Sunday, January 28, 2024

Don’t have a college education and want to make bank and take half the year off? Oil rig work is the hot job for many Americans

Sunny Nagpaul
Sat, January 27, 2024 

Getty Images


Not many on-the-ground jobs  that offer a salary over $55,000 USD for just half a year’s work. But that’s the money for those who opt for the rigor of an oil rig,  a hot topic on people’s tongues this week.

According to Google, interest in oil rig jobs is having a moment. Searches for oil rig work reached a five-year high, surging particularly especially in the southern states of Mississippi, Alabama, Texas and Arkansas, which abut the Gulf of Mexico and its 6,000-plus oil and gas structures, or rigs. A few reasons help explain why more people want in on the job despite deadly on-the-clock risks and increased environmental pollution.

Good money; no college required

According to research on the impact of oil and gas job opportunities, most jobs in the industry pay well, especially for those who don’t have college degrees. Entry-level oil work only requires a high school diploma or equivalent, which could be tempting for more than half of all Americans over age 25 who don’t have a college degree. Starting salaries average $55,000 per year, according to ZipRecruiter, while those in management positions could pocket well over $100,000 per year, according to oil industry law firm Arnold & Itkin.

According to Amanda Chuan, a professor in labor relations at Michigan State University, the attractive starting pay especially entices college-aged young men, who account for about 20% of the workforce, and are increasingly facing decisions between enrolling in school and risking years of debt and taking a high starting salary that they could pocket much sooner.

“These are jobs that don’t require a lot of cognizant skill, but you’re paid a lot for the long shifts, living in a camp, being away from home, chemical exposure and high risk of injury,” she said. “It’s extremely exhausting, mentally draining and a lot of people are not willing to do it—so if you are, you’ll make a lot.” It’s a concept called compensating wage differentials, Chuan explained—essentially, paying more for less-desirable work.

Oil rig workers also face pollution hazards, according to the U.S Department of Labor,  due to spending a lot of time in confined spaces. Petroleum storage tanks, mud pits, reserve pits and other spaces around an oil wellhead can all come with more exposure to chemicals, flammable vapors or gasses that could cause workers to suffocate.

The cost-of-living crisis, though, is making more people willing to take on the back-breaking work (and fatal risks) of rigs.

According to a report by the nonprofit National Low Income Housing Coalition, renters nationwide are struggling to afford housing, with the lowest-income residents in states like Arizona, Texas and Florida most worried about affording housing.

Boom-bust nature of the industry

Another reason for more labor interest in rigs is just the “boom-bust” nature of the oil industry. During booms, periods of high demand for oil, investors pour in and trigger overproduction, according to the Colorado School of Mines. Busts follow the overproduction, which see lower prices for oil and under-investment by the industry. The bust period of lower prices then triggers more demand for cheap oil, which shifts the price higher again and the cycle continues.

The current boom that finds oil rig workers in hot demand right now is in part due to global wars, like the invasion of Ukraine and the siege on Gaza, which means the country can’t rely on as much oil coming in. “Because our usual supplies for energy are being cut short right now,” Chuan said, “the country is turning more to domestic production of oil.”

The boom-bust nature of the industry also affects changes in labor demand, she said, as “during booms, newspapers report thousands of new high-paying jobs,” but “during busts, many jobs vanish, potentially leaving thousands unemployed.” Several such layoffs have occurred as the industry cycles through its high and lower value periods, with 2014 and 2020 as some of the biggest years for bust-fueled layoffs.

Chuan explained that the high starting pays and long vacations are meant to compensate for the risks people assume on the job. For younger workers, the particular risk is that “it leads you away from investing in your human capital, or education and transferable skills, that could help you find future employment that does not depend on the boom-bust cycle.”

Half a year of PTO—but 12-hour days

According to Arnold & Itkin’s blog post, many workers face shifts of 14 days on the clock, 21 days off. That  means they work for full-day shifts, which can be up to 12 hours long and include night shifts, for two straight weeks. Then they are rewarded with three weeks off. For those who work on offshore rig sites, “two straight weeks at sea can be a harrowing experience for many, although some rigs are equipped with impressive living quarters for the crew.”

Living quarters can include “an onsite gym, theater, indoor sports facilities, computers, and more to occupy the time,” the blog says. That can be essential, as many people are not able to return home on their off time due to travel expenses and logistics and end up staying “on the rig the entire time.”

What would you do on the oil rigs, and what do you risk? 

According to Indeed, an oil rig worker’s main responsibility is to extract, store and process oil—relying on lots of equipment. They find themselves at the helms of drills, cranes, forklifts and more to guide pipes into drilling wells. They gain an understanding of chemical levels to prevent the pipes from corroding and track environmental changes that could affect drilling productivity.

