A strange report surfaced recently in a medical journal and it has observers absolutely baffled. Filled with incredible claims about a black hole at the center of the Earth which may be altering human genetics, the paper has been dismissed as a hoax. But is that all there is to it?
Entitled “A Black Hole at the Center of Earth Plays the Role of the Biggest System of Telecommunication for Connecting DNAs, Dark DNAs and Molecules of Water on 4+N- Dimensional Manifold,” the original paper in question was published by 13 different authors in the Open Access Macedonian Journal of Medical Sciences.
In the paper’s abstract, things get weird right from the start.
“Recently, some scientists from NASA have claimed that there may be a black hole like structure at the centre of the earth,” it begins.
Additional papers began to surface with similarly outlandish claims. For example, one stated:
“The earth’s core is the biggest system of telecommunication which exchanges waves with all DNAs and molecules of water. Imaging of DNAs on the interior of the metal of the core produces a DNA black brane with around 109 times longer than the core of the earth which is compacted and creates a structure similar to a black hole or black brane. We have shown that this DNA black brane is the main cause of high temperature of core and magnetic of earth.”
Another paper asserts, “First group couple to our universe from one side and produce matters like some genes of DNAs and couple to an anti-universe from another side with opposite sign and create anti-matters like some anti-genes of anti-DNAs.”
Since the publication, Macedonian Journal of Medical Science, is not well known and the papers have not been peer-reviewed, it would appear that the journal was subject to an elaborate prank that exposed a shoddy editorial pipeline. But others believe this may go beyond a hoax or a conspiratorial satire; analysts on Twitter have suggested a group of scientists used these publications to test the peer-review system of the journal–an activity called “peer-review-tricking,” which may involve advanced forms of algorithmic artificial intelligence.
Others wondered whether or not the publisher is, in fact, a “predatory journal,” or a publication that feigns having a peer-review process, even though it will publish articles and papers for profit.
According to IFLSCIENCE! One of the authors, Torello Lotti, previously authored a paper about predatory journals. There is speculation that new advanced text-generation algorithms like GPT-2 and GPT-3, which have astounded technology reporters with their abilities, could have been used to create a trial balloon article to see if it can pass the smell test of professional publication.
In addition to the black hole claims, the odd papers assert the following:
“Each DNA has two parts which one can be seen on the four-dimensional universe, and another one has existed in extra dimensions, and only it’s e_ects is observed.”
“This dark part of DNA called as a dark DNA in an extra dimension.”
The followup paper is entitled “Formation of Neural Circuits in an Expanded Version of Darwin’s Theory: Effects of DNAs in Extra Dimensions and within the Earth’s Core on Neural Networks” and discusses “stringy black anti-DNA” and “radiated signals of neural circuits in a chick embryo.”
So, what is going on here? Trolling, a good old-fashioned hoax (that could, unfortunately, help to further cast doubts on scientific papers), or a strange AI experiment?