MOOSE AND SQUIRREL

More fun with Words-as-train-stations. Estonian-language data; may not generalise to all language communities.

Twitch of the Death Nerve

This post was earlier cross-posted at Leonid Schneider's site, hence the unfrivolous tone. The version there is improved by Leonid's editing, background details and frame-story.

This rat is making bad decisions in a gambling task; it needs to think about its poor choices and where it went wrong. Perhaps it is distracted by algal neurotoxins or by cisplatin neuropathy, or by the removal of its teeth, or by 'visceral pain' (i.e. traumatic anal rape colo-rectal distention). Fortunately there are researchers with vagus-nerve stimulation or opto-genetic technology to end the distraction by restoring the theta-wave entrainment of its amygdala and anterior cingulate cortex! (this technology also lends itself to potential applications in grimdark cyberpunk novels).

Let me explain.

Elisabeth Bik recently blogged about the different genres of visual evidence that journal editors might expect to find enlivening a manuscript submitted to them. The "Domain of Images" [Elkins 1999] is more than microscopy and Western Blots; the Figures might feature FACS plots and histograms, and spectra in all their energy ranges, and Fourier-transformed IR spectroscopy, and X-ray diffraction patterns. These might not leave the readers any wiser if the key results are averaged values across repeated experiments, but as artisanal craft data they provide some confidence that someone did spend some time in the laboratory, But each genre also creates opportunities (and temptations!) for people to spend time in Photoshop instead, beautifying their data and airbrushing over the warts and wrinkles... or perhaps the experiments were more aspirational than actual. See also "The Subtleties a Spectrograph..." and "The mountains skipped like rams...".

And now, "Tricliceras Lobatum" has discovered an new avenue for artistic expression: nerve impulse recordings (Fig 2A, Wu et al. 2004 [3]). If that's not what happened, then perhaps someone sent a file to be printed at the same time that someone else in the lab was printing a batch of bar-codes.

But maybe 'bar-codes' are an alien concept to young people today with their 'QR codes', so for a metaphor that everyone will understand, let me draw a comparison to Renaissance siege-warfare ladders.

Now I am the first to admit my total inexperience in recording single-neuron depolarisation spikes; never in my life have I patched a clamp nor clamped a patch nor dashed a thousand kim. It was my understanding, though, that nerves and ganglia are not metronomes, nor MIDI sequencers, so they do not cycle with the clinical perfection of a Kraftwerk bassline. When there is noise in the inter-spike flat-line of the recordings, from the instrumentation or the biological whimsies of cells being cells, it should not cycle or repeat across recordings. But life is full of surprises!

Figs 2B and 2C, and C superimposed on B after a black/white reversal to see how well they cancel out

The story is centred at the University of Michigan, where Chung Owyang heads a well-appointed research group on digestion physiology, the Gastroenterology Research Unit. The emphasis there is on gut neurobiology, so no end of rats have ended their days as "preparations" - bedizened with electrodes and stomachs replumbed - providing recordings of their visceral nerve impulses and muscular contractions. His success in attracting NIH grants to UMich was recognised in 2013 with the Friedenwald Medal, "the highest honor bestowed by the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA)".

It is a tribute to Chung's vision that very soon after beginning his career at Michigan he began asking far more basic questions and established a very successful research program continuously funded by the NIH.

Sadly, his habit of "asking far more basic questions" did not extend as far as casting a cold skeptical eye over the fabricated papers set before him to sign, ripe with the aroma of cut-&-paste. Pubpeer threads document two decades of these Michigan Michigastric Michigallimaufries, with the first recorded ones filling a 2001 paper -- "Intestinal serotonin acts as a paracrine substance to mediate vagal signal transmission evoked by luminal factors in the rat" (Zhu, Wu, Owyang & Li. 2001) [1]...



...and the most recent in September: "High-fat diet–induced vagal afferent dysfunction via upregulation of 2-pore domain potassium TRESK channel" (Grabauskas et al 2019) [13].

