AI-Generated Rat Anatomy Illustration

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Overview

AI-Generated Rat Anatomy Illustration, also known as AI Mouse Stem Cell Diagram or AI-Generated Rat Balls Pass Peer Review, refers to discussions, jokes and memes about the peer-reviewed science and technology journal Frontiers publishing a stem-cell research-related paper that used AI-generated diagrams and charts. Scientists and other users on the internet shared images of what appeared to be an anatomically inaccurate cross-section of a rat alongside equally incomprehensible charts and cell diagrams on February 15th, 2024, criticizing Frontiers for publishing the paper.

Background

On February 13th, 2024, researchers Xinyu Guo, Liang Dong and Dingjun Hao from the Department of Spine Surgery in Hong Hui Hospital and Xi'an Honghui Hospital published a peer-reviewed paper titled, "Cellular functions of spermatogonial stem cells in relation to JAK/STAT signaling pathway," in Frontiers.^[1]

On February 15th, X^[2] user @DrCJ_Houldcroft then made a post citing images from the paper, saying, "Erm, how did Figure 1 get past a peer reviewer?!" The post gathered over 9,000 likes in a day (seen below).

Dr CJ Houldcroft @DrCJ_Houldcroft Erm, how did Figure 1 get past a peer reviewer?! frontiersin.org/articles/ 10.33... H/T @aero_anna senctolic stem cells dielocttal stem ells Rat Testtomcels ALT Dissilced 7:50 AM Feb 15, 2024 3M Views dck- Retat iollotte sserotgomar cell Spermatocial stem cells : Stem cells

Also on February 15th, X^[3] user @cliff_swan posted more images from the paper, writing, "Article published a couple of days ago. Every figure in the article is AI generated and totally incomprehensible. This passed 'peer-review.'" The post gathered over 50,000 likes in a day (seen below).

senctolic stem cells dielocttal stem ells Rat Testtomcels Dissilced dck Retat 2 - iollotte sserotgomar cell Spermatocial stem cells Stem cells

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The paper was also posted to the subreddit /r/LabRats^[4] on February 15th, 2024, where it gathered over 1,600 upvotes in a day.

Developments

Following the backlash, Frontiers^[8] issued an "Expression of Concern" followed by a retraction of the paper on February 16th, 2024 (seen below).

Cellular functions of spermatogonial stem cells in relation to JAK/STAT signaling pathway 1 2 Xinyu Guo¹ Liang Dong² Dingjun Hao¹* Department of Spine Surgery, Hong Hui Hospital, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China Department of Spine Surgery, Xi'an Honghui Hospital, Xi'an, China A retraction of this article was approved in: Retraction: "Cellular functions of spermatogonial stem cells in relation to JAK/STAT signaling pathway" Read retraction > An expression of concern on: 'Cellular functions of spermatogonial stem cells in relation to JAK/STAT signaling pathway' by Guo X, Dong L and Hao D (2024) Cellular functions of spermatogonial stem cells in relation to JAK/STAT signaling pathway. Front Read correction >

Online Reactions

On February 15th, 2024, X^[5] user @SynBio1 wrote, "Somehow my reviewers always needed 3 months of convincing about the choice of Kruskal–Wallis versus Wilcoxon Rank-Sum as the test of statistical significance for supplementary figure 7j but giant AI generated rat balls just sails right though sure why not." The post gathered over 3,000 likes in a day (seen below).

Jake Wintermute @SynBio1 Somehow my reviewers always needed 3 months of convincing about the choice of Kruskal-Wallis versus Wilcoxon Rank-Sum as the test of statistical significance for supplementary figure 7j but giant Al generated rat balls just sails right though sure why not Dr CJ Houldcroft @DrCJ Houldcroft. Feb 15 Erm, how did Figure 1 get past a peer reviewer?! frontiersin.org/articles/10.33... H/T @aero_anna senctolic stem cells dielocttal stem ells Rat Testtomcels ALT Dissilced 11:21 AM Feb 15, 2024 225.5K Views dck- Retat iollotte sserotgomar cell Spermatocial stem cells Stenm cells

Many researchers joked about the diagrams, such as X^[6] user @gramnegativity on February 15th writing, "I hate when I’m a Cmimotom minding my own business and then Spacogtic sstem cells unde limcuce of the JAK pathrway." The post gathered over 1,000 likes in a day (seen below, left).

On the same day, X^[7] user @molbiomarie wrote "an exclusive look at my next paper 🧵," alongside a nonsensical AI-generated diagram of what appears to be a brain stem. The image gathered over 1,000 likes in a day (seen below, right).