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Boffins don't give a sh!t, slap Trump's face on a turd in science journal
A pair of boffins are in hot water after the image of President Donald Trump made an unexpected cameo in a paper on how to gather animal DNA from their poop at scale.
The paper [open, DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-20427-9] [DX], which was published in Nature Scientific Reports, discusses the difficulties of gaining high-quality DNA samples from wild animals in a non-invasive way. Feces is the obvious option, but it is dominated by DNA from other organisms, such as bacteria – so the authors proposed a way to enrich the desired animal's DNA from the sample.
However, the pair also buried an Easter egg in a figure depicting the method, which shows a baboon sitting next to an average-sized turd. And on that turd, is a tiny image of the leader of the free world.
[...] Here's a close-up of the image in question:
— Alec Muffett (@AlecMuffett) December 17, 2018
[...] "The editors have become aware of unusual aspects to the 'Extract fecal DNA' illustration in figure 1. We are investigating, and appropriate editorial action will be taken once the matter is resolved," a note said.
Here is the graphic referenced:
Figure 1: | Scientific Reports
(Score: 5, Touché) by FatPhil on Tuesday December 18 2018, @11:05AM (5 children)
Then how do you explain this in yours:
"the leader of the free world"
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 4, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 18 2018, @11:29AM (2 children)
Used to be, the reputations of scholarly journals were above reproach but lately they've really wrecked em. They should have wiped it as soon as it was discovered. Now the only question is how long do we rub their noses in it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Informative) by zocalo on Tuesday December 18 2018, @11:43AM (1 child)
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 18 2018, @12:14PM
Don't take the following as said with derision, it's meant to be read in camaraderie with a cheesy grin. Whoosh!
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 18 2018, @07:30PM (1 child)
appropriate editorial action will be taken....when we stop laughing.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday December 19 2018, @11:06AM
Don't take seriously a statement typed out only to be a vehicle for puns.
tl;dr Whoosh!
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 18 2018, @11:12AM (1 child)
So nature itself now investigates the content of papers?
Oh, wait, it's Nature, the journal (or rather its publisher). But then, why would Nature investigate a Science paper? Wouldn't that be the job of Science?
Oh wait, this time it's not a Science paper, that is paper published in the journal Science, but it's a science paper.
Capitalization in titles sucks!
(Score: 1) by shrewdsheep on Tuesday December 18 2018, @11:26AM
Science, for being what it is, might investigate science or Science, being what that would be. Nature, however, would still take its, well, natural cause, right? Put another way: shit happens, and that was one of the natural (side) conclusions in a scientific paper (or were these NATURAL conclusions in a SCIENTIFIC paper?).
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 18 2018, @11:21AM (2 children)
If you want to see the image without enabling JavaScript, here it is. [twimg.com]
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Tuesday December 18 2018, @07:56PM
When I go to a Twitter link, it asks me if I want to go to legacy Twitter because Javascript is disabled (Firefox with NoScript) . I like that feature.
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 18 2018, @09:01PM
Its a shitty picture of Trump, why would I want to see that?
(Score: 5, Funny) by c0lo on Tuesday December 18 2018, @12:17PM (3 children)
Jesus on toast [google.com], Trump on a turd, it's not that miraculous, it even has a scientific name: pareidolia [wikipedia.org].
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 18 2018, @02:24PM
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdBrlu7nUhs&feature=youtu.be [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday December 18 2018, @02:49PM
You beat me to it!
I was going to sarcastically post that the trump face on a turd could be naturally occurring just as images of Jesus on a piece of toast or the wood grain of a door. It's a Miracle!
Tickets for a viewing are on sale now!
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 2) by ilsa on Tuesday December 18 2018, @07:39PM
Oh hell there's a Trump one. That's the most horrifying toast I've ever seen.
(Score: 3, Troll) by realDonaldTrump on Tuesday December 18 2018, @12:28PM (2 children)
I saw a turd with a guy's face on it. And a 2nd turd with the face of a dog. Named Kenny and Christina. Real mature, folks! It's not mature, it's the opposite. So disapointing that somebody from my alma mater was part of this one. Too bad for Penn State. Because they won't be seeing my magnificent "endowment." And it really says so much that the editors of Nature Scientific Reports let this one go through. That could be why the magazine business isn't so great. Anyway, who cares?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday December 18 2018, @02:51PM (1 child)
Be sure to check carefully.