On risks, Arnold & Itkin states that oil rig crews experience some of the highest rates of injuries and fatalities in the country. 2008 was a particularly deadly year, with 120 oil and gas workers killed on the job. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 470 oil workers died between 2014 and 2019, over 400 of them on the job and 69 of them from cardiac complications. The death rate has also been increasing: In 2019, the rate of oil worker fatalities was about 12%, compared to about 6% in 2017.

The most common causes of injuries include fires, falls, fatigue, machinery malfunctions, and lack of safety culture on rigs, according to Arnold & Itkin. In one Reddit thread, nearly 100 users shared their most terrifying experiences on oil rigs—describing brutal burns, equipment that maimed people, and witnessing entire coastlines degrade quickly.

According to several studies, marine ecosystems and communities who live near waters with rigs face threats from water contamination and dying sea animals. Especially dangerous are seismic airguns, which are towed behind ships and used to shoot blasts of compressed air which are 100,000 times more intense than jet engines, to find oil trapped deep underneath the ocean floor. According to Oceana, an international organization that researches oceans, these blasts are repeated about 6 times a minute almost all day at oil rigs for weeks at a time, and can kill marine animals like sea turtles and fish.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com


No diploma? No problem! US Navy again lowers requirements as it struggles to meet recruitment goals


LOLITA C. BALDOR
Fri, January 26, 2024 

FILE - The USS Paul Hamilton is seen after passing through the Strait of Hormuz, May 19, 2023. The U.S. Navy is starting to enlist individuals who didn’t graduate from high school or get a GED, marking the second time in about a year that the service has opened the door to lower-performing recruits as it struggles to meet enlistment goals.
. (AP Photo/Jon Gambrell)


WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Navy is starting to enlist individuals who didn't graduate from high school or get a GED, marking the second time in about a year that the service has opened the door to lower-performing recruits as it struggles to meet enlistment goals.

The decision follows a move in December 2022 to bring in a larger number of recruits who score very low on the Armed Services Qualification Test. Both are fairly rare steps that the other military services largely avoid or limit, even though they are all finding it increasingly difficult to attract the dwindling number of young people who can meet the military’s physical, mental and moral standards.

Under the new plan, Navy recruits without an education credential will be able to join as long as they score 50 or above on the qualification test, which is out of 99. The last time the service took individuals without education credentials was in 2000.

“We get thousands of people into our recruiting stations every year that want to join the Navy but do not have an education credential. And we just turn them away,” said Vice Adm. Rick Cheeseman, the Navy's chief of personnel, in an interview Friday with The Associated Press.

He said that of the more than 2,400 who were turned away last year, as many as 500 of them could score high enough to get in. He said he has already sent an order to his recruiters to start the new expanded effort, adding, “I’m hoping all my recruiters have called all 2,442 of them in the last 72 hours, and we’ll see how it goes ... We'll try to get some test takers this weekend.”

In the wake of the pandemic, the services have faced significant enlistment challenges. COVID-19 forced the military to shut down recruiting stations and they were closed out of high schools and many public fairs of events where they historically found success reaching prospective candidates.

But even as things opened up, the military struggled to compete with higher-paying businesses in the tight job market, particularly as companies began to offer the types of benefits — such as college funding — that had often made the military a popular choice. Those economic problems were only exacerbated by the sharp political divide in the country and young people's fears of being killed or injured going to war.

Last fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, the Navy, Army and Air Force all failed to meet their recruitment goals, while the Marine Corps and the tiny Space Force met their targets. The previous fiscal year, the Army fell 15,000 short of its enlistment goal of 60,000, and the other services had to dig into the pools of delayed entry candidates in order to meet their recruiting numbers.

Last year, the Navy's enlistment goal was 37,700, but the service brought in just 31,834. This year, Cheeseman said, he set the goal higher — at 40,600. The total size of the Navy for 2024 is set at 337,800.

“I need these sailors. So it’s a stretch goal. We’re telling our recruiters to go get 40,600 people to join the Navy,” he said. “We don’t fully expect to get that many. But we’re going for it.”

The other services have largely balked at such changes.

The Navy is the only service that enlists anyone considered a “category four” recruit, meaning they scored 30 or less on the qualification test. The service expanded the number of those category four recruits arguing that a number of jobs — such as cook or boatswain mate — don't require an overall high test score, as long as they meet the job standards.

The Army will only take those lowest scoring candidates into their so-called Future Soldier Prep Course, which gives them weeks of instruction and the opportunity to increase their score in order to make the grade and enlist. The Navy allows low-scoring recruits to go through its Future Sailor Prep Course but doesn't require an increased score to enlist.

In addition, the Army and Marine Corps require a high school diploma or GED equivalent, and the Air Force said it will only take recruits without a diploma if they score a 65 or higher on the qualification test. Those numbers are very small — just 110 of the nearly 26,900 Air Force recruits brought in last year, either had a GED or no education credential at all.