At the risk of becoming monotonous, Figure 11, "Figure 11. Responses of the vagal pancreatic efferent nerve to microinjection of glutamate into the lateral parabrachial nucleus" from "Hypothalamic regulation of pancreatic secretion is mediated by central cholinergic pathways in the rat" (Li et al 2003) [2]. And Figure 2, "Effects of intestinal distension or an intra-arterial injection of secretin on the discharge frequency of vagal nodose neurons", from "Secretin activates vagal primary afferent neurons in the rat" (Li et al. 2005) [5].



Both have tape-loop flat-lines.

I worry about the paroxysms in "Role for NMDA receptors in visceral nociceptive transmission in the anterior cingulate cortex of viscerally hypersensitive rats" (Wu et al. 2008) [7]. Perhaps the animals contracted whooping cough.

I could continue at exhaustive length, but that would deprive the readers of the joy of strolling through the PubPeer threads themselves. Just one last recent example (for values of "recent" that include "five years ago"): this non-Euclidean monorail track comes from "Ghrelin induces leptin resistance by activation of suppressor of cytokine signaling 3 expression in male rats" (Heldsinger et al 2014) [11].

It is not clear who deserves the credit. Two names recur in the authorship list: Ying Li, and Xiaoyin Wu. Consider, for instance, "Serotonin and cholecystokinin synergistically stimulate rat vagal primary afferent neurones" (Li, Wu & Owyang 2004) [4]. Figures 1 and 5 display motoric techno beats in the baselines and repeating patterns of spikes ("Perhaps the experimental animals had hiccoughs").

Was Li claiming ownership of Fig 5 when he reprinted it as Figure 3 in his 2007 solo-authorship review paper, "Sensory signal transduction in the vagal primary afferent neurons" [A] (published in a predatory journal from Bentham)?

Turn now to "Vagal control of satiety and hormonal regulation of appetite" (Owyang & Heldsinger 2011) [9]. With neither Y. Li nor X.-Y. Wu as co-authors, Figure 3 is an exception to the earlier generalisation.

But again, this is a Review-paper issue, for Fig. 3 had earlier appeared (hiccoughs and all) as Fig 5 of "Low-affinity CCK-A receptors are coexpressed with leptin receptors in rat nodose ganglia" (Li et al, 2011) [8]. That particular output from his team must have impressed Professor Owyang as especially emblematic and worthy of a wider readership.

[8] seems to have been Li's last paper with Owyang (from 2009 onward his first affiliation was to City University of Hong Kong, and his Michigan role was downgraded to "Visiting Investigator" or "Research Fellow"). Anyway, [8] has more to offer. More synthetic entities, in Figures 1, 2 and 4...



... Then there is Figure 7. In isolation it is an elegant marker-protein-based colour map of cell specialties:

"Double fluorescence labeling of rat nodose ganglia shows expression of CCKAR and OB-Rb. A: CCKAR are stained with green fluorescent Alexa Fluor 488. B: OB-Rb are stained with red fluorescent Cy3."

But a year later, in the first post-Li paper (Heldsinger et al. (2012) [10], Figure 1 shows the same antibody-tagged cells as expressing different proteins. Meanwhile a third panel of fluorescence had been found.

H/t PubPeer contributor "Unregistered"

"Immunostaining of rat nodose ganglia (NG) neurons shows colocalization of leptin receptors (LRb), CCK-A receptors (CCKAR), and cocaine- and amphetamine-regulated transcript (CART)."

"Brycinus Lateralis" questioned whether the procedure described in the Methods of [10] could ever have produced the published results:

#4 Brycinus Lateralis

#1 Another MAJOR issue with Figure 1D. How could they possibly have performed double immunohistochemistry with two rabbit antibodies: The listed anti-CCKAR is a rabbit polyclonal. The listed anti-LepR is a rabbit polyclonal too.

If true, this is simply NOT a valid immunostaining.

In the methods, it is stated that Alexa488 (green) and Cy3 (red) were used as fluorophores. But what about CART that appears blue in Fig 1C?

Without Leonid Schneider and Tiger to inform me, I would never have known that the critique is valid (which is why no-one is paying me to oversee a large research laboratory, nor trusting me to review submissions for AJP Gastrointestinal & Liver Physiology). The gist is that even if you have antibodies tailored to home in on (say) CCKAR and LepR, they have to be extracted from different species - say, chicken and goat. For the secondary fluorophore-conjugated antibodies (the second stage of the colour-coding) are indifferent to the target protein, and species-specific to the primary antibodies, so they will light up both distributions as red and green together.

