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posted by takyon on Tuesday December 18 2018, @10:53AM   Printer-friendly
from the scat-ado dept.

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

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


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 18 2018, @03:37PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 18 2018, @03:37PM (#775862)

    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.

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  • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday December 18 2018, @06:43PM (2 children)

    by DeathMonkey (1380) on Tuesday December 18 2018, @06:43PM (#775959) Journal

    ...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

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 18 2018, @07:05PM (#775972)

      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

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 18 2018, @11:15PM (#776104)

      Hmm... are you implying that climate change is a bad thing perpetrated by conservatives?