Other services cite concerns that lower-performing recruits may be more likely to wash out of boot camp or could present more disciplinary problems over time.

Cheeseman said he believes the biggest risk is that they do fail boot camp at higher rates, but he said the difference hasn't been significant so far for the low-scoring recruits brought in last year. Overall, 11.4% of those recruits didn't finish boot camp, compared to less than 6.5% of the high-scoring sailors.

He said Navy leaders had been talking about opening up enlistment to those without high school credentials for a while in an effort to expand the pool of potential sailors.

“We just finally decided, okay, let’s go,” he said, adding that the service was looking for other ways to reach untapped talent. “My, argument for accepting that risk is that we have capacity of boot camp. We’re not filling the seats. So I’m willing to take a risk.”


Ex-central banker Carney backs Trudeau to lead Liberals in Canada's next election

Reuters
Sun, January 28, 2024 

Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England (BOE) 
attends a news conference at Bank Of England in London


(Reuters) - Former central bank Governor Mark Carney on Sunday said he supported Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau leading the Liberal Party into the next federal election, quashing speculation that Carney would mount his own leadership bid.

Canada will hold an election by the end of 2025 and current polling suggests the Liberals would be clobbered by the opposition Conservatives if the vote were held today, fuelling speculation the Liberals may look to replace Trudeau after nearly nine years as prime minister.

Last week, Liberal lawmaker Ken McDonald called for a leadership review in an interview, before walking back his comments.

Carney, a former Bank of England and Bank of Canada governor, has been touted as a potential successor and in November said he had not ruled out a future leadership run.

However, in an interview with Canadian broadcaster CTV on Sunday, Carney said he backed Trudeau.

"In the near term, the prime minister is going to be the leader of the Liberal Party in the next election...and I support him," Carney said.

The prime minister's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

(Reporting by Nia Williams in British Columbia; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)








Canada cap on international students should help ease rent pressure -BoC governor

Reuters
Fri, January 26, 2024 





OTTAWA, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Canada's move to cap the number of international students should help address the challenge of rising rents, Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem told the Canadian Press in an interview published on Friday.

Canada, seeking to rein in a surge of newcomers that has exacerbated a housing crisis, on Monday announced an immediate, two-year cap on permits for international students and said it would stop allowing some students to work after graduation.

"You saw this week the government capping student visas," the Canadian Press cited Macklem as saying. "That, I think, will help take a bit of pressure off rents going forward."

The central bank on Wednesday expressed concern that high shelter prices could put upward pressure on inflation for some time. Although the overall annual inflation rate in December was 3.4%, shelter-price inflation remained elevated at 7% due to a housing shortage, higher mortgage payments and rental costs.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Ancient findings in Cornwall uncovered during A30 road upgrade

BBC
Sat, January 27, 2024 


A Roman road and a Bronze Age burial mound were among the uncovered after work on a road in Cornwall.

Work is being carried out to upgrade the A30 between Chiverton and Carland Cross.

Archaeological investigations have been completed in 16 separate areas as part of the upgrade, and findings span 10,000 years of Cornish history.

Councillor Martyn Alvey said the findings gave "real insight" into the past.

Flint tools and waste were found, marking an area where people had gathered for thousands of years to prepare tools from flint pebbles carried up from the north coast.

Cornwall Archaeological Unit unearthed different findings across about 10 miles (16.09 km) where the work has been taking place.

Next to the Chybucca junction, the remains of 50 or so huts and a blacksmith's forge were uncovered. These were the remains of a United States Army base in use from 1943 up until D-Day in June 1944.

At Marazanvose, old sections of road were found with ditches either side to carry water away from the carriageway.

The investigations team believe the original road is likely to be Roman, or even earlier.

Mr Alvey, Cornwall Council's cabinet member with responsibility for the archaeology service, said: "A major project such as the A30 improvements offers a wonderful opportunity to investigate a large area and uncover a huge period of Cornish history.

"As ever, the team has worked brilliantly to discover, identify and interpret a wealth of material which gives us a real insight into the way people lived across so many periods."

Ancient settlement teeming with treasures was abandoned 1,900 years ago. See it now

Moira Ritter
Fri, January 26, 2024

Toward the end of the first century B.C., a small settlement was established atop a sloping hill overlooking an emerging capital city in France. For nearly 200 years the site was a seemingly prosperous establishment — until it was mysteriously abandoned during the second century A.D.

Now, construction in Sainte-Catherine-lès-Arras have led archaeologists to the site’s ancient ruins, including limestone pits, cellars and even a rare latrine, according to a Jan. 24 news release from the Institut national de recherches archéologiques préventives (INRAP).


