusarchuk-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andriy_Slyusarchuk-4.md
category: reference
title: Andriy Slyusarchuk
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andriy_Slyusarchuk
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:06.020817+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: andriy-slyusarchuk-20260505-0
summary:
== Mnemonics and hypnosis == Slyusarchuk claimed to have set records for memorizing large amounts of digital data, sequences of geometric figures, words and other information, including one million digits of the figure pi. By 2008, he claimed to have memorized two million decimal places of pi and about 7,000 volumes of text; by the following year, his claim had increased to 15,000 volumes. By June 2009 Slyusarchuk claimed to have set a record by memorizing the first 30 million decimal places of pi, which were printed in 20 volumes of text. He claimed to have memorized 200 million decimal places of pi by October 2010. None of the claimed pi records appear on the Pi World Ranking list. Slyusarchuk was known for his hypnotic skill; he claimed the ability to hypnotize people to feel no pain when burned. On a TV show, he hypnotized students of the L'viv University of Modern Technology (Львівський державний інститут новітніх технологій та управління ім. В. Чорновола) into believing that the onions they ate were apples. Slyusarchuk demonstrated hypnosis of a salesman who accepted a ₴1 bill, thinking it was a ₴500 bill. His televised demonstration of chess-position memory (memorizing all pieces on 80


id: andriy-slyusarchuk-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andriy_Slyusarchuk-5.md
category: reference
title: Andriy Slyusarchuk
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andriy_Slyusarchuk
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:06.020817+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: andriy-slyusarchuk-20260505-0
summary:
On 6 October 2011 the Lviv newspaper Ekspres published its first article critical of Slyusarchuk, "The Sensational Exposure of Pseudo-Professor Pi", accusing him of forgery and fraud and investigating him in subsequent articles. Three weeks later, the newspaper published a letter from the Russian National Research Medical University saying that Slyusarchuk had not studied at the university. On 10 January 2012 the newspaper released a video of brain surgery performed by Slyusarchuk, surrounded by assistants in an operating room; in the video, he wiped his scalpel with cotton wool before incising the patient's brain. On 14 March Ekspres published an interview with Andriy Novosad, who told reporters that he wrote a computer program which Slyusarchuk tested with radio equipment for the pi demonstrations and created articles which were published in Slyusarchuk's name. After the Ekspres articles attracted widespread publicity Slyusarchuk denied the accusations in interviews for other media sources, saying that he had applied to the General Prosecutor of Ukraine to clarify the situation and disprove the Ekspres allegations. On 14 November 2011, the Ukrainian police detained him on suspicion of forgery and fraud. During the investigation, senior officials of the Ministry of Education and Science, Youth and Sport of


id: andriy-slyusarchuk-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andriy_Slyusarchuk-6.md
category: reference
title: Andriy Slyusarchuk
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andriy_Slyusarchuk
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:06.020817+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: andriy-slyusarchuk-20260505-0
summary:
== Conviction and sentencing == In the Verkhovna Rada, Slyusarchuk's activities were called "the largest-scale fraud in the 20 years of Ukrainian independence". According to the Ukrainian Independent Information Agency, his defrauding of government agencies is unprecedented. In 2012, Ukrainsky Medychny Chasopys (Ukrainian Medical Journal) published the outcome of his case entitled, "Head doctors who let the person without medical training into operating room should be held criminally responsible." In the article, Ukrainian psychiatrist Semyon Gluzman expressed the opinion that Slyusarchuk skillfully took advantage of poor security; if he had chosen a lower-profile specialty, he might have succeeded. According to Gluzman, Ukraine has hundreds of people with the degree of Doctor of Sciences with expertise comparable to Slyusarchuk's. In the journal, Doctor of Science Olga Bogomolets wrote that the admission of a person without medical training to an operating room violated laws clearly regulating who can practice medicine, when and where; a hospital supervising physician who violates the law must be held accountable. On 14 February 2014, the Sykhiv Raion Court sentenced Slyusarchuk to eight years in prison after finding him guilty of five counts of illegal medical activities and two counts of murder by negligence: a 52-year-old man named


id: sokal-affair-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair-0.md
category: reference
title: Sokal affair
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:07.214905+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: sokal-affair-20260505-0
summary:
The Sokal affair, also known as the Sokal hoax, was a demonstrative scholarly hoax performed by Alan Sokal, a physics professor at New York University and University College London. In 1996, Sokal submitted an article to Social Text, an academic journal of cultural studies. The submission was an experiment to test the journal's intellectual rigor, specifically to investigate whether "a leading North American journal of cultural studies—whose editorial collective includes such luminaries as Fredric Jameson and Andrew Ross—[would] publish an article liberally salted with nonsense if (a) it sounded good and (b) it flattered the editors' ideological preconceptions." The article, "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity", was published in the journal's Spring/Summer 1996 "Science Wars" issue. It proposed that quantum gravity is a social and linguistic construct. The journal did not practice academic peer review at the time, so it did not submit the article for outside expert review by a physicist. Three weeks after its publication in May 1996, Sokal revealed in the magazine Lingua Franca that the article was a hoax. The hoax caused controversy about the scholarly merit of commentary on the physical sciences by those in the humanities; the influence of postmodern


id: sokal-affair-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair-1.md
category: reference
title: Sokal affair
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:07.214905+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: sokal-affair-20260505-0
summary:
=== Follow-up between Sokal and the editors === In the article "A Physicist Experiments With Cultural Studies" in the May 1996 issue of Lingua Franca, Sokal revealed that "Transgressing the Boundaries" was a hoax and concluded that Social Text "felt comfortable publishing an article on quantum physics without bothering to consult anyone knowledgeable in the subject" because of its ideological proclivities and editorial bias. In their defense, Social Text's editors said they believed that Sokal's essay "was the earnest attempt of a professional scientist to seek some kind of affirmation from postmodern philosophy for developments in his field" and that "its status as parody does not alter, substantially, our interest in the piece, itself, as a symptomatic document." Besides criticizing his writing style, Social Text's editors accused Sokal of behaving unethically in deceiving them. Sokal said the editors' response demonstrated the problem that he sought to identify. Social Text, as an academic journal, published the article not because it was faithful, true, and accurate to its subject, but because an "academic authority" had written it and because of the appearance of the obscure writing. The editors said they considered it poorly written but published it because they felt Sokal was


id: sokal-affair-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair-2.md
category: reference
title: Sokal affair
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:07.214905+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: sokal-affair-20260505-0
summary:
=== Criticism of social sciences === Sociologist Stephen Hilgartner, chairman of Cornell University's science and technology studies department, wrote "The Sokal Affair in Context" (1997), comparing Sokal's hoax to "Confirmational Response: Bias Among Social Work Journals" (1990), an article by William M. Epstein published in Science, Technology, & Human Values. Epstein used a similar method to Sokal's, submitting fictitious articles to real academic journals to measure their response. Though much more systematic than Sokal's work, it received scant media attention. Hilgartner argued that the "asymmetric" effect of the successful Sokal hoax compared with Epstein's experiment cannot be attributed to its quality, but that "[t]hrough a mechanism that resembles confirmatory bias, audiences may apply less stringent standards of evidence and ethics to attacks on targets that they are predisposed to regard unfavorably." As a result, according to Hilgartner, though competent in terms of method, Epstein's experiment was largely muted by the more socially accepted social work discipline he critiqued, while Sokal's attack on cultural studies, despite lacking experimental rigor, was accepted. Hilgartner also argued that Sokal's hoax reinforced the views of well-known pundits such as George Will and Rush Limbaugh, so that his opinions were amplified by media outlets predisposed to