Having slogged through that explanation (don't worry, this will not be in the test), it makes sense to look at two other double- and triple-immunohistochemistry issues. Figure 2 from Zhao et al. (2015) [12] is beautiful but meaningless:

#1 Orthogeomys Grandis

Double immunohistochemistry was performed using primaries rabbit anti-nNOS (1:200, SC-648, Santa Cruz Biotechnology) and rabbit anti-TGR5 (1:250, ab 72608, Abcam, Cambridge, MA). Using antisera raised in the same species is NOT a valid approach. There is also no evidence whatsoever that the anti-TGR5 is specific.

And looking at [13] again:

#1 Chapoda Fortuna

A MAJOR issue with Figure 2. Double immunohistochemistry using two rabbit antibodies is not valid. The listed primary antibodies are all polyclinal rabbit: The anti-Tresk is a rabbit polyclonal. The anti-CCKAR sc-270029 couldn't be found. Perhaps, they used the same antibody as in a prior study, a rabbit polyclonal. The listed anti-LepR is a rabbit polyclonal too.

Promotion ladder is broken

One can hardly blame Ying Li for shifting his focus from Michigan to Hong Kong City University. For that NIH beneficence to the Gastroenterology Research Unit does not seem to spill over into the salaries or a promotional ladder for its staff. Departmental records show Ying Li advancing slowly from "Senior Associate Research Scientist" in 2002 to "Research Associate Professor in 2008, and from US$76,064 to $94,724. Despite her key role in the laboratory, Xiao-Yin Wu was stuck as "Research Associate" or "Research Lab Specialist" from 2002 to the present, while her salary crept slowly from US$32,240 to the still-derisory figure of $56,426. Perhaps this is standard for the precariat serfs in US academic feudalism.

Anyway, browsing through Li's Hong King output, I see the continuity from his time at Michigan... rewired rats and rat colorectal distention feature a lot, and the Anterior Cingulate cortex (the power of almost-anagrams explains the interest in ciguatera poisoning). This is where we came in.

In contrast, though, few primary data are on show in these post-Owyang papers, only the aggregate results (histograms, group-mean line plots, Fourier transforms). This may reflect the editorial preferences of different journals. At any rate it is certainly safer. I like to think that the results from Li's group are either (1) made up in their entirety so no actual rats were vivisected and tormented in the making of the movie; or (2) reported with scrupulous accuracy so that others can rely on the data and the rats did not suffer and die in vain.

A few notable exceptions to this "no raw data" rule come to mind. First, these timelines from Wang et al. (2015) [E] overlap better than one might expect.

H/t "Ophiactis Macrolepidota"

Despite some half-arsed manipulation, these protein blobs from a Western Blot - Figs 3 and 5 from Li et al (2012) [B] - remain as distinctive in their own way as Monet brushstrokes.

[B] also provides us with Figure 1(c), "Representative electromyograms of the VMR to graded-pressure CRD in VH rats treated with vehicle or glutamate, or with microelectroporation of CaMKII siRNA before glutamate injection". It seems that a thorough grounding in rewiring rats is not the only benefit Li took with him from Michigan, for the same gut-spasm electromyograms had appeared four years previously (with different labels in a different experiment) in "Anterior cingulate cortex modulates visceral pain as measured by visceromotor responses in viscerally hypersensitive rats" (Cao et al. 2008) [6]. In a third appearance in a review chapter ("Synaptic Plasticity and Synchrony in the Anterior Cingulate Cortex Circuitry", Li 2018) [F], the electromyograms reverted to their 2008 labels.

I mustn't forget the quality of 'bilocation' shown by Fig 1(a) of [B], and between Figs 1 and 4 of [6].



Two last cases of electromyogram recycling, from "Cholecystokinin enhances visceral pain-related affective memory via vagal afferent pathway in rats" (Cao et al 2012) [C] and "Vagus nerve stimulation modulates visceral pain-related affective memory" (Zhang et al. 2013) [D]:

Of course these are not fabricated figures, so each reuse could be an innocent mistake, not evidence of bad intentions. The authors can be forgiven for attentional lapses while choosing and assembling their diagrams. Perhaps they had recently incurred the removal of their molars, or been poisoned with cisplatin or algal neurotoxins, leading them to distraction and sub-optimal decision-making.