People say that it can sometimes be difficult to distinguish between a face on a turd and a turd on a face.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 18 2018, @03:47PM
There's Rule #34 proving such too.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 18 2018, @12:30PM (2 children)
Should see their government grants revoked and their home institutions nonprofit status seriously reconsidered.
(Score: 5, Funny) by DannyB on Tuesday December 18 2018, @02:53PM (1 child)
Wait . . . so you don't think this miraculous face on a turd is a significant enough discovery to warrant an increased grant for further study?
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday December 18 2018, @10:18PM
According to the article the image morphed from the leader of the free world, Angela Merkel, into a picture of Trump.
So apparently it's animated too!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bradley13 on Tuesday December 18 2018, @12:44PM (13 children)
If you look at the paper, there is absolutely no way that you would ever notice this. It's a small bit of a small bit of the illustration. Hence, the authors themselves must have called attention to it.
Funny, ha ha, at a grade school level.
This ought to result in disciplinary action from their universities, not because they are disrespecting Trump, but because they are the same level of maturity as poop-throwing baboons.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 1, Troll) by crafoo on Tuesday December 18 2018, @01:30PM (8 children)
It's low-class and juvenile. Not something to be punished for through their employment or government. The science community, their peers, know what they are now though: petty, unprofessional, and lacking a developed sense of humor. Act like petty children - be treated like petty children by your peers. Punishment enough.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 18 2018, @02:13PM (4 children)
Yes, much like the orange clown currently sitting in the oval office.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Sulla on Tuesday December 18 2018, @03:16PM (2 children)
It does not seem normal to me to think that it is okay to act like a child when you are doing the most important work that mankind can do (research). Bad behavior does not justify bad behavior. I kind of expect our presidents to be shitheads between Trump being himself, Bill gettiin blowjobs, Kennedy doing drugs, etc. The only people this damages are the people doing the research and their research for making it into a joke.
That said i think they should not be punished or anything for this, its their own reputatiion they are already damaging.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 5, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 18 2018, @03:49PM (1 child)
That's not the most important work mankind can do. Fermenting grain is.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday December 18 2018, @07:59PM
Zigackly! Hic!
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Friday December 21 2018, @09:00PM
I not defending Trump or commenting either way on his performance or degree of maturity.
Adding in your political jokes or views in a science paper is inappropriate and juvenile. It detracts from the scientific message and results, and may skew potential discussions of the science with your peers. I can only assume that their work isn't all that interesting or pertinent and so they injected some political wheezing in an attempt to gain some traction and discussion.
(Score: 1, Troll) by bradley13 on Tuesday December 18 2018, @02:43PM (1 child)
"It's low-class and juvenile. Not something to be punished for through their employment"
Sure it is. They did this while working for their employers. If you misbehave at your job, you should expect consequences from your employer.
It's not a firing offense, but I could certainly see denying them, say, one month of funding. For a post-doc, a month of rice-and-beans would probably send the required message.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 18 2018, @04:26PM
Postdocs are already living on rice and bean salaries.
Professors get their funding from government grants, personally.
The university can't order them to do anything, it would have to be the faculty senate or something like that who could threaten denial of tenure.
If they have tenure, they will use that to shut down any followup. It's not like the professor said that Trump was a good president and drove a snowflake student to rend her clothes in mental anguish.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 18 2018, @02:57PM
But what if their peers are just as juvenile, petty and afflicted with TDS?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Tuesday December 18 2018, @02:56PM (1 child)
If we can put one into the highest office in the land, then I think it should be well settled that everyone else should be able to act with the same level of dignity and maturity without consequences.