id: song-yoo-geun-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_Yoo-geun-0.md
category: reference
title: Song Yoo-geun
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_Yoo-geun
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:08.408373+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: song-yoo-geun-20260505-0
summary:
Song Yoo-geun (born November 27, 1997) is a South Korean person who gained recognition as a child prodigy in South Korea since 2004. After graduating college in 2009, he was involved in a number of controversies during his ultimately unsuccessful doctorate program at Korean University of Science and Technology (UST), including one involving his paper in October 2015 written with his advisor, Park Seok-jae. The paper, entitled "Axisymmetric, Nonstationary Black Hole Magnetospheres: Revisited" appeared in the Astrophysical Journal (ApJ). However, the paper was soon retracted due to concerns that it plagiarized a 2002 book chapter. == Life before October 2015 == Song Yoo-geun left a prodigy school he attended in 2003. Six months of independent study enabled him to solve pre-calculus problems. In August 2004, at age 6, he passed the "Craftsman Information Processing" (정보처리기능사) certification examination. In November of the same year, his parents tried to enroll him at a local elementary school (Shim Seok Elementary School; 심석초등학교) as a sixth grader. While Song did not perform well, obtaining a score of 12% on his math exam, his parents maintained that Song was neither used to, or interested in, calculating equations that lacked meaning. Although the school allowed this


id: song-yoo-geun-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_Yoo-geun-1.md
category: reference
title: Song Yoo-geun
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_Yoo-geun
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:08.408373+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: song-yoo-geun-20260505-0
summary:
Song & Park (2015) draws extensively from an earlier publication by Park, "Stationary Versus Nonstationary Force-Free Black Hole Magnetospheres," in Black Hole Astrophysics 2002: Proceedings of the Sixth APCTP Winter School (World Scientific Publishing Co., 2002). In fact, the differences are modest, mostly confined to an alternate formulation of the analytic results, and could raise the question of copyright violation. Park (2002) is not part of the peer-reviewed literature, and scientists frequently use a conference proceeding as the rough draft of a subsequent submission to a professional peer-reviewed journal. However, in this case the overlap between the 2002 book chapter and 2015 paper is exceptionally large. "This article by Yoo Geun Song & Seok Jae Park has been retracted at the request of the Editor-in-Chief due to an unacceptably large overlap with "Stationary Versus Nonstationary Force-Free Black Hole Magnetospheres," published in Black Hole Astrophysics 2002: Proceedings of the Sixth APCTP Winter School (World Scientific Publishing Co., 2002). Please see https://aas.org/posts/news/2015/11/astrophysical-journal-paper-retracted-plagiarism for a more complete explanation." Park first denied the plagiarism controversy towards Song, insisting he will "resign his position if any part of his paper is found unoriginal." He also argued that Song's work on partial differential equation is totally


id: stimulus-triggered-acquisition-of-pluripotency-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stimulus-triggered_acquisition_of_pluripotency-0.md
category: reference
title: Stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stimulus-triggered_acquisition_of_pluripotency
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:09.670612+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: stimulus-triggered-acquisition-of-pluripotency-20260505-0
summary:
Stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency (STAP) was a proposed method of generating pluripotent stem cells by subjecting ordinary cells to certain types of stress, such as the application of a bacterial toxin, submersion in a weak acid, or physical trauma. The technique gained prominence in January 2014 when research by Haruko Obokata et al. was published in Nature. Over the following months, all scientists who tried to duplicate her results failed, and suspicion arose that Obokata's results were due to error or fraud. An investigation by her employer, RIKEN, was launched. On April 1, 2014, RIKEN concluded that Obokata had falsified data to obtain her results. On June 4, 2014, Obokata agreed to retract the papers. On August 5, 2014, Yoshiki Sasai—Obokata's supervisor at RIKEN and one of the coauthors on the STAP cell papers—was found dead at a RIKEN facility after an apparent suicide by hanging. STAP would have been a radically simpler method of stem cell generation than previously researched methods as it requires neither nuclear transfer nor the introduction of transcription factors. == Overview == Haruko Obokata claimed that STAP cells were produced by exposing CD45+ murine spleen cells to certain stresses including an acidic medium with a


id: stimulus-triggered-acquisition-of-pluripotency-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stimulus-triggered_acquisition_of_pluripotency-1.md
category: reference
title: Stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stimulus-triggered_acquisition_of_pluripotency
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:09.670612+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: stimulus-triggered-acquisition-of-pluripotency-20260505-0
summary:
=== Investigation into disputed claims === In the months after the two Nature papers were released, all scientists who tried to duplicate Obokata's results failed and suspicion arose that her results were due to error or fraud. An investigation into alleged irregularities was launched by RIKEN on February 15, 2014. The allegations questioned the use of seemingly duplicated images in the papers, and reported failure to reproduce her results in other prominent stem-cell laboratories. Nature also announced that they were investigating. Several stem-cell scientists defended Obokata or reserved their opinion while the investigation was ongoing. To address the problem of reproducibility in other laboratories, Obokata published some technical 'tips' on the protocols on March 5 while promising that the detailed procedure would be published in due course. On March 11, Teruhiko Wakayama, one of Obokata's coauthors, urged all the researchers involved to withdraw the articles, citing many "questionable points". Charles Vacanti said he opposed their retraction and posted a "revised protocol" for creating STAP cells on his own website, which was taken down after he resigned his BWH post. On March 14, RIKEN released an interim report of the investigation. Out of the six items being investigated, the committee concluded


id: john-alfred-talent-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Alfred_Talent-0.md
category: reference
title: John Alfred Talent
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Alfred_Talent
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:10.795081+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: john-alfred-talent-20260505-0
summary:
John Alfred Talent (18 October 1932 – 27 March 2024) was an Australian palaeontologist whose research and teaching career was spent largely at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. He is remembered particularly for leading the effort in the 1980s and 1990s to expose the large body of fraudulent publications by Vishwa Jit Gupta of Panjab University, which is collectively known as the Himalayan fossil hoax. == Biography == Talent was born to Alfred George Talent and Thelma Emily (née Henderson) at Ascot Vale, Victoria. He studied science at the University of Melbourne, graduating in science with majors in geology, chemistry and mathematics in 1953 and completing his master's degree in 1955 with a dissertation on Studies in the stratigraphy and paleontology of some paleozoic limestones of Eastern Victoria. He obtained a PhD in 1959 on the thesis Contributions to the stratigraphy and palaeontology of the Silurian and Devonian of Gippsland. He followed this in 1966 by taking a bachelor of arts degree in 1966 with majors in French and fine arts, and a minor in Arabic. Talent was awarded the a post-doctoral fellowship from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) with which he spent time in Brussels, Belgium,


