Researchers claimed they built a breakthrough superconductor.  Social media shot it down almost instantly.

In July, South Korean scientists posted a paper finding they had achieved superconductivity - a claim that was debunked within days.

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Harsh Mathur was a graduate physics student at Yale University in late 1989 when faculty announced they had failed to replicate claims made by scientists at the University of Utah and the University of Wolverhampton in England.

Such work is routine. Replicating or attempting to replicate the contraptions, calculations and conclusions crafted by colleagues is foundational to the scientific method. But in this instance, Yale’s findings were reported globally.

“I had a ringside view, and it was crazy,” recalls Mathur, now a professor of physics at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio.

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Ron Shinkman
Ron Shinkman is a veteran journalist whose work has appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine publication Catalyst, California Health Report, Fierce Healthcare, and many other publications. He has been a finalist for the prestigious NIHCM Foundation print journalism award twice in the past five years. Shinkman also served as Los Angeles Bureau Chief for Modern Healthcare and as a staff reporter for the Los Angeles Business Journal. He has an M.A. in English from California State University and a B.A. in English from UCLA.
Lab-grown meat will soon be sold in the U.S., but who will buy It?

Chicken that is grown entirely in a laboratory, without harming a single bird, could be sold in supermarkets in the coming months. But critics say the doubts about lab-grown meat have not been appropriately explored.

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Last November, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration disclosed that chicken from a California firm called UPSIDE Foods did not raise safety concerns, it drily upended how humans have obtained animal protein for thousands of generations.

“The FDA is ready to work with additional firms developing cultured animal cell food and production processes to ensure their food is safe and lawful,” the agency said in a statement at the time.

Assuming UPSIDE obtains clearances from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, its chicken – grown entirely in a laboratory without harming a single bird – could be sold in supermarkets in the coming months.

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Ron Shinkman
Ron Shinkman is a veteran journalist whose work has appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine publication Catalyst, California Health Report, Fierce Healthcare, and many other publications. He has been a finalist for the prestigious NIHCM Foundation print journalism award twice in the past five years. Shinkman also served as Los Angeles Bureau Chief for Modern Healthcare and as a staff reporter for the Los Angeles Business Journal. He has an M.A. in English from California State University and a B.A. in English from UCLA.
Will religious people reject organ transplants from pigs?

Scientists are getting better at transplanting pig organs into humans. But religious followers of prohibitions on consuming pork may reject these organs, even if their bodies could accept them.

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The first successful recipient of a human heart transplant lived 18 days. The first artificial heart recipient lived just over 100.

Their brief post-transplant lives paved the way toward vastly greater successes. Former Vice President Dick Cheney relied on an artificial heart for nearly two years before receiving a human heart transplant. It still beats in his chest more than a decade later.

Organ transplantation recently reached its next phase with David Bennett. He survived for two months after becoming the first recipient of a pig’s heart genetically modified to function in a human body in February. Known as a xenotransplant, the procedure could pave the way for greatly expanding the use of transplanted vital organs to extend human lives.

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Ron Shinkman
Ron Shinkman is a veteran journalist whose work has appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine publication Catalyst, California Health Report, Fierce Healthcare, and many other publications. He has been a finalist for the prestigious NIHCM Foundation print journalism award twice in the past five years. Shinkman also served as Los Angeles Bureau Chief for Modern Healthcare and as a staff reporter for the Los Angeles Business Journal. He has an M.A. in English from California State University and a B.A. in English from UCLA.