Two wells were discovered at the site, experts said.

Archaeologists examined artifacts at the site to determine three chronological phases of its existence between 50 B.C. and 140 A.D.

A potter’s kiln, complete with ventilation for hot gases, was discovered.


Among their discoveries, experts identified two water wells and a potter’s kiln built to allow for the circulation of hot gases, officials said.

Here’s what else was found at the site.

A limestone extraction pit

The oldest ruins at the site are the remains of a limestone pit that was created in the early first century B.C., according to officials.

The oval-shaped pit, measuring about 26 feet by 30 feet, was probably used for the recovery of materials to create the internal fillings of walls, experts said.


The limestone pit dates to the first century B.C., according archaeologists.

Later, the pit served as a waste receptacle for everyday items, including various brooches, coins and ceramics.


Ancient artifacts, including these four fibulae, were discovered in the limestone pit.

Archaeologists said the artifacts they found in the pit date from the pit’s creation to the end of the settlement.
Two cellars with different architecture styles

Two cellars were located at the site — the first dating to the second half of the first century B.C. and the second dating to the first century A.D.

Experts said the older cellar is dug out of a chalky substance, so it’s walls were likely reinforced with planks to prevent them from disintegrating. There may have been a staircase or ladder in place to reach the bottom of the cellar.

The older cellar likely had a set of stairs or a ladder for easier access, officials said.

In the cellar, archaeologists unearthed a portable grindstone in two pieces. The circular stone tool has a hole in the center and a side opening.

A grindstone was unearthed from the bottom of the cellar.

The second cellar was created later, and it has a more solid, limestone brick construction.

The cellar is about 20 feet long, but archaeologists could only excavate a small part of its width, they said. It has an unusual staircase, with a width of about 5 feet, and there is a niche in one of the walls lining the steps.

Archaeologists could only excavate part of the brick cellar.

The cellar had an unusual staircase, archaeologists said.

Like the limestone pit, the brick cellar also was used as a dump once it was no longer in use.

Inside, archaeologists unearthed several fragments of painted coatings, limestone rubble, ceramics and shells. They said these artifacts likely came from a residential building, but they don’t know where that building was located.


Ancient paint pieces were found at the bottom of the cellar.
A rare latrine

An approximately 10-foot hole that was utilized as a latrine was also found at the site, according to officials.

Experts identified the hole by the brown oxidation seen on its limestone walls as well as the remains of construction materials, including limestone and Roman tiles.

Although latrines and cesspools are not unusual in ancient ruins, they are rare for smaller rural settlements, archaeologists said. The discovery of the latrine indicates that the ancient society that once lived in the settlement really cared about hygiene.


The phalère was likely used by the military, officials said.

Inside the latrine, experts also found a variety of artifacts, including a circular bronze phalère — a plaque that decorated a horse harness. Experts said the plaque, which was almost certainly used by the military, had a removable medallion adorned with a lion’s mouth in its center.

Sainte-Catherine-lès-Arras is in north France, about 120 miles north of Paris.

Google Translate was used to translate a news release from INRAP.
Germany's nascent Wagenknecht party eyes European elections

DPA
Sat, January 27, 2024

Sahra Wagenknecht takes part in the founding conference of the new Wagenknecht party, the "Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance - for Reason and Justice". The party was officially founded at the beginning of January with around 450 members. 
Kay Nietfeld/dpa


Germany's newly founded Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) was holding its first party conference in Berlin on Saturday, where it was aiming to hone ambitious plans for the 2024 election year.

The BSW's programme and list of candidates for the European elections in June are to be finalized at the event held in the capital's Kino Kosmos conference centre, once the largest cinema in the former East Germany.

The draft manifesto is sharply critical of the European Union and calls for a departure from the EU's current climate policy, among other contentious points.


Wagenknecht split from the hard-left Die Linke (The Left) party last year and formed the BSW in early January with around 40 people and accepted the first 450 members.

The 54-year-old is the party's co-chair, together with former Die Linke parliamentary group leader Amira Mohamed Ali. Both are due to speak at the party conference.

Former Die Linke member of the European Parliament Fabio De Masi and long-time member of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats (SPD) Thomas Geisel, the former mayor of Dusseldorf, will be the BSW's lead candidates for the European elections.

The draft European election programme states: "The EU in its current constitution is detrimental to the European idea." Among other things, it criticizes the "regulatory frenzy of the EU technocracy."

If necessary, Germany should not adhere to EU rules, it continues: The BSW is "in favour of the non-implementation of EU regulations at national level if they run counter to economic reason, social justice, peace, democracy and freedom of expression."


More pensions, fewer weapons: New party pitches to save Germany from AfD

Thomas Escritt
Updated Sat, January 27, 2024 




By Thomas Escritt

BERLIN (Reuters) - Promising to rescue Germany from the far right, a new leftist party offered up a populist recipe of high pensions, low defence spending and an end to expensive climate policies in its first outing ahead of regional and European elections this year.