id: thiotimoline-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiotimoline-0.md
category: reference
title: Thiotimoline
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiotimoline
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:11.958549+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: thiotimoline-20260505-0
summary:
Thiotimoline is a fictitious chemical compound conceived by American biochemist and science fiction author Isaac Asimov. It was first described in a spoof scientific paper titled "The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline" in 1948. The major peculiarity of the chemical is its "endochronicity": it starts dissolving before it makes contact with water. Asimov went on to write three additional short stories, each describing different properties or uses of thiotimoline. == Chemical properties == In Asimov's writings the endochronicity of thiotimoline is explained by the fact that in the thiotimoline molecule, there is at least one carbon atom such that, while two of the carbon's four chemical bonds lie in normal space and time, one of the bonds projects into the future and another into the past. Thiotimoline is derived from the bark of the (fictitious) shrub Rosacea karlsbadensis rufo, and the thiotimoline molecule includes at least fourteen hydroxy groups, two amino groups, and one sulfonic acid group, and possibly one nitro compound group as well. The nature of the hydrocarbon nucleus is unknown, although it seems in part to be an aromatic hydrocarbon. == Background == In 1947 Asimov was engaged in doctoral research in chemistry and, as part of


id: thiotimoline-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiotimoline-1.md
category: reference
title: Thiotimoline
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiotimoline
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:11.958549+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: thiotimoline-20260505-0
summary:
== "Thiotimoline and the Space Age" == Asimov wrote a third thiotimoline article on 14 November 1959 called "Thiotimoline and the Space Age". Instead of a fake scientific paper, this third article took the form of an address by Asimov to the 12th annual meeting of the American Chronochemical Society, a nonexistent scientific society. In his address, Asimov "describes" his first experiments with thiotimoline in July 1947, and timing the compound's dissolution with the original endochronometer, "the same instrument now at the Smithsonian". Asimov laments the skepticism with which chronochemistry has been greeted in America, noting with sorrow that his address has only attracted fifteen attendees. He then contrasts the thriving state of chronochemistry in the Soviet Union, with the research town of Khrushchevsk, nicknamed "Tiotimolingrad", established in the Urals. According to Asimov, two Scottish researchers have developed a "telechronic battery", which uses a series of 77,000 interconnected endochronometers to allow a final sample of thiotimoline to dissolve up to a day before water is added to an initial sample. Asimov says there is "strong, if indirect, evidence that the Soviet Union possesses even more sophisticated devices and is turning them out in commercial quantities". He believes that the Soviets


id: thiotimoline-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiotimoline-2.md
category: reference
title: Thiotimoline
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiotimoline
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:11.958549+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: thiotimoline-20260505-0
summary:
== Other references to thiotimoline == In Glen Bever's story "And Silently Vanish Away" a chemist with the unique ability to use psychokinetic catalysis to speed up difficult reactions is shocked by a lab explosion and the mixture he was working on gets changed. Under analysis the structure never appears to be the same twice and when the substance is injected into lab rats they start to silently and suddenly vanish. It is found that one part of the compound is a molecule which spreads out into four dimensions. The four-dimensional molecule is thiotimoline. The story appeared in the November 1971 issue of Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact. Topi H. Barr's story "Antithiotimoline" deals with a chemist who accidentally creates a thiotimoline-like compound which extrudes only into the past, enabling the scientist to create images of past events. The narrator complains that thiotimoline is extremely difficult to obtain, and suspects that the CIA or other agencies are controlling the supply for their own reasons. The story appeared in the December 1977 issue of Analog. Spider Robinson's story "Mirror mirror, off the wall", published in Time Travelers Strictly Cash in 1981, also references thiotimoline. In Robert Silverberg's 1989 story "The Asenion Solution",


id: time-travel-claims-and-urban-legends-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_travel_claims_and_urban_legends-0.md
category: reference
title: Time travel claims and urban legends
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_travel_claims_and_urban_legends
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:13.108313+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: time-travel-claims-and-urban-legends-20260505-0
summary:
Multiple accounts of people who allegedly travelled through time have been reported by the press or circulated online. These reports have turned out to be either hoaxes or else based on incorrect assumptions, incomplete information, or interpretation of fiction as fact. Many are now recognized as urban legends. == Alleged time travelers == === Charlotte Anne Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain === In 1911, Charlotte Anne Moberly (1846–1937) and Eleanor Jourdain (1863–1924) published a book entitled An Adventure, under the names of "Elizabeth Morison" and "Frances Lamont". They described a visit to the Petit Trianon, a small château in the grounds of the Palace of Versailles, where they claimed they saw ghosts, including that of Marie Antoinette and others. Their story caused a sensation but was not taken seriously. === "Chaplin's Time Traveller" === In October 2010, Northern Irish filmmaker George Clarke uploaded a video clip entitled "Chaplin's Time Traveller" to YouTube. The clip analyzes bonus material in a DVD of the Charlie Chaplin film The Circus. Included in the DVD is footage from the film's Los Angeles premiere at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in 1928. At one point, a woman is seen walking by, holding up an object to her ear.


id: time-travel-claims-and-urban-legends-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_travel_claims_and_urban_legends-1.md
category: reference
title: Time travel claims and urban legends
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_travel_claims_and_urban_legends
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:13.108313+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: time-travel-claims-and-urban-legends-20260505-0
summary:
=== Mike "Madman" Marcum === In 1995, a caller to Art Bell's syndicated radio show Coast to Coast AM named Mike Marcum claimed to have discovered a means of time travel using a Jacob's ladder. In attempting to build a larger version of this device, Marcum admitted that he had stolen several power transformers from the local power company, St. Joseph Light and Power in King City, Missouri; in using them to power his "time machine" he caused a local blackout that brought him to the attention of authorities. Police records confirmed that he had been arrested for this theft and sentenced to 60 days in jail plus a suspended sentence. He called the radio show again in 1996, stating he was building a second "time machine" from legally acquired parts, and was 30 days from completing the device. He claimed to have sent around 200 items and small animals through this device and announced that he would travel through it himself. Marcum then "disappeared" in 1997. His absence led to a number of theories, as well as giving birth to a number of urban legends. In 2015, Bell interviewed him again on his radio show, Midnight in the Desert,


