What you find when you enlarge a baboon turd in a scientific paper

[muriel_volestrangler]

Please take a minute to experience for yourself one of the greatest scientific Easter eggs in a long time.

Step 1: download the PDF of this paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-20427-9

Step 2: Go to Page 3.

Step 3: Zoom way way in on the turd in Figure 1.

Step 4: Enjoy and share.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2018/12/13/sneaking-political-commentary-into-science-papers-glorious/

[Dennis Donovan]

1. Trolled by scientists!

Guessing "it" had to have been added to the poop since the likeness is uncanny? This ain't no Jesus Toast...

[Louis1895]

2. This is not funny!

Nature is one if the most prestigious scientific journals. To get a paper published there is very important for one’s career.

The two co-authors are in the early stages of their careers. If they knowingly did this, it could negatively impact their ability to publish in the future and to get their next jobs.

I hope this was a prank carried out by some idiot illustrator. Nature will now need to do an investigation because this incident affects their standing in the scientific publishing world. I would guess the administrations at the authors’ respective institutions will get involved as well as funding agencies.

Stupid, little prank with serious, major consequences

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. It appears to be in their pre-print here, too, from Feb 2017:

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2017/02/02/032870.full.pdf

I can't enlarge that so much, but at the limit you can see a mark at the right hand end with I think is also the Trump face. I don't know if Nature would have been editorially involved at that stage.

[Louis1895]

4. I think they hired a graphics artist

The figures are very well done so I think a professional graphics artist was hired to make the images. He/she would have been the responsible party. It is also unusual for post-docs to publish on their own without the PIs, principal investigators (i.e., professors in charge of the research and laboratory), also being co-authors. The PIs may have thought it was best to give the two co-authors all of the credit in this case.

Due to the nature of the figure, the journal editors and staff would not generally look at the graphic image at a high magnification.

I am also surprised that anyone saw it in the first place; it was hidden so well. Either someone in the know leaked that Trump's face was present in the image or the figure was used in a slide presentation where Trump was visible in the magnified projected image on the screen.

I first heard about this paper and the Trump image from a colleague in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I am in the US.

[progressoid]

5. Ha! That's perfect.