It's the will of the
electoral collegepeople.When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Tuesday December 18 2018, @09:42PM
FTFY
--
Dogs can learn up to 250 words/gestures and count to 5. Equivalent human age: 3
Cats don't care what you say and are sick of you anyway. Equivalent human age: 42
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday December 18 2018, @03:14PM (1 child)
I don't think it's unusual that some third party would have decided to read the paper, noticed the tiny turd illustration, found that amusing, and then zoomed in on it to get a closer look, finally finding the face on it.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 18 2018, @05:50PM
It's not even unusual for someone to extract the drawing from the PDF to an SVG file when they read the story on Soylentnews.
http://www.bumpermajn.tk/files/baboon-trump-turd.svg [bumpermajn.tk]
(Score: 2) by Bot on Tuesday December 18 2018, @12:58PM (9 children)
They hid the face of Obama on a brown turd too, but can't make out where it is anymore.
(there, you all thought something similar to this, but were afraid to post. Chickens)
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday December 18 2018, @02:44PM (6 children)
No, as a matter of fact, "we" did not. You did. Stop trying to drag "us" down to your level, shithead.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 18 2018, @04:34PM (2 children)
Why are you then allowed to drag us "up". You are both playing the same game.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday December 18 2018, @04:59PM (1 child)
Good Lord, no, that's not even close to the same thing. What kind of diseased thought process led you to post that?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 18 2018, @05:36PM
You both talk on behalf of others as if your words had any merit. The content of your comments had no value in themselves. Bot made a poor attempt at a joke and yours was a useless offended response.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 18 2018, @05:20PM (1 child)
Shut the fuck up, you stupid arrogant cunt.
Better yet, get cervical cancer and DIE.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 18 2018, @05:33PM
Whack-a-molcel
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday December 19 2018, @12:43AM
> Stop trying to drag "us" down to your level, shithead.
> down to your level, shithead.
> shithead
I usually don't keep trying when I already succeeded.
Account abandoned.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 18 2018, @03:12PM (1 child)
You kidding? They love eavesdropping, Gitmo-keeping, warmongering, weak sauce president Obama.
The juvenile insults to Trump's person are still shocking to me, but really are normal in America. It's just that for 8 years after the "smirking chimp" left office, such insults were taboo outside groups of racists.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday December 18 2018, @03:46PM
I'll differ with that. The real racists were the ones who stayed silent, because they didn't want to be found out. Of those who made jokes about O'bummer, there were probably two groups, roughly equal in numbers. First group, were the white supremacist type, who will tell you, "The only good nigger, is a dead nigger." The other group are just plain old assholes who didn't care if you had a stick up your ass, and couldn't laugh at a good joke.
Remember, we were just coming off of 8 years with mocking Bush Jr. as a chimp. Chimps, monkeys and the rest of mankind's near relatives were fair game.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 18 2018, @03:37PM (3 children)
The fine summary (I didn't read the full linked article) offers no proof that one or both the authors buried the easter egg, and everyone seems to have convicted them in the court of public opinion. It even ends with the publisher saying they are going to investigate further.
There are other minds and hands that touched this paper before publication--someone at the publisher could well have doctored the image. Hell, if I worked at Nature and saw a paper on poop, I might have done this, it's a fun hack.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday December 18 2018, @06:43PM (2 children)
...offers no proof...
Proof is only required when conservatives do bad things, silly!
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 18 2018, @07:05PM
and even with proof, they suffer no consequences, may even get rewarded (e.g. pussy-grabber-n-chief)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 18 2018, @11:15PM
Hmm... are you implying that climate change is a bad thing perpetrated by conservatives?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 18 2018, @05:18PM
First the Sandusky ( fucking young boys who didn't want to be fucked ) mess, now this.
Obviously the standards for employees, students, or faculty at Penn State are rather low.
Pennsylvania is a lousy state anyway. Every time I've driven through PA I have encountered people driving in an insane and pointlessly aggressive manner.
I reckon Pennsylvania is a sort of "western New Jersey". Those familiar with New Jersey will understand this is not a compliment.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 18 2018, @05:20PM (13 children)
When are you Americans going to get over yourselves?