id: time-travel-claims-and-urban-legends-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_travel_claims_and_urban_legends-2.md
category: reference
title: Time travel claims and urban legends
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_travel_claims_and_urban_legends
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:13.108313+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: time-travel-claims-and-urban-legends-20260505-0
summary:
=== Håkan Nordkvist === A video uploaded in 2006 shows a Swedish man named Håkan Nordkvist claiming he was accidentally transported to 2046 while attempting to fix the sink in his kitchen. There in the future, he immediately met someone who turned out to be himself, about 70 years old, and with whom he "had a great time". He filmed short footage of the two smiling and hugging each other and showing the tattoo they had on their right arms. The story was part of a marketing campaign promoting the insurance company's pension plans. === iPhone in a 1860 painting === Some online viewers claimed that an 1860 painting by Austrian artist Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller titled The Expected depicted a woman holding a mobile phone and staring down at it while strolling along a country path. However, art experts debunked these claims, stating that the alleged mobile phone the woman was holding in the painting was actually a prayer book. == Alleged time-travel technology == === Die Glocke === Die Glocke ("The Bell") is a purported Nazi time machine that was supposedly part of a flying saucer. === The Chronovisor === Italian Benedictine monk Pellegrino Ernetti claimed to have used


id: tr-ara-a-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TR_Araña-0.md
category: reference
title: TR Araña
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TR_Araña
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:14.304013+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: tr-ara-a-20260505-0
summary:
The TR Araña (Spanish, meaning "route tracing spider") is a robot that is claimed to remotely analyse the composition of the ground. The device was created by Chilean inventor Manuel Salinas and was reported to be able to operate at depths of up to 50 metres. It is widely believed by the scientific community to be a fraud. == Principles == Answering a request by the Chilean Commission on Nuclear Energy, Salinas wrote the following paragraph: "[The principle behind the robot is] The non linear integration of the basic unit of life conformation the way it is known; therefore and merely as a functional and explanatory concept, I detail that our device is the integration of highly sophisticated electronic components which are able to decipher the unanimity equation in the chaos theory in the context of an integral raised to the power of the radical exponent, based in the conformation of the species, the way they are known after 20,000 years of assisted evolution." At a presentation to students, physicists, and engineers at the Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María in Valparaíso, Chile, on 12 October 2005, Salinas gave improbable and seemingly irrational theories to explain how his machine worked. He


id: trixolan-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trixolan-0.md
category: reference
title: Trixolan
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trixolan
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:15.442248+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: trixolan-20260505-0
summary:
Trixolan (TX) is a purportedly therapeutic agent based on Viroxan, a citronella-based substance used by Stephen Herman, a Californian doctor who used it to treat AIDS patients. State medical officials stated that the drug hastened the deaths of at least two AIDS patients. Herman surrendered his medical license in 1991 when prosecutors agreed they would, in return, drop civil charges of gross negligence, incompetence, dishonesty and other offenses. In 1994, in the first AIDS medical fraud case to come to trial in the United States, a Los Angeles County jury ordered two doctors and a hospital that used Viroxan to pay five patients a total of $2.7 million. Herman had been dropped from the suit when he declared bankruptcy. Trixolan was linked in headlines to American fugitive Robert Lee Vesco and to Donald A. Nixon, President Richard Nixon's nephew. In the early 1980s Donald Nixon's wife contracted breast cancer and was treated with chemotherapy. In the search for a remedy for her cancer, he met with Dr. Stephen Herman, who claimed that Viroxan could boost the immune system and could get rid of many diseases, including cancer. Donald Nixon gave his wife Trixolan and claimed that it cured his wife's


id: the-truth-about-hansel-and-gretel-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truth_About_Hansel_and_Gretel-0.md
category: reference
title: The Truth About Hansel and Gretel
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truth_About_Hansel_and_Gretel
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:16.605846+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-truth-about-hansel-and-gretel-20260505-0
summary:
The Truth About Hansel and Gretel (German: Die Wahrheit über Hänsel und Gretel) is a 1963 book written by German children's author and humorist Hans Traxler, which described how an amateur archaeologist named Georg Ossegg uncovered evidence that the story about Hansel and Gretel was based on real events, just as Heinrich Schliemann discovered the city of Troy from Ancient Greek legends. The book immediately became a bestseller, but in several months Traxler confessed it was a hoax. == Summary == According to the book, Ossegg determined that the fairytale, Hansel and Gretel, was based on the story of a 17th-century baker named Hans Metzler and his sister Grete. Hans and Grete Metzler lived in a village in the Spessart Forest during the Thirty Years' War, and killed a woman named Katharina Schraderin in order to steal her recipe for Nürnberger Lebkuchen (gingerbread). In reality, Ossegg did not exist and the details of the story were fabricated by Traxler. Vanessa Joosen has called the book a "fictive nonfictional text", which "carries the features of a nonfictional text but consciously misleads the reader". == In popular culture == Despite its fictional nature, the hoax convinced many in Germany at the time,


id: turbo-encabulator-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo_encabulator-0.md
category: reference
title: Turbo encabulator
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo_encabulator
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:17.763732+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: turbo-encabulator-20260505-0
summary:
The turbo encabulator is a fictional electromechanical machine with a satirical technobabble description that became a famous in-joke among engineers after a report about it by John Quick was published by the British Institution of Electrical Engineers in their Students' Quarterly Journal in 1944. Technical documentation has been written for the non-existent machine, and there are a number of parody marketing videos. ...The original machine had a base-plate of prefamulated amulite, surmounted by a malleable logarithmic casing in such a way that the two main spurving bearings were in a direct line with the pentametric fan. The latter consisted simply of six hydrocoptic marzlevanes, so fitted to the ambifacient lunar waneshaft that side fumbling was effectively prevented. The main winding was of the normal lotus-o-delta type placed in panendermic semi-boloid slots in the stator, every seventh conductor being connected by a non-reversible tremie pipe to the differential girdlespring on the "up" end of the grammeters... == History == An early popular American reference to the turbo encabulator appeared in an article by New York lawyer Bernard Salwen in the April 15, 1946, issue of Time magazine. Part of Salwen's job was to review technical manuscripts, including an Arthur D. Little


id: villejuif-leaflet-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villejuif_leaflet-0.md
category: reference
title: Villejuif leaflet
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villejuif_leaflet
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:18.923543+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: villejuif-leaflet-20260505-0
summary:
The Villejuif leaflet, also known as the Villejuif flyer and the Villejuif list, was a pamphlet which enjoyed wide distribution. The leaflet listed a number of safe food additives with their E numbers as alleged carcinogens. The leaflet caused mass panic in Europe in the late 1970s and 1980s. One of the entries on the list was citric acid (E330). Its name derives from its false claim to have been produced at the hospital in Villejuif. == History == The earliest known sighting of the leaflet was in February 1976, in the form of a single typewritten page in France. Homemade copies were spread across Europe for a decade in the form of a leaflet or flyer pamphlet that was distributed between friends and apart from citric acid included 16 other chemicals in a list of substances that it called dangerous toxins and carcinogens. The original author of the typewritten list was never found, and the leaflet affected about 7 million people in its uncontrollable propagation. In a survey of 150 housewives, 19% said they have stopped buying these brands, and 69% planned to do so. == List contents == Multiple versions of this leaflet circulated, the exact set of


