#depalma

There is some controversy surrounding a paper published by Robert DePalma (also known as the person who described dakotaraptor).

He worked on a project with PhD student Melanie During, excavating fish fossils from Tanis (a site which he apparently has control over as a PhD student). She used spherules in the gills of these fish to conclude that they would have died during the kpg extinction event. Looking at the bones of these fish, she concluded these died during spring, thus linking the kpg extinction to spring season.

However, when her paper was still in review, DePalma published his own paper with the same conclusions, without any acknowledgement to her. She had offered him to be second author before this, which he alledgedly did not respond to.

Turns out: his paper is suspicious to say the least.

His graphs have incorrect error bars, graphs of different specimens which match when enlarged or shrinked and a dubious amount of specimens tested (he originally claimed 19, but later 4)

No original data was published along with the paper and it cannot be retraced. (Due to the death of a researcher, according to DePalma).

His supervisor nor co-authors have said anything about these allegations.

This is not only the story of a man who likely committed scientific fraud, but also the story of a man who tried to benefit unethically of the research of a fellow female colleague.

Science, while awesome, has some huge issues regarding power dynamics, integrity and sexism.

(Ps. His paper is currently under review. However, the validity of Durings paper is NOT under question, go check it out! )