Must credit Research Affiliate TigerBB8 (current salary US$000,000.00)

Alternative Title:

Guts, guts, got no guts

And stitches don't help at all

SOURCES

[1]. "Intestinal serotonin acts as a paracrine substance to mediate vagal signal transmission evoked by luminal factors in the rat",
J. X. Zhu, X. Y. Wu, C. Owyang, Y. Li (2001)
Journal of Physiology doi: 10.1111/j.1469-7793.2001.0431k.x [PubPeer].

[2]. "Hypothalamic regulation of pancreatic secretion is mediated by central cholinergic pathways in the rat", Ying Li, Xiaoyin Wu , Jinxia Zhu , Jin Yan , Chung Owyang (2003).
Journal of Physiology doi: 10.1113/jphysiol.2003.049122 [PubPeer].

[3]. "Hypothalamus–Brain Stem Circuitry Responsible for Vagal Efferent Signaling to the Pancreas Evoked By Hypoglycemia in Rat", Xiaoyin Wu, Jun Gao, Jin Yan, Chung Owyang, Ying Li (2004).
Journal of Neurophysiology doi: 10.1152/jn.00791.2003 [PubPeer].

[4]. "Serotonin and cholecystokinin synergistically stimulate rat vagal primary afferent neurones", Y. Li, X. Y. Wu , C. Owyang (2004).
Journal of Physiology doi: 10.1113/jphysiol.2004.064816 [PubPeer].

[5]. "Secretin activates vagal primary afferent neurons in the rat: evidence from electrophysiological and immunohistochemical studies", Ying Li , Xiaoyin Wu , Harry Yao , Chung Owyang (2005).
AJP Gastrointestinal & Liver Physiology doi: 10.1152/ajpgi.00039.2005 [PubPeer].

[6]. "Anterior cingulate cortex modulates visceral pain as measured by visceromotor responses in viscerally hypersensitive rats", Zhijun Cao , Xiaoyin Wu , Shengliang Chen , Jing Fan , Rui Zhang , Chung Owyang , Ying Li (2008).
Gastroenterology (2008) doi: 10.1053/j.gastro.2007.11.057 [PubPeer].

[7]. "Role for NMDA receptors in visceral nociceptive transmission in the anterior cingulate cortex of viscerally hypersensitive rats", Xiaoyin Wu , Jun Gao , Jin Yan , Jing Fan , Chung Owyang , Ying Li (2008).
AJP Gastrointestinal & Liver Physiology doi: 10.1152/ajpgi.00452.2007 [PubPeer].

[8]. "Low-affinity CCK-A receptors are coexpressed with leptin receptors in rat nodose ganglia: implications for leptin as a regulator of short-term satiety", Ying Li , Xiaoyin Wu , Shiyi Zhou , Chung Owyang (2011).
AJP Gastrointestinal & Liver Physiology doi: 10.1152/ajpgi.00356.2010 [PubPeer].

[9]. "Vagal control of satiety and hormonal regulation of appetite", Chung Owyang, Andrea Heldsinger (2011).
Journal of Neurogastroenterology & Motility doi: 10.5056/jnm.2011.17.4.338 [PubPeer].

[10]. "Cocaine- and amphetamine-regulated transcript is the neurotransmitter regulating the action of cholecystokinin and leptin on short-term satiety in rats", Andrea Heldsinger , Yuanxu Lu , Shi-Yi Zhou , Xiaoyin Wu , Gintautas Grabauskas , Il Song , Chung Owyang (2012)
AJP Gastrointestinal & Liver Physiology doi: 10.1152/ajpgi.00231.2012 [PubPeer].

[11]. "Ghrelin induces leptin resistance by activation of suppressor of cytokine signaling 3 expression in male rats: implications in satiety regulation", Andrea Heldsinger , Gintautas Grabauskas , Xiaoyin Wu , ShiYi Zhou , Yuanxu Lu , Il Song , Chung Owyang (2014).
Endocrinology doi: 10.1210/en.2013-2095 [PubPeer].