id: well-to-hell-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Well_to_Hell-0.md
category: reference
title: Well to Hell
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Well_to_Hell
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:20.105350+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: well-to-hell-20260505-0
summary:
The "Well to Hell", also known as the "Siberian hell sounds", is an urban legend regarding a putative borehole in the Siberian region of Russia, which was purportedly drilled so deep that it broke through into Hell. == Legend and basis == The legend holds that a team of Soviet engineers purportedly led by an individual named "Mr. Azakov" in an unnamed place in Siberia had drilled a hole that was 14.4 km (9 miles) deep before breaking through to a cavity. Intrigued by this unexpected discovery, they lowered an extremely heat-tolerant microphone, along with other sensory equipment, into the well. The temperature deep within was 1,000 °C (1,800 °F), heat from a chamber of fire from which screaming could be heard. The Soviet Union had, in fact, drilled a hole more than 12 km (7.5 miles) deep, the Kola Superdeep Borehole, located not in Siberia but on the Kola Peninsula, which shares borders with Norway and Finland. Upon reaching the depth of 12,262 m (40,230 feet) in 1989, geological anomalies were found, although they reported no supernatural encounters. The recording of "tormented screams" was later found to be looped together from various sound effects, sometimes identified as the soundtrack


id: when-contact-changes-minds-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Contact_Changes_Minds-0.md
category: reference
title: When Contact Changes Minds
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Contact_Changes_Minds
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:21.307446+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: when-contact-changes-minds-20260505-0
summary:
"When Contact Changes Minds: An Experiment on Transmission of Support for Gay Equality" is a fraudulent article by then-UCLA political science graduate student Michael LaCour and Columbia University political science professor Donald Green. The article was published in the academic journal Science in December 2014, and retracted in May 2015 after it emerged that the data in the study had been forged by LaCour. The article purported to demonstrate that people's minds on the issue of gay marriage could be changed by conversations with gay canvassers, but not with straight canvassers. == Study == The authors claimed to have investigated whether gay or straight messengers were effective at encouraging voters to support same-sex marriage and whether attitude change persisted and spread to others in voters’ social networks. The purported results, measured by an unrelated panel survey, show that both gay and straight canvassers produced large effects initially, but only gay canvassers’ effects persisted in 3-week, 6-week, and 9-month follow-ups. LaCour and Green (2014) also found strong evidence of within-household transmission of opinion change, but only in the wake of conversations with gay canvassers. The article is ranked in the top 5% of all research output, as scored using Altmetrics. The


id: when-contact-changes-minds-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Contact_Changes_Minds-1.md
category: reference
title: When Contact Changes Minds
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Contact_Changes_Minds
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:21.307446+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: when-contact-changes-minds-20260505-0
summary:
== Falsified data == The "When contact changes minds" study was discredited after a critique by David Broockman, Joshua Kalla, and Peter Aronow on May 19, 2015, titled "Irregularities in LaCour (2014)", concluded that the data had been falsified and no data had been collected. The survey company that LaCour claimed to have used denied performing any work for the study and did not have an employee by the name LaCour listed as his contact with the company. In addition, LaCour had claimed that participants were paid using outside funding, but no organization could be found that had provided the amount of money required to pay thousands of people. The "Irregularities" paper also identified the likely method by which LaCour had forged the data. The baseline survey results appeared to have been taken from an earlier dataset called the Cooperative Campaign Analysis Project (CCAP), to which LaCour had access. The later sets of data appeared to have been simulated from the first using statistical methods to shift the results and by adding normally distributed noise. In addition, the paper noted that canvasser identifiers were missing from the results, making it impossible to verify whether different canvassers produced different results as


id: when-contact-changes-minds-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Contact_Changes_Minds-2.md
category: reference
title: When Contact Changes Minds
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Contact_Changes_Minds
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:21.307446+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: when-contact-changes-minds-20260505-0
summary:
== Popular press == While Green, David Broockman, and Joshua Kalla conducted numerous interviews with reporters outlining their version of events, LaCour refrained from talking to the media with the exception of a single interview with The New York Times. Various opinions were advanced in the popular media regarding the implications of the scandal and the motivations of the parties involved. The editorial page of The Wall Street Journal speculated that LaCour's argument originally gained acceptance in the scientific community because it "flattered the ideological sensibilities of liberals, who tend to believe that resistance to gay marriage can only be the artifact of ignorance or prejudice, not moral or religious conviction. Mr. LaCour's findings let them claim that science had proved them right." The Journal editorial further argued that the paper and its acceptance reflected a broader phenomenon in the social sciences in which liberals, according to the editorial, "recast stubborn political debates about philosophy and values as disputes over facts that can be resolved by science". New York Magazine columnist Jesse Singal dismissed the Wall Street Journal editorial, arguing that it was silly and uninformed, and suggested instead that the main reason for the article's publication was its contradiction


id: when-prophecy-fails-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Prophecy_Fails-0.md
category: reference
title: When Prophecy Fails
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Prophecy_Fails
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:22.517812+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: when-prophecy-fails-20260505-0
summary:
When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group That Predicted the Destruction of the World is a classic work of social psychology by Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken, and Stanley Schachter, published in 1956, detailing a study of a small UFO religion in Chicago called the Seekers that believed in an imminent apocalypse. The authors took a particular interest in the members' coping mechanisms after the event did not occur, focusing on the cognitive dissonance between the members' beliefs and actual events, and the psychological consequences of these disconfirmed expectations. Later archival work has alleged that many of the book's core claims are based on fabrications or exaggerations. == Overview == Festinger, Riecken, and Schachter were already studying the effects of prophecy disconfirmation on groups of believers when they read a story in a local newspaper headlined "Prophecy from Planet. Clarion Call to City: Flee That Flood. It'll Swamp us on Dec. 21". The prophecy came from Dorothy Martin (1900–1992), a Chicago housewife who practised automatic writing, and it outlined a catastrophe predicted for a specific date in their near future. Seeing an opportunity to test their theories with a contemporary case study, the research team infiltrated


id: when-prophecy-fails-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Prophecy_Fails-1.md
category: reference
title: When Prophecy Fails
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Prophecy_Fails
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:22.517812+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: when-prophecy-fails-20260505-0
summary:
=== Methodology === The study was principally qualitative in nature, with data collected through participant observation, without the permission of the people being observed. The authors of the study and a selection of paid observers infiltrated groups of believers in two locations, in order to collect data as trusted insiders. Posing as people with a genuine personal interest in flying saucers and the group's belief system, the observers built rapport with the group members, aiming to take as passive a role as possible whilst gathering information on the group. Between them, the observers aimed to be present at all key events. Following each notable occurrence, each observer would attempt to excuse themselves in order to write up their notes or record them on audiotape while their memory was still fresh. They would record their notes in a variety of locations, including the bathroom of the house, the porch, or in a nearby hotel room that had been rented for the purpose. In addition to their own notes, the observers collected artifacts such as originals or copies of automatic writing produced by Martin, and transcripts of taped telephone calls that the research subjects themselves had recorded and lent to the observers.


