The thrill of cloning a rhesus macaque monkey has already faded, even though it was hailed as a major breakthrough only a few days ago. Now it could be just another step up the blind alley of therapeutic cloning. However, the way it was published in Nature has intrigued some scientists. The editors decided to release the research by a team at Oregon Health and Science University together with a validation study by an Australian team. This is unusual, as normally results are only validated by other scientists after publication. But in the light of the disastrous affaire Hwang, Nature could not risk being hoodwinked again.

An Australian researcher into scientific publication at Australian National University, Danny Kingsley, says that there have been a number of retractions in prestigious journals recently, especially in stem cell science. "There's a lot of money at stake," she says. "Sometimes journals cultivate researchers and ask for papers to try and get the scoop on other journals. I don't know whether that's the case here but that does happen and it could lead to work that's not really ready to go being put out in the public domain." ~ ABC Radio, Nov 16