The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), named after its leader, a popular former leader of the Left party, held its first national congress on Saturday, with delegates turning their fire on the entire political spectrum from left to right.

With the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) gaining around 20% support in national opinion polls as it lures some voters away from the traditional parties that dominate government and opposition, many analysts speculate the BSW, on 8% in polls in one eastern state, could burst the AfD bubble.

The AfD remains behind the opposition conservatives on 31% but is still well ahead of all the three parties in Chancellor Olaf Scholz's centre-left coalition, who together were polling 32%.

"We fear for democracy, we fear that the anger and disagreement in the country will be seized upon by the AfD," Wagenknecht told Reuters on Saturday. "We don't think people think radical right. They just want a voice that they don't have with other parties."

In some policy areas, little distinguishes it from the AfD: it, too, wants to end weapons deliveries to Ukraine, arguing that they prolong a conflict about whose origins in a Russian invasion nothing was said on stage at the congress.

In a former cinema on East Berlin's Karl-Marx-Allee, she and party colleagues also railed against Chancellor Olaf Scholz's centre-left coalition for being more preoccupied with identity politics than people's material concerns.

The party has a strong base in the former East Germany, where its message of high social spending and a baseline level of financial security despite hard economic times resonates among many.

Wagenknecht, born in eastern Germany to an Iranian father and German mother, cast government and opposition as the agents of the comfortable and wealthy, portraying Robert Habeck and Annalena Baerbock - the Green economy and foreign ministers - as ignorant, urban scolds pursuing harebrained, expensive schemes.

"Maybe Robert Habeck thinks everyone lives in modern houses or well-insulated lofts, so he thinks it a great idea to make everyone install a heat pump," said Wagenknecht.

The party's first electoral test will come later this year in three state elections in the East, where the AfD is on as much as 31% in opinion polls, making it almost impossible to circumvent in any coalition talks.

Wagenknecht has ruled out working with the AfD, yet while a strong BSW performance could solve one governance conundrum, her foreign policy positions may turn out to be no more palatable to other parties.

(This story has been refiled to correct grammar in paragraph 8)

(Reporting by Thomas Escritt; Editing by David Holmes)


Scholz’s Coalition Under Pressure as FDP Lags Far-Left Group

Chris Reiter
Sun, January 28, 2024 


(Bloomberg) -- German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s governing coalition remains under pressure as a voter poll shows the co-ruling Free Democratic Party below a new far-left group and at risk of dropping out of parliament.

The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, known as BSW, received support from 7% of voters surveyed by INSA for Bild am Sonntag. The party, which held its first convention on Saturday, is planning to challenge in the upcoming European elections.

The pro-business FDP — run by Finance Minister Christian Lindner — fell to 4%, taking it below the hurdle needed to keep a place in parliament for the first time in INSA’s poll since 2015.

Germany’s political landscape is in turmoil amid widespread frustration with Scholz’s coalition. The sputtering economy is adding to the tension and providing an opening for new parties to win support.

In a sign of the concern, a group of more than 50 companies — including Deutsche Telekom AG, Puma SE and Thyssenkrupp AG — issued a joint appeal on mainstream parties to fight the far-right.

“Right-wing extremist forces threaten Germany’s democracy and its economic performance,” the Stiftung KlimaWirtschaft said in a statement.

The far-right AfD, which was the target of mass protests across Germany for the third weekend in a row, slipped one percentage point to 21%. It retained its No. 2 position behind the conservative CDU/CSU bloc, which gained one percentage point to 31%.

Scholz’s Social Democrats also gained one percentage point to 14%, while the co-ruling Greens were steady at 13%. Combined, the three ruling parties have support from just 31% of voters.

Just 21% would vote for Scholz directly if they could, while 28% would prefer CDU chief Friedrich Merz, according to the INSA poll.

(Updates with company appeal beginning in fifth paragraph)
 Bloomberg Businessweek
A prestigious cancer institute is correcting dozens of papers and retracting others after a blogger cried foul

Evan Bush
Updated Fri, January 26, 2024 


The Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has requested the retraction of six studies and corrections in another 31 papers after a scathing critique drew attention to alleged errors a blogger and biologist said range from sloppiness to “really serious concerns.”

The allegations — against top scientists at the prestigious Boston-based institute, which is a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School — put the institute at the center of a roiling debate about research misconduct, how to police scientific integrity and whether the organizational structure of academic science incentivizes shortcuts or cheating.

The criticism also spotlights how artificial intelligence is playing a growing role in catching sloppy or dubious science.


