RADIO, TV, the Internet, even mobile phones constantly bombard us with snippets of news from around the globe. Trouble is who and what to believe? Science has always been lucky in this regard. Peer-reviewed journals ensure that protocols are followed, discussions rational and conclusions justified. Which makes it all the more disastrous when peer review breaks down.
On its website this week and in next week’s journal, Nature disowns a paper it published last year. In it, David Quist and Ignacio Chapela of the University of California, Berkeley, reported finding DNA from genetically modified plants in wild maize in Mexico. They also showed that the foreign…