[12]. "Upregulation of bile acid receptor TGR5 and nNOS in gastric myenteric plexus is responsible for delayed gastric emptying after chronic high-fat feeding in rats", Hui Zhou , Shiyi Zhou , Jun Gao , Guanpo Zhang , Yuanxu Lu , Chung Owyang (2015).
AJP Gastrointestinal & Liver Physiology doi: 10.1152/ajpgi.00380.2014 [PubPeer].

[13]. "High-fat diet–induced vagal afferent dysfunction via upregulation of 2-pore domain potassium TRESK channel", Gintautas Grabauskas , Xiaoyin Wu , ShiYi Zhou , JiYao Li , Jun Gao , Chung Owyang (2019).
JCI Insight doi: 10.1172/jci.insight.130402 [PubPeer].

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

[A] "Sensory signal transduction in the vagal primary afferent neurons", Ying Li (2007).
Current Medicinal Chemistry doi: 10.2174/092986707782023334 [PubPeer].

[B]. "Phosphorylated CaMKII post-synaptic binding to NR2B subunits in the anterior cingulate cortex mediates visceral pain in visceral hypersensitive rats", Ying Li , Xu Zhang , Haiyan Liu , Zhijun Cao , Shengliang Chen , Bing Cao , Jin Liu (2012).
Journal of Neurochemistry doi: 10.1111/j.1471-4159.2012.07717.x [PubPeer].

[C]. "Cholecystokinin enhances visceral pain-related affective memory via vagal afferent pathway in rats", Bing Cao, Xu Zhang, Ni Yan, Shengliang Chen, Ying Li (2012).
Molecular Brain doi: 10.1186/1756-6606-5-19 [PubPeer].

[D]. "Vagus nerve stimulation modulates visceral pain-related affective memory", Xu Zhang , Bing Cao , Ni Yan , Jin Liu , Jun Wang , Vivian Oi Vian Tung , Ying Li (2013).
Behavioural Brain Research doi: 10.1016/j.bbr.2012.08.027 [PubPeer].

[E] "Facilitation of synaptic transmission in the anterior cingulate cortex in viscerally hypersensitive rats", Jun Wang , X. Zhang , Bing Cao , Jin Liu , Ying Li (2015).
Cerebral Cortex doi: 10.1093/cercor/bht273 [PubPeer].

[F]. "Synaptic Plasticity and Synchrony in the Anterior Cingulate Cortex Circuitry: A Neural Network Approach to Causality of Chronic Visceral Pain and Associated Cognitive Deficits", Ying Li (2018).
Advances in Neurobiology doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-94593-4_8 [PubPeer].

Goats, goats, got no goats And stitches don't help at all

New Zealanders are no longer passive consumers of other countries' news. Lately they have been producing all the best news themselves!



1. At the end of last year, a Scary Sea Alien found on Rakaia Huts beach appeared in headlines around the world UK tabloids, although many of them were along the lines of 'HA HA HA just look at these numpties'.



Alas, panic sparked = 0. No actual human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, or even mass hysteria. Great was the disappoint.

Goat being stressed

2. Alternative title:

Left to die by two good friends

Tears of god flow as I bleed

Then there was the goatcitement of the tug-of-love over Zeus. Zeus the poorly goat was either abducted from a loving owner's life-style block, or rescued by a passer-by, concerned by his moribund condition and apparent abandonment, who had not considered the possibility that he was being stressed to increase his rate of Vitamin-C secretion. NZ media woefully neglected the opportunity for "kidnapped" jokes. After nursing him back from moribundance, Zeus' rescuer relinquished him to the SPCA. When last heard of, she was locked in debate with the loving owner as to whose moral claim to his custody was greater.

The dispute calls out for a Solomonic judgement. Ideally ending in goat curry.

3. Invasive wallabies. Feckin wallabies should just feck right off and feck back to where they feckin came from.

4. A large bronze gnome was stolen from outside an Auckland art gallery, in a daring Christmas-eve-midnight heist that was noticed and reported to police three weeks later. The artist, Gregor Kregar (friend of Riddled), is reportedly feeling gnomesick. Police are describing the actions of the visibility-vested robbers as 'brazen'.