The allegations, which concern image duplications and manipulations in biomedical research, are similar to concerns aired last year against former Stanford University President Marc Tessier-Lavigne, who stepped down after an investigation.

A biologist and blogger, Sholto David centered attention on Dana-Farber after he highlighted problems in a slew of studies from top researchers.

In early January, David detailed duplications and potentially misleading image edits across dozens of papers produced primarily by Dana-Farber researchers, writing in a blog post that research from top scientists at the institute “appears to be hopelessly corrupt with errors that are obvious from just a cursory reading.”

After the publication of David’s blog, Dr. Barrett Rollins, the institute’s integrity research officer, said in a statement emailed Wednesday that Dana-Farber scientists had requested that six manuscripts be retracted, that 31 manuscripts were in the process of being corrected and that one manuscript remained under examination.

Rollins added that some of the papers flagged by David had already come up in “ongoing reviews” conducted previously by the institute.

“The presence of image discrepancies in a paper is not evidence of an author’s intent to deceive,” Rollins said. “That conclusion can only be drawn after a careful, fact-based examination which is an integral part of our response. Our experience is that errors are often unintentional and do not rise to the level of misconduct.”

Ellen Berlin, a communications director at Dana-Farber, wrote in an email that the allegations all concerned pure, or basic, science, as opposed to studies that led to cancer drug approvals.

“Cancer treatment is not impacted in any way in the review of the Dana-Farber research papers,” Berlin wrote.

David is one of several sleuth scientists who read journal articles to seek out errors or fabrications. He compared his hobby to playing a game like “spot the difference” or completing a crossword.

“It’s a puzzle,” David said in an interview, adding that he enjoys looking at figures that show results of common biology experiments, like those involving cells, mice and western blots, a laboratory method that identifies proteins.

“Of course, I do care about getting the science right,” he said.

Scientific errors in published work has been a focal point in the scientific community in recent years. The website Retraction Watch, a website that tracks withdrawn papers, counts more than 46,000 papers recorded in its database. The organization’s record of withdrawn work stretches back into the 1970s. A 2016 Nature article said more than 1 million papers in the biomedical field are published each year.

The website PubPeer, which allows outside researchers to post critiques of research that has been peer-reviewed and printed in journals, is a popular forum for scientists to flag problems. David said he has written more than 1,000 anonymous critiques on the website.

David said a trail of questionable science led him to Dana-Farber. In a prior investigation, David scrutinized the work of a Columbia University surgeon. He found flaws in the work of collaborators of the surgeon, which ultimately drew his attention toward the leadership team at Dana-Farber.

David said he went through the leadership page of Dana-Farber’s website, checking the work of its top scientists and leaders.

He found a slew of image errors, many of which could be explained by sloppy copy-paste work or a mix-up, but also others where images are stretched or rotated, which is more difficult to explain. Some errors were previously identified on PubPeer by other users. David combined those previous concerns with his own findings in a blog post taking aim at the institute. The Harvard Crimson, a student newspaper, was first to publish a news story about the accusations.

David said images of mice in one paper looked like they had been digitally altered in ways that appeared intentional and could skew takeaways from the paper.

“I don’t understand how that would come as an accident,” David said.

Most of the errors are “less serious” and might have been accidents, he said. Still, the rash of mistakes, to David, indicates a broken research and review process if no one caught them before publication.

“When you spot a duplication, that’s a symptom of a problem,” David said.

Elisabeth Bik, a scientist who investigates image manipulation and research misconduct, said David’s work was credible.

“The allegations he’s raising are exactly the same thing I would raise. They’re spot on,” Bik said.

Bik, who has been doing this type of sleuthing for about 10 years, said she is often frustrated by the lack of response from academic institutions when she flags errors. She said she was glad to see that Dana-Farber responded and had already taken proactive steps to correct the scientific record.

“I’m very pleasantly surprised that the institute is taking action. I hope they will follow through with publishers,” Bik said. “I’ve reported many of these cases where nothing happened.”

In scientific communities, image manipulations have been under close watch, particularly after Stanford University’s Tessier-Lavigne stepped down from his post as the institution’s president after criticism of his past work in neuroscience.

Tessier-Lavigne said he was cleared of fraud or falsifying data himself, but a probe found that members of his lab had inappropriately manipulated research data or engaged in “deficient scientific practices,” according to a report from a panel of outside researchers who evaluated the case.

The report said Tessier-Lavigne’s lab culture rewarded junior scientists whose work produced favorable results and marginalized those who did not, a dynamic that could have caused young scientists to manipulate results and chase favor.

Outside researchers said that type of culture is not uncommon at top institutions, where ambitious professors can lead sprawling laboratories with dozens of graduate students who are eager to please their superiors and who know publishing a splashy paper could rapidly advance their careers.

