Review: The Toll of Climate Change on Children
O n a sweltering day in July 2023, a ragtag group of data wonks sat around a table at U Zlatého Tygra, or the Golden Tiger, a historic bar in Prague’s Old Town. A mild sense of outrage hung in the air between jokes about who among them looked the most Medieval. The group was discussing the issue of manipulated images and fabricated data in scientific publishing. Soon someone was passing around a phone showing a black-and-white image with clear traces of tampering. After a couple more rounds, the group made its way across the ornate cobblestone roads. They brimmed with frustration that, until now, had largely been shared only online. “It’s a toxic dump,” an Italian scientist known to the group by his pseudonym, Aneurus Inconstans, said about science. “It’s not about curiosity anymore, it’s just a career.”
These are the sleuths, as the media often refer to them. They are a haphazard collection of international acquaintances, some scientists and some not, from the United States, Ukraine, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere, who are dedicated to uncovering potential manipulation in the scientific literature.