Anyone seeing a two-metre bronze gnome posing for photographs to be posted home from tourist attractions and landmarks around Europe should contact the New Zealand authorities.

Come and take this World without end You'll be inventor. Invention, letter, earth, wind

With all our attention at the Riddled Research Laboratory and Museum of Goat Parasites taken up with other shiny objects, we seem to have fallen behind on the evolving medico-philosophical scholium of Marco Ruggiero (erstwhile Professor at University of Florence, now itinerant scholar and Don-Errant). Perhaps it is time to go back down the rabbit-hole and catch up on his recent excursions into the arena of predatory publishing.

Two delivery-rabbits bringing invisible parcel

This is also a convenient excuse to meet a few new lowlife publishing garbage-fires! For Dr Ruggiero is easily bored, and he has exhausted his initial spurt of enthusiasm for the Journal of Ruggiero Studies "American Journal of Immunology" [one of the journal-shaped scams from an academic parasite in Dubai], which is no longer cool now everyone reads it. He has forsaken that pukefunnel and transferred his editorial and auctorial enthusiasms to newer publishing spigots -- madridge, MedCrave, BioAccent, AIMS and Crimson.

We can skip quickly past three of Ruggiero's editorial self-advertisements, which come to us through the tent-themed madridge [Interconnecting Scientific World]. Despite the Dickensian title, this publisher is placed in Hyderabad by company records and details of domain registration: a city where publishing fraud has grown to be the #1 industry, and so receives municipal welfare. Anyway, one in "Journal of Vaccines":

Vaccines, Autism and Rerum®

[the product-placement mixes with above-the-fray tergiversation… “Oh, I’m nothing as vulgar as an antivaxxer, I am merely pointing out weaknesses in the rhetoric of vaccination campaigns!”]

Two in the "Journal of Immunology":

Case report: intermittent fasting and probiotic yogurt consumption are associated with reduction of serum alpha-N-acetylgalactosaminidase and increased urinary excretion of lipophilic toxicants

[see also]

The Human Microbiota and the Immune System: Reflections on Immortality

After a year or so, both journals are still on their inaugural issues, and it may be that madridge have focussed their efforts on switching to the more-profitable Mockademic Scamference side of the street.

The last of the papers rehashes Ruggiero's vision of Immortality... although it is the sort of conceptual Immortality that draws comfort from the genetic closeness between your gut microbiota (which will die soon after you do) and the microbes in other people's guts (which will survive you), rather than the kind of personal, actual-continuity Immortality that comes from not dying. But it has already received magisterial treatment from 'Dora' at HIVforum, and the other two also cover familiar ground.

So look instead at this encrustation of Worship Words, sprayed on thickly like a pebbledash of bafflegab. It comes to us from Crimson Publishers [Wings to the Research], celebrated elsewhere for the Indlish stylings of their rodomontade, who originally planned to name themselves "Microns" for the sake of its technical connotations but they dropped the word into the Anagram Device.*

It is absolutely condamine fishsticks mandible. Do you have your Bullshit Bingo cards ready?

I especially like the suggestion that if you are unwell, the best remedy is to find someone or some animal who is healthy, and become quantum-entangled with them, so they become sick and you get well. For lagniappe there is a lengthy footnote by 'Sacha' Stone (Ruggiero's current sugar-daddy) about his "QT-π" Free Energy fraud.

After that tour-de-farce it is all post-climatic tristesse. But we might as well continue, for the paper builds upon and links back to previous entries in the Ruggiero oeuvre... he is a tirelessly productive writer, conjuring an entire irreal scientific literature out of nowhere as a parallel to or parody of the consensus literature in the manner of a Gnostic demiurge; and as in a real-science paper, it is packed with references to its predecessors.

The link to Mothersill et al. (2018) is especially dispositive: it invokes quantum entanglement as an explanation for the familiar phenomenon of telepathic communication among irradiated trout.**

But here we follow other links to "On the impact of quantum biology and relativistic time dilation in autism" from AIMS Molecular Science and "Alzheimer's DNA Vaccine and Relativistic Time Dilation", from MedCrave Online [Step into the World of Research].*** They consider and repackage two applications of a single claim: Some molecules are so heavy that they curve space through their gravitational pull, thereby slowing time for the DNA to which those molecules have bound. This gives cells the chance to repair damaged DNA and stop / reverse Autism and Alzheimers respectively. Also, you can buy those molecules from Marco Ruggiero.

