It May Look Authentic; Here's How to Tell It Isn't

New York Times: "Among the many temptations of the digital age, photo-manipulation has proved particularly troublesome for science, and scientific journals are beginning to respond. Some journal editors are considering adopting a test, in use at The Journal of Cell Biology, that could have caught the concocted images of the human embryonic stem cells made by Dr. Hwang Woo Suk. At The Journal of Cell Biology, the test has revealed extensive manipulation of photos. Since 2002, when the test was put in place, 25 percent of all accepted manuscripts have had one or more illustrations that were manipulated in ways that violate the journal's guidelines, said Michael Rossner of Rockefeller University, the executive editor. The editor of the journal, Ira Mellman of Yale, said that most cases were resolved when the authors provided originals. 'In 1 percent of the cases we find authors have engaged in fraud,' he said.The two editors recognized the likelihood that images were being improperly manipulated when the journal required all illustrations to be submitted in digital form. While reformatting illustrations submitted in the wrong format, Dr. Rossner realized that some authors had yielded to the temptation of Photoshop's image-changing tools to misrepresent the original data."

After 3 Billion Miles, Craft Returns Sunday Bearing Cosmic Dust Older Than the Sun - New York Times

New York Times: "In a blaze across the night sky, it should be a spectacular homecoming at the end of a very, very long journey. After covering 2.88 billion miles over seven years, the Stardust spacecraft is nearing home with its minute but precious cargo: samples of what are believed to be the oldest materials in the solar system.Tucked away in what looks like a giant fly swatter of a collector is dust swooped up from a close encounter with the comet Wild 2 and an accumulation of particles picked up in three circuits of the Sun.'This has been a fantastic opportunity to collect the most primitive material in the solar system,' said Donald Brownlee of the University of Washington, the principal investigator for the mission. 'We fully expect some of the comet particles to be older than the Sun.' Comets, icy bodies that normally inhabit a region near Pluto's orbit, are made of material many scientists believe is virtually unchanged since the Sun and the planets formed about 4.6 billion years ago. Studying comets not only provides clues to how the solar system was created but could also help explain how certain materials and conditions combined to form life, researchers said. 'Comets are a library of our history,' said Thomas Duxbury, project manager at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., which is supervising the mission.After its launching in 1999, the Stardust circled the Sun and flew by Earth for a gravity boost to rendezvous with Wild 2 (pronounced vilt 2) near Jupiter. On Jan. 2, 2004, the Stardust came within 149 miles of the comet, deploying shields to protect itself from cometary dust while extending a 160-square-inch collector filled with a material called aerogel. This low-density silicon material, composed of 99.8 percent air, gently slowed and trapped particles without significantly altering or damaging them. Stardust also spent 195 days collecting interstellar particles that flow through the solar system.The challenge now is to bring them home safely. If all goes as planned, a capsule bearing the space dust will dive into the atmosphere early Sunday morning and gently parachute the samples to the Utah desert."

After 3 Billion Miles, Craft Returns Sunday Bearing Cosmic Dust Older Than the Sun - New York Times

New York Times: "In a blaze across the night sky, it should be a spectacular homecoming at the end of a very, very long journey. After covering 2.88 billion miles over seven years, the Stardust spacecraft is nearing home with its minute but precious cargo: samples of what are believed to be the oldest materials in the solar system.Tucked away in what looks like a giant fly swatter of a collector is dust swooped up from a close encounter with the comet Wild 2 and an accumulation of particles picked up in three circuits of the Sun.'This has been a fantastic opportunity to collect the most primitive material in the solar system,' said Donald Brownlee of the University of Washington, the principal investigator for the mission. 'We fully expect some of the comet particles to be older than the Sun.' Comets, icy bodies that normally inhabit a region near Pluto's orbit, are made of material many scientists believe is virtually unchanged since the Sun and the planets formed about 4.6 billion years ago. Studying comets not only provides clues to how the solar system was created but could also help explain how certain materials and conditions combined to form life, researchers said. 'Comets are a library of our history,' said Thomas Duxbury, project manager at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., which is supervising the mission.After its launching in 1999, the Stardust circled the Sun and flew by Earth for a gravity boost to rendezvous with Wild 2 (pronounced vilt 2) near Jupiter. On Jan. 2, 2004, the Stardust came within 149 miles of the comet, deploying shields to protect itself from cometary dust while extending a 160-square-inch collector filled with a material called aerogel. This low-density silicon material, composed of 99.8 percent air, gently slowed and trapped particles without significantly altering or damaging them. Stardust also spent 195 days collecting interstellar particles that flow through the solar system.The challenge now is to bring them home safely. If all goes as planned, a capsule bearing the space dust will dive into the atmosphere early Sunday morning and gently parachute the samples to the Utah desert."