id: when-prophecy-fails-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Prophecy_Fails-2.md
category: reference
title: When Prophecy Fails
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Prophecy_Fails
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:22.517812+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: when-prophecy-fails-20260505-0
summary:
December 17. Ms. Keech received a phone call from person identifying himself as "Captain Video" from outer space, telling her that a saucer was to land in her backyard to pick her up at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. (Festinger considers this call to have been made by a practical joker reacting to press coverage of Keech's group.) Some of the group initially questioned the call, before accepting it and preparing themselves to be collected by the saucer, removing all metal objects from their persons. By 5:30 pm the group appeared to have given up, and were reluctant to discuss the issue of why the saucer had not arrived. When the matter was discussed, they agreed that the event had been a practice session. Ms. Keech received another message later that day that the saucer would pick them up at 1:30 am. The group waited for the saucer until 3:30 am then gave up. Before December 20. The group shuns publicity. Interviews are given only grudgingly. Access to Keech's house is only provided to those who can convince the group that they are true believers. The group evolves a belief system – provided by the automatic writing from the planet


id: who-s-afraid-of-peer-review-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who's_Afraid_of_Peer_Review-0.md
category: reference
title: Who's Afraid of Peer Review?
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who's_Afraid_of_Peer_Review?
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:23.700807+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: who-s-afraid-of-peer-review-20260505-0
summary:
"Who's Afraid of Peer Review?" is an article written by Science correspondent John Bohannon that describes his investigation of peer review among fee-charging open-access journals. Between January and August 2013, Bohannon submitted fake scientific papers to 304 journals owned by fee-charging open access publishers. The papers, writes Bohannon, "were designed with such grave and obvious scientific flaws that they should have been rejected immediately by editors and peer reviewers", but 60% of the journals accepted them. The article and associated data were published in the 4 October 2013 issue of Science as open access. == Background == The first fee-charging open access scientific journals began appearing in 2000 with the creation of BioMed Central and then the Public Library of Science. Rather than deriving at least some of their revenue from subscription fees, fee-charging open access journals only charge the authors (or their funders) a publication fee. The published papers are then freely available on the internet. This business model, gold open access, is one of several solutions devised to make open access publishing sustainable. The number of articles published open access, or made freely available after some time behind a paywall (delayed open access), has grown rapidly. A 2013


id: who-s-afraid-of-peer-review-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who's_Afraid_of_Peer_Review-1.md
category: reference
title: Who's Afraid of Peer Review?
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who's_Afraid_of_Peer_Review?
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:23.700807+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: who-s-afraid-of-peer-review-20260505-0
summary:
=== Responses from open-access academic publishers === Since the story was released, publishers of three journals have stated that they are shutting them down. The DOAJ is reviewing its list and instituting tighter criteria for inclusion. The Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA) formed a committee to investigate the circumstances that led to the acceptance of the fake paper by three of its members. On 11 November 2013, OASPA terminated the membership of two publishers (Dove Medical Press and Hikari Ltd.) who accepted the fake paper. SAGE Publications, which also accepted a fake paper, was put "under review" for 6 months. Sage announced in a statement that it was reviewing the journal that accepted the fake paper, but that it would not shut it down. Sage's membership was reinstated at the end of the review period following changes to the journal's editorial processes. === Responses from the scientific community === Within hours of its publication, the Science investigation came under intense criticism by some supporters of the open-access movement. The first substantial critique was posted by PLOS cofounder Michael Eisen on his blog. "To suggest – as Science (though not Bohannon) are trying to do – that the problem with


id: f-d-c-willard-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._D._C._Willard-0.md
category: reference
title: F. D. C. Willard
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._D._C._Willard
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:24.902918+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: f-d-c-willard-20260505-0
summary:
F. D. C. Willard (1968–1982) was the pen name of Chester, a Siamese cat, used on several papers written by his owner, J. H. Hetherington, in physics journals. On one occasion, he was listed as the sole author. == Background == In 1975, the American physicist and mathematician Jack H. Hetherington of Michigan State University wanted to publish some of his research results in the field of low-temperature physics in the scientific journal Physical Review Letters. A colleague, to whom he had given his paper for review, pointed out that Hetherington had used the first person plural, "we", in his text, and that the journal would reject this form on submissions with a sole author. Rather than take the time to retype the article to use the singular form, or to bring in a co-author, Hetherington decided to invent one. == Publications == Hetherington had a Siamese cat named Chester, who had been sired by a Siamese named Willard. Fearing that colleagues might recognize his pet's name, he thought it better to use the pet's initial. Aware that most Americans have at least two given names, he invented two more given names based on the scientific name for a house


id: bibliothek-des-konservatismus-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibliothek_des_Konservatismus-0.md
category: reference
title: Bibliothek des Konservatismus
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibliothek_des_Konservatismus
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:26.409809+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: bibliothek-des-konservatismus-20260505-0
summary:
The Library of Conservatism (German: Bibliothek des Konservatismus (BdK)) is a specialized scientific library and think tank in Berlin. Its focus is non-fiction literature by conservative, right-wing and libertarian authors from the 18th to the early 21st century. The principal foundation for the library was laid by the writer and publicist Caspar von Schrenck-Notzing who gave his extensive private collection of books. The BdK opened in 2012 in Berlin. So far, its catalogued stock comprises around 35,000 items. The library is financed and supported by the Foundation for Conservative Education and Research (Förderstiftung Konservative Bildung und Forschung, FKBF). == Establishment == The writer and publicist Caspar von Schrenck-Notizing (1927–2009) was the scion of an old Bavarian family and a bestselling author and conservative critique in post-war Germany, who founded the bimonthly journal "Criticón" in 1970 that became a focal point for conservative and right-wing intellectuals in the Federal Republic of Germany. In 2000, he established the Foundation for Conservative Education and Research (FKBF) in Munich to preserve his private library of around 20,000 books. Since 2007, Dieter Stein, the editor of weekly newspaper Junge Freiheit, is the chairman of the foundation. In 2012, the library opened to the public in


id: german-national-library-of-science-and-technology-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_National_Library_of_Science_and_Technology-0.md
category: reference
title: German National Library of Science and Technology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_National_Library_of_Science_and_Technology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:27.590220+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: german-national-library-of-science-and-technology-20260505-0
summary:
The German National Library of Science and Technology (German: Technische Informationsbibliothek), abbreviated TIB, is the national library of the Federal Republic of Germany for all fields of engineering, technology, and the natural sciences. It is jointly funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the 16 German states. Founded in 1959, the library operates in conjunction with the Leibniz Universität Hannover. In addition to acquiring scientific literature, it conducts applied research in such areas as the archiving of non-textual materials, data visualization and the future Internet. The library is also involved in a number of open access initiatives. With a collection of about 8.9 million items in 2012, the TIB is the largest technology and natural science library in the world. == Collection == The TIB acquires literature in all engineering fields as well as architecture, information technology, chemistry, mathematics, physics and other basic sciences. It is a particular specialist in the acquisition of "gray literature"; that is, literature difficult to obtain and not available via the standard book or journal trade. It also holds a large number of standards, norms, patents, source data, scientific conference proceedings, government research papers and dissertations. Special collections include the "Albrecht