Some scientists have grown increasingly concerned that limited opportunities for young scientists and a problematic system for publishing scientific work has incentivized corner-cutting for careerism.

“There’s lots of incentive to produce mounds of research and publish in these high impact journals to make your name,” said Dr. Ferric Fang, a microbiologist and professor at the University of Washington. “We’re incentivizing this kind of behavior.”

Problems with images published in research are widespread.

In a 2016 article published in the American Society of Microbiology, Bik and Fang evaluated images from more than 20,600 articles in 40 biomedical journals from 1995 to 2014. They found that about 3.8% of the journal articles contained “problematic figures” and that at least half of those had elements that were “suggestive of deliberate manipulation.”

New tools are helping institutions and sleuths alike root out mistakes and potential misconduct. David used a program called ImageTwin to identify some of the questionable figures from Dana-Farber researchers.

The artificial-intelligence-powered software can ingest a study, analyze its images and in about 15 seconds compare them against one another and also against about 50 million scientific images in its database, according to the ImageTwin’s co-founder Patrick Starke.

The software has been commercially available since 2021. Starke, who is based in Vienna, said a few hundred academic organizations are using the tool to identify problems before publication.

“It’s great if it’s caught and retracted, and it’s even better if it’s not published,” said Starke, who envisions the program used in academics with the same frequency as plagiarism checking tools that analyze text.

But Starke said it will be a challenge to stay ahead of those who cut corners or cheat. Studies have already shown that AI programs can generate realistic looking figures of common experiments like western blots, Starke said. His company is developing tools to look for AI-generated patterns in research images.

“If photos of faces can be realistically made by AI, it’s probably happening already in scientific literature,” Bik said. “That’s the next level of cheating. I’m not sure if we’re even ready for that.”

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com

Science sleuths are using technology to find fakery and plagiarism in published research

CARLA K. JOHNSON
Updated Sun, January 28, 2024 


Sleuthing Scientist  Sholto David

A sign hangs from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Aug. 18, 2022, in Boston. Dana-Farber Cancer Institute announced it’s requesting six retractions and 31 corrections of scientific papers after a British blogger flagged problems in early January 2024.
 (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)

Allegations of research fakery at a leading cancer center have turned a spotlight on scientific integrity and the amateur sleuths uncovering image manipulation in published research.

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, a Harvard Medical School affiliate, announced Jan. 22 it's requesting retractions and corrections of scientific papers after a British blogger flagged problems in early January.

The blogger, 32-year-old Sholto David, of Pontypridd, Wales, is a scientist-sleuth who detects cut-and-paste image manipulation in published scientific papers.

He's not the only hobbyist poking through pixels. Other champions of scientific integrity are keeping researchers and science journals on their toes. They use special software, oversize computer monitors and their eagle eyes to find flipped, duplicated and stretched images, along with potential plagiarism.

A look at the situation at Dana-Farber and the sleuths hunting sloppy errors and outright fabrications:

WHAT HAPPENED AT DANA-FARBER?

In a Jan. 2 blog post, Sholto David presented suspicious images from more than 30 published papers by four Dana-Farber scientists, including CEO Laurie Glimcher and COO William Hahn.

Many images appeared to have duplicated segments that would make the scientists' results look stronger. The papers under scrutiny involve lab research on the workings of cells. One involved samples from bone marrow from human volunteers.

The blog post included problems spotted by David and others previously exposed by sleuths on PubPeer, a site that allows anonymous comments on scientific papers.

Student journalists at The Harvard Crimson covered the story on Jan. 12, followed by reports in other news media. Sharpening the attention was the recent plagiarism investigation involving former Harvard president Claudine Gay, who resigned early this year.

HOW DID DANA-FARBER RESPOND?

Dana-Farber said it already had been looking into some of the problems before the blog post. By Jan. 22, the institution said it was in the process of requesting six retractions of published research and that another 31 papers warranted corrections.

Retractions are serious. When a journal retracts an article that usually means the research is so severely flawed that the findings are no longer reliable.

Dr. Barrett Rollins, research integrity officer at Dana-Farber, said in a statement: “Following the usual practice at Dana-Farber to review any potential data error and make corrections when warranted, the institution and its scientists already have taken prompt and decisive action in 97 percent of the cases that had been flagged by blogger Sholto David."

WHO ARE THE SLEUTHS?

California microbiologist Elisabeth Bik, 57, has been sleuthing for a decade. Based on her work, scientific journals have retracted 1,133 articles, corrected 1,017 others and printed 153 expressions of concern, according to a spreadsheet where she tracks what happens after she reports problems.

She has found doctored images of bacteria, cell cultures and western blots, a lab technique for detecting proteins.

“Science should be about finding the truth,” Bik told The Associated Press. She published an analysis in the American Society for Microbiology in 2016: Of more than 20,000 peer-reviewed papers, nearly 4% had image problems, about half where the manipulation seemed intentional.