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 18 2018, @05:35PM
Some of us are trying, but you see what kind of people we live with ^
(Score: 3, Touché) by DannyB on Tuesday December 18 2018, @07:03PM (11 children)
Why can't all you other 96%1 of the world's population just quiet down and accept how great we obviously are? We are the best. At every possible thing. The very best. I promise. We are so great that we need to become great again. Trust me.
1Google for US population. Push onto stack. Google for World population. Divide.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 18 2018, @07:18PM (3 children)
I for one enjoy following your crazy country (or federation). I never understood what it is. Are the States the countries in the Federation or.. is it like a country with regions? I consider America the teenager kid of Europe, with a lot of party and crazy things going on. Mother Europe hope you don't get hurt and make the same mistakes she has. She is not going to bring up her distaste for your recent orange boyfriend, but instead let you learn from the experience. You are great, mommy loves you. Remember to call.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 19 2018, @01:17AM (2 children)
First one, then the other.
Our federal government was initially quite limited, but over the years it has consistently aggregated power for itself while diminishing the role of the individual states, with the pleasant effect of placing power farther from the individual voter, and decreasing effective representation in lawmaking. Suits those in power quite nicely.
If one of us is to not make the same mistakes as the other already has, maybe it's you guys who should be paying attention -- the EU is following the same path.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday December 19 2018, @03:02PM
The Federal government is like Unix. It started out as a few essential services.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 21 2018, @04:20PM
If only I could get the Nationalist and the Hippie Communist parties of my country to work together, we might be able to get out of the European soon to be Federation, or could you perhaps make Mr. Orange say something nice about how the EU is becoming a real Federation like America, because that's not what the Europeans are being told. Our politicians lie straight to our faces saying this banana is not a banana, every time there is a vote.
(Score: 5, Informative) by isostatic on Tuesday December 18 2018, @08:06PM (6 children)
You're seventh in literacy. Twenty-seventh in math. Twenty-second in science. Forty-ninth in life expectancy. A hundred and seventy-eighth in infant mortality. Third in median household income. Number four in labor force and number four in exports. You lead the world in only three categories: Number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real, and defense spending, where you spend more than the next twenty-six countries combined, twenty-five of whom are allies.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday December 18 2018, @10:10PM
Our stats for detecting sarcasm are probably pretty terrible, too!
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Tuesday December 18 2018, @11:58PM (3 children)
Is that for real or are you just making shit up? There is only about 200 countries total, how can they be that shitty at keeping their kids alive?
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 19 2018, @02:37AM (1 child)
Had to look it up myself. Per our own CIA, GP is correct:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2091rank.html [cia.gov]
MAGA?
(Score: 3, Informative) by deimtee on Wednesday December 19 2018, @06:09AM
That list is in decreasing order of deaths/1000 births. Being further down the list is better.
However at position 170 with 5.8/1000, they are still a long way from Monaco with 1.8/1000.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Wednesday December 19 2018, @11:12AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMqcLUqYqrs [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday December 19 2018, @03:05PM
I challenge any other world leader to a contest with our great orange leader in a twitter poop slinging contest.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by darkfeline on Tuesday December 18 2018, @07:17PM (4 children)
This in no way impacts the quality or value of this scientific report, and is basically unnoticeable until pointed out. Why in the fucking hell does it matter?
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 18 2018, @07:23PM
Duh, it doesn't, but what else are we going to talk about on the internet?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by cmdrklarg on Tuesday December 18 2018, @08:03PM (1 child)
One word: Publicity.
I'll bet this will increase the number of reads of this paper a thousand fold.
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 19 2018, @01:15AM
Not to mention Citations.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Wednesday December 19 2018, @03:48AM
Cuz it made fun of fearless leader. One with such thin skin that he believes satire against a public official "can't be legal?". Look at all the conservatives and Trumpettes around here. They want these scientists to actually suffer because they dared to create satire against a Republican president.
For all their bandying about with the term snowflake, they sure are some snowflakes the moment anything upsets the little one in office. Also hypocrites that defend Gab and the Daily Stormer's right to existence via free speech and rant against deplatforming, while simultaneously wishing pain and destruction on scientists who dared to enjoy free, but undesirable (to them) speech.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.