id: german-national-library-of-science-and-technology-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_National_Library_of_Science_and_Technology-1.md
category: reference
title: German National Library of Science and Technology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_National_Library_of_Science_and_Technology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:27.590220+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: german-national-library-of-science-and-technology-20260505-0
summary:
== Research projects == As part of the German national research infrastructure, the TIB conducts its own applied research, particularly in the field of information science. In cooperation with a variety of other institutions, these projects focus on the areas of visual searching, data visualization, the Semantic Web, and the Future Internet. === PROBADO 3D === PROBADO is a project to develop tools for the automatic indexing, storage and delivery of non-textual documents such as 3D models. Its goal is to enable academic libraries to deal with multimedia objects just as easily as with textual information. Tools include searching by intuitive drawing in 2D and 3D and delivery of results while drawing. For this initiative the TIB partnered with the Technical University of Darmstadt, the University of Bonn and the Technical University of Graz. === Visual access to research data === This project, funded by the Leibniz Association, is a joint effort of the TIB, the GRIS Darmstadt (Interactive Graphics Systems at the Technical University of Darmstadt) and the IGD (Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics). It deals with developing approaches to the interactive, graphical access to research data in order to make it easily represented and searchable. The project is


id: gerstein-science-information-centre-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerstein_Science_Information_Centre-0.md
category: reference
title: Gerstein Science Information Centre
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerstein_Science_Information_Centre
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:28.812586+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: gerstein-science-information-centre-20260505-0
summary:
The Gerstein Science Information Centre is the University of Toronto's flagship library supporting the sciences and health sciences. The largest science and health science academic library in Canada, Gerstein has a collection of over 945,000 print volumes of journals and books, and also provides access to over 100,000 online journals and books. It is located in the Sigmund Samuel Library Building on the St. George campus in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The Gerstein Science Information Centre's collection consists primarily of material on the sciences, including the health sciences, medicine, physics, chemistry, biology and their subfields, with the exception of mathematical journals and forestry, botany and geology materials. The library provides varying degrees of access to students, faculty, external researchers, and members of the public. == History == The library originally existed as the main University of Toronto library, and maintained this status from 1892 to 1973. In 1973 the humanities and social sciences materials were moved to the then newly built Robarts Library, and the remaining collection was divided between the undergraduate Sigmund Samuel Library and the Science and Medicine Library. In 1997, the Science and Medicine Library was renamed the Gerstein Science Information Centre after a significant donation from


id: national-research-council-canada-national-science-library-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Research_Council_Canada_National_Science_Library-0.md
category: reference
title: National Research Council Canada National Science Library
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Research_Council_Canada_National_Science_Library
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:29.974732+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: national-research-council-canada-national-science-library-20260505-0
summary:
The National Science Library (NSL), formerly known as the Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information or CISTI, began in 1917 as the library of the National Research Council of Canada (NRC). NRC is the Government of Canada's premier research and technology organization (RTO), working with clients and partners to provide innovation support, strategic research, scientific and technical services. The library took on the role of national science library unofficially in 1957 and became the official National Science Library in 1966. The National Science Library is located in Ottawa, Ontario, and houses one of the world's most comprehensive collections of publications in science, technology, engineering and medicine. It is part of NRC's Knowledge, Information and Technology Services Branch and provides NRC and Canada's research community with information and information services to accelerate discovery, innovation and commercialization. The NRC Research Press joined the library in 1992. On September 1, 2010, NRC Research Press became a private company called Canadian Science Publishing and is no longer directly affiliated with CISTI or the NRC. == Partnership initiatives == Shared library services – The NSL works with other Government of Canada science-based departments on a number of collaborative initiatives to realize common goals and


id: national-science-library-bangladesh-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Science_Library_(Bangladesh)-0.md
category: reference
title: National Science Library (Bangladesh)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Science_Library_(Bangladesh)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:31.131492+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: national-science-library-bangladesh-20260505-0
summary:
The National Science Library is a state owned and supported science library of Bangladesh. == History == The National Science Library was established in 1981 under the Bangladesh National Scientific and Technical Documentation Centre. Its functions are to collect scientific publications and books. == References ==


id: national-science-library-georgia-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Science_Library_(Georgia)-0.md
category: reference
title: National Science Library (Georgia)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Science_Library_(Georgia)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:32.299075+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: national-science-library-georgia-20260505-0
summary:
The National Scientific Library (Georgian: ეროვნული სამეცნიერო ბიბლიოთეკა) is a library in Tbilisi, Georgia. National Scientific Library is a biggest library in Georgia. Established in 1941, it initially served only the employees of the Georgian National Academy of Sciences. Presently library has three buildings: founded in 1941 former Central Library of Georgian Academy of Sciences, founded in 1965 Science and Technology Library and founded in 1961 Library-Museum of Ioseb Grishashvili. == See also == List of libraries in Georgia (country) == References ==


id: radcliffe-science-library-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radcliffe_Science_Library-0.md
category: reference
title: Radcliffe Science Library
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radcliffe_Science_Library
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:34.566727+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: radcliffe-science-library-20260505-0
summary:
The Radcliffe Science Library (RSL) is the main teaching and research science library at the University of Oxford in Oxford, England. Being officially part of the Bodleian Libraries, the library holds the Legal Deposit material for the sciences and is thus entitled to receive a copy of all British scientific publications. Since 2023 the library has shared its buildings with Reuben College. == History == The physician John Radcliffe died in 1714, leaving money in his will to establish the Radcliffe Observatory, the Radcliffe Infirmary and the Radcliffe Library, which was intended to contain "modern books in all faculties and languages, not in the Bodleian Library". The library's building on a site south of the Bodleian Library was completed in 1749 and is now known as the Radcliffe Camera. The scientific books housed in the Radcliffe Camera were transferred to the Oxford University Museum of Natural History in 1861. A new Radcliffe Library building opened in 1901, on land next to the museum (on the corner of Parks Road and South Parks Road). In 1927, the library lost its independence, for financial efficiency becoming part of the Bodleian Library. The library took on its current name, the Radcliffe Science Library,


id: regional-planetary-image-facility-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_Planetary_Image_Facility-0.md
category: reference
title: Regional Planetary Image Facility
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_Planetary_Image_Facility
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:35.677978+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: regional-planetary-image-facility-20260505-0
summary:
The Regional Planetary Image Facilities (RPIFs) are planetary image and data libraries located throughout the United States and abroad that are funded by the host institutions. They once had funding from NASA. A network of these facilities was established in 1977 to maintain photographic and digital data as well as mission documentation. Each facility's general holding contains images and maps of planets and their satellites taken by solar system exploration spacecraft. These planetary image facilities are often open to the public. The facilities are primarily reference centers for browsing, studying, and selecting lunar and planetary photographic and cartographic materials. Experienced staff can assist scientists, educators, students, media, and the public in ordering materials for their own use. Since it was formally established, the network of RPIFs once numbered nine U.S. facilities and seven in other countries. The first RPIF to be established outside of the U.S. was in England in 1980 at the University College London (UCL), and since then RPIFs have been set up in Canada, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, and Japan. == Resources and services offered == The RPIFs store and maintain a variety of planetary data and imagery, making them unique resources covering decades of planetary science.


