第二十八天：《经济学家》文章讲解之一

今天有两个任务。一是有一篇关于学术造假方面的文章，是应有些同学的要求提供的。注意文中的粗体部分，是一些可以借鉴的词汇与句子。二是选了《经济学家》的文章，文章本身并不难，如果不明白，可以看文章后面的摘要。

今天的结束语是：唯一不变的是变化本身（The only thing that does not change is change itself）。

一、学术造假方面的文章（Emf 研究人员科研数据造假）

学术行为不端 academic misconduct

伪造数据 falsify and fabricate data

Emf Researcher Made Up Data, Ori Says

In a blow to a research area hungry for credible findings, the federal Office of Research Integrity (ORI) reported last month that a biochemist "engaged in scientific misconduct... by intentionally falsifying and fabricating data and claims" in two studies on how electromagnetic fields (EMFs)--the kind shed by power lines and home appliances--affect living cells. The researcher, Robert P. Liburdy, formerly of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) in California, has agreed to ask the journals to retract the results. "There's a lot of acrimony in the [EMF] debate, and this won't calm things down," says Richard G. Stevens, a cancer epidemiologist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Hanford, Washington.

Liburdy's findings were among the first to offer a plausible mechanism for a possible link between EMF exposure and cancer or other diseases. In a pair of 1992 papers of which he is the sole author, Liburdy offered evidence that EMFs increase the flow of calcium into lymphocytes, a kind of immune cell produced in the thymus. The papers created a stir, as calcium ions signal cells to turn genes on and off, and play a role in cell division. Because tumor growth is tied to cell proliferation, an alteration in calcium signaling could conceivably lead to cancer. But in an analysis obtained by Science, ORI states that "Liburdy's claims that EMF causes cellular effects related to calcium signaling [in three figures in the two journal articles] are not supported by the primary data."

Responding to an unknown whistle-blower's allegations of scientific misconduct by Liburdy, LBNL in January 1995 appointed a panel of four lab scientists to investigate. After reviewing raw data and interviewing Liburdy and other scientists, the panel concluded in a July 1995 report that Liburdy "deliberately created 'artificial' data where no such data existed" in a figure in FEBS Letters. In addition, it found, he fabricated data noise for a figure in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences "in order to mislead the reader." These actions, the panel stated, "fall within the definition of scientific misconduct." When contacted by Science, LBNL officials declined to comment, other than to confirm that Liburdy no longer works at the lab.

Because Liburdy had been awarded more than $3.3 million in federal grants for his EMF research, ORI launched a formal review of LBNL's report

责任编辑:gaoyan