However, introduction of an uniform, monotonous, highly charged, macromolecule such as chondroitin sulfate that surrounds basic DNA-binding proteins independently of DNA sequence, introduces a type of gravity-induced time dilation that is not dependent on the individual genetic information. Therefore, time will run slower for the DNA to which the chondroitin sulfate is bound; this will give extra time to the well-known DNA repair mechanism to perform their tasks and will slow down aging at the level of DNA.

Smut reading papers

The advertisements papers are only a few pages but it seems much longer to read them, due to the concentration of Stupid, dense enough to curve space and cause relativistic time dilation.

Finally, two Novel Contributions to the treatment of HIV: "A Novel Approach to Klotho Aimed at Delaying and Reversing Aging", and "A Novel Method to Enhance Immune Responses Induced by HIV DNA Vaccination". The same bafflegab and worship words have been shuffled into a different order:

Implementation of strategies based on principles of relativistic time dilation and quantum signaling to Klotho has the potential to revolutionize the fields of HIV/AIDS research and aging with wide-ranging consequences.

"Klotho Immortalis" is (as any fule kno) the new Life-Extending Drug Supplement --

the most rare and valuable commodity on earth

developed with the goal of targeting the anti-aging gene Klotho using a novel revolutionary approach based on a combination of microbiome medicine, genetics, epigenetics, relativistic time dilation and quantum entanglement at the DNA level

-- available at last in a limited supply (a maximum of 730 lucky customers!) for only $30000 / year from Sacha Stone and Marco Ruggiero. At that price, you only need to snag one stupid wealthy person to make all the effort worthwhile. Anyway, perhaps someone in the marketing department thought that it would help sell the product if there were a Peer-Reviewed Paper to Explain the Science Behind Klotho.



The other BOAJ paper takes a fraudulent "DNA Vaccine for HIV" promoted by Russian grifters, and wraps up the scam in a delivery vehicle consisting of wibble and word-wooze about Condroitin Sulphate. It is as if Dr Ruggiero does not expect his collaboration with Sacha Stone to last for long, and he is already casting around for his next host.

BioAccent, you will recall, is a skeevy little operation run out of Ravishankar Kuppala's spare room in Hyderabad and named after a laundry additive. It is noted for the pity-fuck pathos of its spamming, and Marco evidently succumbed to those blandishments. The scammers may even believe that his presence on one of their Editorial Boards adorns their naked avarice with a mantle of gravitas and scholarly rectitude, and I haven't the heart to disillusion them.

[H/t Dora]

--------------------------------------------------

* "Crimson" claims to be US-based, with a mail-forwarding-service address in New York and an "Editorial Office" at a residential home in Aurora Colorado. It shares these and its phone numbers with two other buttocks of the same bum -- BioMedical Journal and Lupine Publisher -- because a single grift is never enough. Domains for all three were registered by Sudheer Kaku, a web designer who is listed as residing at that Aurora address. If the "Lupine" name is the first of a series of predator-themed publisher names, I applaud the nascent tradition, and suggest 'Vulpine', "Musteline" and 'Crocutine' as future possibilities.

** I am not making this up. Published in a SAGE journal that only exists to take money from hormesis cranks. Sounds fishy!

"Well established in biology" here has the special meaning "only first author has ever written about it."

*** Even in the Hyderabad Parasite sector, MedCrave stand out as execrable. They were pioneers in the genre of "Spamming through Fake LinkedIn accounts", with an entire harem of sexy-lady-name bots. As well as accolades from ScholarlyOA and Flaky Journals, they inspired mischievous persons to set up spoof sites in a tone of sustained tongue-in-cheek denial, and Quora threads, all variations on a theme:

“We deny and refute the accusations made against us, that we are predatory OMICS clones! We are a totally reputable above-board publisher, interested only in spreading information around, and by the way, those accusations against us, here they are again! Did we mention that accusations have been made against us?”

Bravo, unknown spoofers! Regrettably, despite their name, MedCrave do not publish a Journal of Munchausen Syndrome and Factitious Disorders.