id: russian-national-public-library-for-science-and-technology-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_National_Public_Library_for_Science_and_Technology-0.md
category: reference
title: Russian National Public Library for Science and Technology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_National_Public_Library_for_Science_and_Technology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:36.875920+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: russian-national-public-library-for-science-and-technology-20260505-0
summary:
The Russian National Public Library for Science and Technology (Russian: Государственная Публичная Научно-Техническая Библиотека России, romanized: Gosudarstvennaya Publichnaya Nauchno-Tekhnicheskaya Biblioteka Rossii), abbreviated GPNTB (Russian: ГПНТБ) is a national library for engineering, science, and technology in Moscow, Russia. It was founded in 1958 on the basis of the State Science Library of the Ministry of Higher Education of the Soviet Union. It is located in Khoroshyovsky district of Moscow. The mission of the library is to collect and store national and foreign science and technical literature, then disseminate information and bibliographical services for commercial, organisations and other institutions of the Russian Federation, development and application of up-to-date automated information technologies. == See also == List of libraries in Russia == References == == External links == Official website


id: slavonic-library-in-prague-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavonic_Library_in_Prague-0.md
category: reference
title: Slavonic Library in Prague
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavonic_Library_in_Prague
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:38.078618+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: slavonic-library-in-prague-20260505-0
summary:
The Slavonic Library (Czech: Slovanská knihovna) in Prague is a publicly accessible specialised research library for the field of Slavic Studies. It is one of the largest and most important Slavic libraries in Europe. Since its foundation in 1924, it has been systematically complementing, processing and making accessible its collection of world research Slavic (mainly historical, philological and political-science) literature and selected original production of Slavic authors. Its depositories contain more than 850,000 volumes of library documents, a collection of maps, posters, visual and artistic materials, and numerous collections of special documents. The Slavonic Library provides library and information services concerning the political, economic and cultural life of the Slavic nations, their mutual relations and their relations to other nations in the past as well as the present. Documents can be studied in the library's public reading room, provided with free internet access, an extensive reference library and open-access shelving with a large number of volumes. The library processes and edits specialised bibliographies and publications in its field. It organizes cultural events, professional seminars, conferences and exhibitions. Following the decision of the International Committee of Slavists, it has fulfilled the function of the centre for recording and processing materials related


id: slavonic-library-in-prague-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavonic_Library_in_Prague-1.md
category: reference
title: Slavonic Library in Prague
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavonic_Library_in_Prague
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:38.078618+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: slavonic-library-in-prague-20260505-0
summary:
== The Book Collection == The book collection of the Slavonic Library comprises more than 850,000 library units (as of June 2018). On average, it is augmented by 9,000 new volumes of books and several hundred titles of periodicals every year. It is a varied collection of Slavic Studies literature, complexly mapping the historical, literary, philological and cultural topics of all Slavic nations. The core of individual national sections is formed by personal libraries acquired through donation or purchase in the first decades of the library's existence. Since the early 1930s, the acquisitions were carried out systematically according to a thematic plan of acquisition. The Slavonic Library owns several hundred historical manuscript books and several thousand early printed books published before 1800, but most of the collection is formed by the production of the 19th‒21st centuries. The holdings are complemented by a number of collections of special non-library documents. Almost all catalogue records of books and periodicals are available in the electronic catalogue of the Slavonic Library. Likewise the scanned general card catalogue of the Slavonic Library, used until 1996, and the scanned card catalogue of the Russian Historical Archives Abroad from 1923 to 1945 are accessible. The inventory lists


id: slavonic-library-in-prague-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavonic_Library_in_Prague-2.md
category: reference
title: Slavonic Library in Prague
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavonic_Library_in_Prague
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:38.078618+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: slavonic-library-in-prague-20260505-0
summary:
=== Collections of Special Documents === A valuable part of the holdings is the section of special collections containing documents of non-library character. Many of them are related to the topic of Russian and Ukrainian emigration of the interwar period: these are parts of the personal estates of the Russian émigrés Petr N. Savitskii, Antonii V. Florovskii, Alfred L. Bem and Vladimir N. Tukalevskii; the collection of the administrative documents of the Russian Historical Archives Abroad; and the collection of leaflets and invitations to cultural and social events of Russian and Ukrainian émigrés related to the activities of diverse Ukrainian organisations functioning in interwar Czechoslovakia. Another unique collection is the set of more than a thousand hand-painted posters and leaflets made by Ukrainian émigrés in former Czechoslovakia between 1918 and 1945. Other interesting documents include the correspondence of the Lusatian cultural figure Michał Hórnik, the protoiereus Nikolai N. Ryzhkov, the Ukrainian poet Lesia Ukrainka, the documents of the Leningrad artist Vadim M. Rokhlin, and the archive of clippings of articles about Yugoslavia from Czech periodicals in 1934‒1939. The items preserved in fragments include the correspondence of famous writers (P. I. Chaadaev, L. N. Tolstoi, F. M. Dostojevskii, A. M. Remizov


id: slavonic-library-in-prague-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavonic_Library_in_Prague-3.md
category: reference
title: Slavonic Library in Prague
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavonic_Library_in_Prague
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:31:38.078618+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: slavonic-library-in-prague-20260505-0
summary:
== Literature == Rachůnková, Zdeňka (2002). The Slavonic Library. Prague: National Library of the Czech Republic. pp. 3-28. ISBN 8070503947. Vacek, Jiří (2016). Slovanská knihovna - můj osud. Prague: National Library of the Czech Republic. ISBN 9788070506714. 2Strnadel, Jiří (1976). Padesát let Slovanské knihovny v Praze. Prague: Státní knihovna ČSR - Slovanská knihovna. pp. 73–122.. Řeháková, Michaela; Babka, Lukáš (2005). Soupis publikací vydaných Slovanskou knihovnou )1924 - 2004) [The List of Publications Issued by the Slavonic Library (1924–2004). Published on the Occasion of the 80th Anniversary of the Activities of the Slavonic Library]. Prague: National Library of the Czech Republic - Slavonic Library. ISBN 8070504595.M Vacek, Jiří; Babka, Lukáš (2009). Voices of the Banished. Periodical Press of the Emigration from Soviet Russia (1918–1945). Prague: National Library of the Czech Republic. ISBN 978-80-7050-559-5. Richard J. Kneeley – Edward Kasinec; The Slovanská knihovna in Prague and its RZIA Collection, Slavic Review 51 (1992), no. 1, pp. 122–130. == External links == The Slavonic Library website The electronic catalogue of the Slavonic Library The card catalogue of the Slavonic Library The card catalogue of the books from the Russian Historical Archives Abroad Special collections of the Slavonic Library New Acquisitions of Slavic Studies