Bik's work brings donations from Patreon subscribers of about $2,300 per month and occasional honoraria from speaking engagements. David told AP his Patreon income recently picked up to $216 per month.

Technology has made it easier to root out image manipulation and plagiarism, said Ivan Oransky, who teaches medical journalism at New York University and co-founded the Retraction Watch blog. The sleuths download scientific papers and use software tools to help find problems.

Others doing the investigative work remain anonymous and post their findings under pseudonyms. Together, they have “changed the equation” in scientific publication, Oransky said.

“They want science to be and do better,” Oransky said. “And they are frustrated by how uninterested most people in academia — and certainly in publishing — are in correcting the record.” They're also concerned about the erosion of public trust in science.

WHAT MOTIVATES MISCONDUCT?

Bik said some mistakes could be sloppy errors where images were mislabeled or “somebody just grabbed the wrong photo.”

But some images are obviously altered with sections duplicated or rotated or flipped. Scientists building their careers or seeking tenure face pressure to get published. Some may intentionally falsify data, knowing that the process of peer review — when a journal sends a manuscript to experts for comments — is unlikely to catch fakery.

“At the end of the day, the motivation is to get published,” Oransky said. “When the images don’t match the story you’re trying to tell, you beautify them.”

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

Scientific journals investigate errors brought to their attention but usually keep their processes confidential until they take action with a retraction or correction.

Some journals told the AP they are aware of the concerns raised by David's blog post and were looking into the matter.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

ICYMI

Earth’s Forces Are Causing This Massive Plate to Split in Two

Darren Orf
POP MECH
Sat, January 27, 2024

Earth’s Forces Are Splitting This Plate in Two
www.anotherdayattheoffice.org - Getty Images


For decades scientists have been trying to understand the geologic forces driving the creation of the Himalayas, the worlds tallest mountain chain.


A new study from an international team of scientist argues that a part of the Indian Plate, which has formed the mountains by crashing into the Eurasian Plate, is actually splitting apart in a process known as “delamination.”


Understanding this process could help scientists understand the geology of this region while also grasping the potential dangers for future earthquakes.

Few places in the world are as awe-inspiring as the Himalayas, a geographic wonder some 52 million years in the making. During the middle of the Eocene epoch, the Indian Plate (which was then an island) crashed into the Eurasian Plate and eventually formed the world’s highest mountains. For decades, some scientists have argued that the Indian Plate has resisted a deep plunge into the mantle (a.k.a. subducting) and is instead scraping along horizontally under the Eurasian Plate—the other tectonic plate that makes this mountainous masterpiece possible. However, an opposing faction insists that the Indian Plate is in fact subducting beneath the Eurasian plate and melting into magma.

But an international team of geodynamicists have instead decided to tread a third path, borrowing wise words from a famous meme: “why not both?” Their new study argues that the Indian Plate lying under the region of Tibet is experiencing a process known as delamination, where the top of the plate is rubbing along the Eurasian plant while the bottom part splits off and subducts into the mantle.

Understanding the dynamics at play some 60 to 125 miles below these mountains can help scientists paint a more accurate picture of how the Himalayas have formed while understanding the possible earthquake threats to the region. The researchers originally presented their findings in December of 2023 at the American Geophysical Union conference and published a non-peer reviewed preprint in the ESS Open Archive.


Movement of the Indian Plate over the course of 110 million years. Utrecht University

While this tectonic unzipping has been theorized and even recreated using computer models, this is the first time scientists have caught a plate in the act of delaminating. “We didn’t know continents could behave this way and that is, for solid earth science, pretty fundamental,” Douwe van Hinsbergen, a geodynamicist from Utrecht University, told Science.

So, how exactly were they able to discern the geophysical turbulence toiling under the Himalayas? Stanford geophysicst Simon Klemperer became interested in a zone near Bhutan in northeastern India—the subduction zone curves there due to the Indian plates un-uniform composition. Klemperer took a series of isotope measurements of helium (specifically, helium-3) that surfaced in nearby springs. After collecting samples from some 200 springs across some 600 miles, they found a stark line where mantle rocks (subduction) met crust rocks (no subduction). However, a trio of springs south of this line instead contained mantle signatures—in other words, the Indian Plate was likely splitting in two.

In addition, earthquake analysis from hundreds of seismic stations also appeared to highlight two “blobs” that likely point to a lower slab separating from a higher slab.

Even though this drama has been unfolding for millions of years, scientists are only just beginning to discover the complex dynamics of what forms land masses around the world. Understanding how and why plates sometimes undergo this “why not both” behavior will help better predict earthquake dangers in both “the roof of the world”and the rest of fault lines—anywhere that an unstoppable force seemingly meets an immovable object.